U.S. Senior Open-Bernhard Langer Press Conference Interview

     The U.S. Senior Open is taking place this week at Indianwood and world reknown player Bernhard Langer made himself available to the media. Langer's  resume is impeccable as he is a two-time Master's winner (1985 and 1983) and is a former number World number one player in 1986. He is in the World Golf Hall of Fame and played on ten Ryder Cup teams 1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2002) and was non-playing captain of the victorious European team in 2004. His accolades could go long but this week he is focusing on the U.S. Senior Open Championship.

Q- You're off to a great start this year with nine Top 10s in only 11 starts, including three runner up finishes. Talk about how you're playing and how you're preparing coming into a U. S. Senior Open.

A- BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah, I've been playing pretty steady. I haven't won the last few months. I had this thumb surgery in March of last year, and that kind of set me back for a number of months because it was very painful till about November. And then from December onward I was able to practice and play the way I wanted to. So now I'm playing pretty good again. Just waiting for the W.
Preparation wise, I just came from a four weeks' visit to Europe. Came over here Sunday night. So I'm a little jet lagged, pretty tired right now. It's 10 p.m. on my body, and ready to go to bed soon,
which is a bit too early. So I have to overcome that the next day or two. And otherwise I've played two practice rounds already and probably going to take it a little easier tomorrow. The course looks great. It's in great condition. Very tough test of golf from tee to green, especially on the greens. So it will take a great champion courses. I've been there, I've seen them. This is a course that I've never seen before, so I take a little bit more time checking it out and making notes and trying to figure out how to attack it.

Q- You're statistically the best putter on the tour. What do you have to do here? What is the challenge of the greens here, and especially yesterday you spent about ten minutes on the 18th. Did
you spend more time on there today, and in general what do you see on the greens here?

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, the 18th is so big you can spend an hour on there trying to chart that thing down, I think, and all the slopes and undulations. But you know, whenever it's a brand new
golf course that you haven't seen and there's so much movement on the greens, you just want to make sure you know where you want to go and where you don't want to go. Typically on this course it's fairly simple. You want to be below the hole, which sounds simple, but when they put the pin four yards on, it's hard to stay below the hole. So you gotta have some downhill, side hill putts no matter what. And if you miss the fairways, you could be coming in from all angles and different places. But 18 is a unique green. Never seen anything like it, and I just saw it, I'll spend a couple of extra minutes looking it over and writing down some of the humps and bumps. So I have the correct distance to all of those.

Q. What is the motivation for you in golf right now? How much do you still enjoy playing and competing?

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, most of us just love to compete. That's what made us come this far, you know. There's a reason why we're still playing competitive golf at age 50 and 60, and it's the competitive nature. It's the drive to win, the drive to succeed and to become better even at our age. And I think most of us have that. If you don't have that, you're not going to make it out here. You're going to fall to the wayside and lose your exemption sooner or later.

Q. And what exactly was the issue with your thumb?

BERNHARD LANGER: Oh, I had a torn ligament right here. It had to be repaired, and surgically repaired. So instead of being good after two or three months it took seven months. But it is what it is.

Q. I know you play in the Masters every year and you still are competitive in that event, even though they've lengthened the golf course. Tom Lehman was in here earlier and talking about still having an interest in playing some U.S. Opens, particularly in Marion next year which will only be about 6900 yards. Would you consider playing in that? I mean obviously if you won here, you'd be exempt, but would you even try maybe playing in a qualifier to play an event like that where you

might have some a valid chance of winning?

BERNHARD LANGER: Yeah. I would probably consider it. At my stage of my career I don't play a lot of qualifiers, to tell you the truth. You know, if I'm in the championship, then I most likely would play. But I don't want to go to too many Monday qualifiers and play 36 holes in a day and that kind of stuff. I've had my chances. I've enjoyed the ride, and I enjoy the Champions Tour. But if I'm in
you know, I was in the British Open last year and I played in it, badly. It was sad timing because I
couldn't play the way I want to play with my thumb and I couldn't practice, so I didn't do very well, but I do enjoy playing the Masters, even though it plays very, very long. It's one of the longer  courses on the regular TOUR. But I still feel like I can compete there. I've had some good rounds there and just haven't put two or three or four good rounds together, but I've had still feel I can shoot under par around there.


Q. Is there a little déjà vu between Indianwood and Sahalee in that you didn't see Sahalee before. You were coming off a time lag and you're putting and playing well. Is there some kind of thing you can connect there?

BERNHARD LANGER: Not quite because I have seen Sahalee before. I've played actually two tournaments there before we played the Senior Open there. I played the PGA Championship and the World Championship or something like that. So I knew the golf course, and it hadn't changed a great deal. While this one I don't know it. Time change wise it's somewhat similar, yes. This is six
hours. Sahalee was nine hours or eight hours, I think it was, from England. But we all deal with some jet lag. Some of the guys came from Pebble. That's only three hours. But I got a little more to deal with.

Q. You play golf worldwide and Wilfred Reid designed this golf course here. Does it remind you of any courses you've seen in the U.K. at all?

BERNHARD LANGER: It looks a bit lengthy, as we all know, even though we're in the middle of the country basically. But it does have that links type look. Lots of mounds and the tall grass, the wispy grass. But no, it doesn't really remind me of anything. You know, the odd hole reminds me of some hole I've seen somewhere else, but it's pretty unique, I think. A lot of the greens are elevated. The bunkers are not on the edge of the green. They're actually removed several yards. They're all quite
low so you always have to come up to the green and then most of the greens slope away from you because they all slope from the side toward the center. So you don't want to shortside yourself. You
don't want to be long. There's lots of don'ts. So it takes some very precise iron shots and some good tee shots to be able to even hit those iron shots, and then you still need to have an adept touch with the putter because these greens are very, very severe. You're hardly ever going to get a straight putt here.

Q. You and others have commented on the 18th green. How do you navigate and approach that since it's such a unique hole?

BERNHARD LANGER: Well, it's not easy because first of all, it's a very long second shot. Like today I hit hybrid in there and so it all depends where the wind is and how good your tee shot is. But with such a long club and you have like four or five or six of these mounds, if you pitch it into the mound, it will stop pretty quick. If you hit the downslope, it could run 25 yards. And that's why I took a little extra time to make sure I have the measurement to each of those mounds, and hopefully hit a good enough shot to control the distance so I don't have a 30 yard putt over two mounds, which

could easily lead to a 3 putt.

Tickets are still available at the link below. We will have an interview with Tom Watson from the press conference on Thursday.

     The United States Golf Association is bringing the 2012 U.S. Senior Open to Indianwood Golf & Country Club in Lake Orion, Mich., from July 12-15. Among the groupings for the first two days, fans will be able to watch golf legends Tom Watson, Fred Couples and Nick Price play together as they compete for the 33rd U.S. Senior Open Championship. Purchase Tickets here.

Watson, Couples and Price have combined to win 72 PGA Tour titles, 25 Champions Tour titles and 12 major championships. Also expected to compete for the most prestigious title in senior golf are defending champion Olin Browne, Tom Lehman, 2010 champion Bernhard Langer, 2009 champion Fred Funk, Mark Calcavecchia, Kenny Perry, Tom Kite and Corey Pavin, among others. Tickets start at $20 for practice rounds and $40 for championship rounds and include free parking. Youths 17 and under are admitted to the championship free with a ticketed adult.

The U.S. Senior Open has been won by the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino and Hale Irwin. Indianwood's Old Course, which opened in 1925 and is located about 30 miles north of Detroit, previously hosted the 1989 and 1994 U.S. Women's Opens, won by Betsy King and Patty Sheehan, respectively.

Visit 2012 Senior Open for more information and to purchase tickets for the 2012 U.S. Senior Open Championship.