Verplank Making Champions Tour Debut in U.S. Senior Open


Scott Verplank's first tournament on the Champions Tour will be a double-doozy. The Dallas native will make his start on the senior circuit in the U.S. Senior Open near his current residence. But making it particularly special for Verplank is that he will be playing the same course where he won the U.S. Amateur 30 years ago.

Verplank turns 50 on July 9, the day before the Open begins at Oak Tree National in Edmond, Okla., the city where Verplank now lives. He's certainly enjoyed success at the Pete Dye design, having won the only other USGA championship held at the course, the U.S. Amateur in 1984 while he was attending Oklahoma State University.

In addition to his Amateur title, Verplank enjoyed a stellar collegiate career, helping lead the Cowboys to the 1983 NCAA Championship and winning the NCAA individual title in 1986. He also won the 1985 Western Open as an amateur.

After turning pro in '86, Verplank recorded wins in the 1988 Buick Open, the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2000, the Canadian Open in 2001 and the 2007 Byron Nelson Championship.

But Verplank - who has diabetes and uses an insulin pump during competitions - has suffered various injuries and hasn't tasted victory since the 2007 Nelson. In 2002, the Golf Writers Association of America recognized Verplank's ability to overcome a physical handicap by naming him its Ben Hogan Award winner.

Verplank, the youngest entrant in the 2014 U.S. Senior Open, will be among 59 others playing in their first U.S. Senior Open. The group includes Vijay Singh, 51, who has won 34 PGA Tour titles, including the 2000 Masters and 1998 and 2004 PGA Championships; Jeff Maggert, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour; and Sam Randolph, who won the U.S. Amateur the year after he lost to Verplank in the championship match.

Jeff Sluman, Jay Haas and Verplank have each been victorious at Oak Tree National and will play together on Thursday and Friday. The trio will start on the first tee Thursday at 1:52 p.m. CDT. Sluman defeated Paul Azinger by three strokes with a final-round 65 to win the 1988 PGA Championship at Oak Tree, while Haas won the 2006 Senior PGA Championship in a playoff with Brad Bryant. Verplank was crowned the 1984 U.S Amateur champion following a 4-and-3 triumph over Randolph.

Verplank doesn't believe he enjoys any "home field" advantage at Oak Tree, but thinks it would be very special to win his second USGA title three decades after his Amateur victory at the same course. "It would be awesome. I mean, obviously it would be a dream come true to play well or to have a chance to win here," he told reporters Tuesday.

"The U.S. Amateur trophy is the coolest trophy that I have, so I would imagine that if I could somehow get this one, I'd stick it right next to it, and they'd both be cool."

Here's what else Verplank said during his sit-down session with the media two days before he plays his first Champions Tour event, the 2014 U.S. Senior Open.

MODERATOR: Welcome back to the 35th U.S. Senior Open. I am Mike Trostel, historian of the USGA Museum, with you here at Oak Tree National. I'd like to welcome Scott Verplank, an Edmund, Oklahoma, resident, into the media center. Scott is playing in his first U.S. Senior Open because tomorrow is his 50th birthday, so happy early birthday to you, Scott. You're also not only the newest member of the Champions Tour starting tomorrow after a PGA Tour career that spanned 30 years and 630 tournaments, but you're out here and playing in a national championship to start off, so just talk about your first experience playing here in the U.S. Senior Open and playing here at your home course, Oak Tree.

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, I know most of the people in the room, so it's been pretty well chronicled. But any time you get to play particularly a major tournament on the golf course that you live on, that I practice at every day, that I love, you know, what a great - it's a great deal. I mean, I'm thrilled they're having the tournament, but I'm thrilled for the club and for the community. Oak Tree has never been better than it is right now. The conditions are the best I've - the only time I can remember them being close to this was the 1984 U.S. Amateur. That's the last time the USGA was here. You guys must know what you're doing on getting the place in good shape because the golf course is perfect. I'm very proud of that, and I really just want all the guys that are playing to like the golf course and just appreciate what a great place we have.

MODERATOR: There's four of you here that are members at Oak Tree and also playing this week along with Willie Wood, Dr. Gil Morgan, and Bob Tway. You won the 1984 U.S. Amateur here. You've been here, you said living here at Oak Tree since 1989. How special is it to be back here and how great is this for the community and for you personally to be hosting?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, I'm not really hosting, but I have done a lot of extra work for the club and for the tournament and been happy to do so. Like I said, I think it's great to get major golf to come back to Edmund and to Oak Tree. But it's good for the community. I always think that the state of Oklahoma and the greater Oklahoma City area is actually a great golf community. I think there's a lot - other than college football, I mean, I think golf is right there. I think everybody loves to play golf around Oklahoma. To bring it back into the light, you need a tournament like this. I think it's going to be -it'll be great for Edmund and great for Oklahoma City.

MODERATOR: You've played this course so much. What would you say is the key to success for some of the guys out here that maybe haven't played as much. Kenny Perry was just in here, seeing the course for the first time today. What are some of those guys going to have to do out here at this course?

SCOTT VERPLANK: It'll be - you've got to drive the ball in the fairway fairly regularly and hopefully hit a lot of greens because I think the one thing about it that made Oak Tree really hard from the beginning was that it's not like a lot of other golf courses in this part of the country where you can roll the ball onto the green and you can hit it in the rough or have the wind blowing 30 and you can roll the ball up onto the green. This is a lot of - this is one of Pete Dye's first play-it-in-the-air-all-the-time golf courses, and for all the locals, you know how hard the wind can blow around here.

Putting the ball up in the air all of a sudden brings in a lot of risk. I think that's originally what made Oak Tree so hard, and it's really held up that way. There's not a lot of holes where you can drive it in the rough and hit the green, so it would be nice to be hitting out of the fairway and hitting nice solid irons and getting them onto the greens because that'll be paramount this week.

MODERATOR: One last question about your own game: Not that long ago, 2011 PGA, you're in contention coming down the stretch. You've had a few injuries, but 68 last week in the second round of the Greenbrier. How is your game coming into this week?

SCOTT VERPLANK: It's okay. Since I had wrist surgery three weeks after that PGA, I've not been the same. It's not that I haven't worked at it. I've been working my butt off because that's the only thing I know how to do. But I actually have - I don't know if I've turned the corner, but I've definitely made some strides forward which I hadn't seen in a couple years. I didn't play great last week when I shot 68. I just did that because I know how to play. So if I hit the ball solid this week, I would expect to be somewhere in the mix. If I play like I've played for the last couple years, then we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I actually don't feel, for being run over by a bus, I don't feel that bad.

Q. So you're a rookie again. Is that a totally different feeling than 30 years ago, 28 years ago? How do you approach playing with these guys who you've been around forever but yet it is your debut on this circuit.

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, actually I was kind of joking the other day, I said, yeah, I think I'm about ready to start playing with kids my own size again, you know, pick on somebody your own age or your own size because the kids on the PGA Tour are getting out there. But it's great. I'm seeing a ton of - for two days now I've seen a bunch of guys that I don't get to see very often or haven't seen often, but I think I'll start seeing them more often now, so I'm looking forward to that. And I've been getting a little bit of ribbing because I'm still not 50 yet. It's like I told somebody on the range, if I don't show up tomorrow then it means I didn't make it to 50.

But I think it would be great. I've been playing against these guys forever, and I do know that you can't - I can't take it lightly. I'm going to have to play as good as I can play to have a chance. I do know that. I know Bernhard Langer and Jay Haas and Sluman and just all the guy, Kenny Perry - you know, Kenny Perry still plays the regular Tour. These guys can still flat-out play. I'm not going to able to just roll out of bed and show up on the first tee and expect to beat everybody. I'm going to have to play at a very high level to compete.

Q. Being one of the younger guys about to turn 50 tomorrow, some people are picking you as the favorite. Any extra pressure playing on your home course going into Round 1?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, there probably is, but that's kind of the main thing in my head laying in bed I'm trying to deal with is just pressure is all what you put on yourself. The crowd or the other players, they can't really do it, I guess unless somebody puts you in a headlock or something. To me I've just got to try to relax and play like I always do around here, and that's key at any tournament. You want to just try to play normal because there's golf and there's tournament golf, as some of y'all might know, and it's a different game. Yeah, I want to play good. There's no doubt about it. I would love to play good here being my home course. But the best thing for that to happen is for me not to be too uptight about it.

Q. I asked Bob this yesterday and asked Dr. Gil, when they came out on the Tour for the first time on the Champions Tour, even though they had played rounds and rounds of golf, did they have butterflies and were they nervous. Do you have those same butterflies that they had, or do you expect to have them?

SCOTT VERPLANK: I would think that I might actually have a little more life leading up to the first round here. When you've been doing something a long time, I still love to play and I still love playing tournaments, but I would think that I would be a little bit more nervous or have a few more butterflies here just because - really because it's my place. It's the golf course I live on. I love playing here, and I have lots of friends and family, and probably will feel like if I play well, I'll be somewhere in the mix.

Q. How do you look back on your regular Tour career, dealing with all the health issues and injuries and just the ups and downs that golfers go through, the high expectations you had as a younger golfer, winning as an amateur and all that? How do you look back on that almost as a 50-year-old?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Kind of depends on what kind of mood I'm in. You know, listen, in a lot of ways it's been pretty good going through some of the stuff that I go through on a daily basis and have had to have some surgeries from injuries and stuff. I've been playing the PGA Tour a long time, which has goods and bads, but I choose to focus on the more positive. It's pretty good I still get to live my dream. So in that way it's awesome.

I would also - I also think that if I'd have done a few things differently or could have stayed a little bit healthier, then I might have been able to accomplish a little bit more than I did. I think when I was a young kid, I know when I was a young kid like when I won a Tour event in college, my biggest asset was my attitude and my ability to think clearly and not be nervous and just do everything, and clearly I'm not as good at that now as I used to be, but that's still the same stuff that would help me play good now, but that stuff gets beaten down when you're getting hurt and you lose your confidence. I don't have any complaints, but I do - I still think I can play better golf than I've ever played, so I could be stupid thinking that, but that's what keeps me getting up in the morning and going out to practice.

Q. Regardless whether you become eligible for the Champions Tour or not, 50 is a milestone birthday. When you think about being 50 and what tomorrow is, is it significant for you, and any big plans with hitting that milestone?

SCOTT VERPLANK: No. I think that if we have any party it'll be next week. I already told my wife that I didn't want a bunch of extra people over at the house. We're already going to have a bunch of extra family and friends that want to use our house as a parking lot. I said, well, make sure all the doors are locked so that nobody can come inside, please, meaning all of our friends. Yeah, I guess last night at like 10:00 I was sitting in my office opening mail because I had been gone all day, opening mail up, and there's a plain-looking envelope, there it is, and I open it up and it's an AARP membership application, and I went, oh, my gosh. I kind of joke about that, but I was like, well, I guess it's real. We'll see. I didn't fill it out yet, though, okay? I know I've got to start eating dinner at 4:30 and stuff like that. We'll see.

Q. Along with this being your first Champions Tour event, being the 1984 U.S. Amateur champion and playing in a national championship again, how important is that aspect of starting on Thursday to you?

SCOTT VERPLANK: What was the last part?

Q. Just the aspect of playing in a national championship again, being the U.S. Amateur champion, having played in many U.S. Opens, that aspect of the championship.

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, that's what makes this tournament what it is. I mean, all the USGA events are national championships. They're different than the Masters or the PGA or the British Open. Playing in the USGA events, whether it's the U.S. Open or the U.S. Amateur or now it's the Senior U.S. Open, it is the undisputed national championship of our country, and I love our country, so this is a really big tournament to me.

Q. Since you won the U.S. Amateur here in 1984, how has the course changed? Is it incredibly different from when you won?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Yes. It's quite a bit longer in spots. Some of the holes have been lengthened. The greens are a little bit different. You know, everything evolves. A lot of trees are gone now that were here in the '80s. It was a lot more rustic then. There weren't any houses around the golf course. Lots of native stuff. It was really a very cool golf course, and it was - in the mid-'80s it was kind of ahead of its time.

Like I said, it was a golf course Pete Dye put together where you couldn't play it along the ground where you would think you need to around this part of the world. It was very difficult. But it's gone through some changes. I think now it's been restored to top-notch. I think the changes that have been made, everything is the way Pete Dye likes it, and I think the golf course has got its bite back. We'll see what happens this week.

Q. We obviously make a big deal about this being your first Champions Tour event, home course. What's it like for you from a mental standpoint? Is it like any other tournament you've played in or is it different for you?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, I'd like to make it similar to other tournaments that I've done well in. You know, you kind of - your mindset to play tournament golf needs to be confident and relaxed and ready to go. So yeah, I would like it to be that same way. I guess in this deal I'm looking forward to the tees not being so far back. That's probably the best thing, although the golf course is plenty hard, but I'll be interested to see how the USGA sets it up and how the scores are. But I'll approach it the same. I'm going to have a lot of - except that I'm going to have to wear slacks and walk, I'm going to try to make it just like every day out here.

Q. You mentioned earlier sort of the spokesperson duties that have come with the major coming here for you and the rest of the guys that live here. When the golf actually starts on Thursday and it's just about the golf, is that going to be almost a little bit of a relief, a release for you?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Oh, probably. I think that - well, I mean, I don't know what's going to happen, but this is probably the last major thing that I'm going to do, being in here today, because I've done stuff for a month, which is great. I've had a ball doing it and I love Oklahoma and Oak Tree and Edmund and promoting it, but I guess I'll have a few small spot things, but this will be the last where I've got to cut out some time in my schedule to do. Now I'm going to play nine holes here after we're done and now I can start getting ready for Thursday.

Q. You were talking about Kenny Perry playing on the regular Tour. I actually thought he played pretty well at the U.S. Open a few weeks ago. But is it becoming more and more difficult in your estimation to be mid-40s and up to compete with those guys on that Tour, harder than when you were breaking in as a player?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Yeah, probably, because there's not very many guys in their 40s that are kind of regular players out there anymore. There's just so many young kids that - the equipment and all the advances - the advances in equipment, but then the advances in the athlete. Kids that play football and baseball and basketball, they play golf now, and all these young kids are just - there's a lot of guys that come out and they're 6'4", 6'5", and I'm standing on the range looking up at them going, I've got to get out of here. It's just a better brand of athlete playing golf now, and that's kind of where the game - but that's every sport.

Every sport the athletes have all gotten better, including golf now. But the guys, like I said, Kenny Perry, he still hits it really far, far enough to compete on the regular Tour, and he's been playing great golf for the last 10 or 15 years. Steve Stricker is one of my best friends, and he still plays great golf, but he's kind of figured out to slow it down and just play his style and his stuff, and there's still room for you, but the level has definitely gone up.

Q. Do you see any irony in the fact that you won the U.S. Amateur and now you have a chance to play another USGA event here at Oak Tree and how special it would be to kind of defend here at Oak Tree?

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, yeah, that would be great. But yeah, it's cool. Like I said, I think it's a tribute to the golf course that it's been 30 years since the USGA was here, and the things the golf course has gone through, and it's evolved back to a place that's worthy of having a national championship. It would be awesome. I mean, obviously it would be a dream come true to play well or to have a chance to win here. The U.S. Amateur trophy is the coolest trophy that I have, so I would imagine that if I could somehow get this one, I'd stick it right next to it, and they'd both be cool.

Q. Just talk about all the Oklahoma State connections to this tournament. Talk about what it means to still see these guys still playing into now the rookie season for you, especially going into this tournament.

SCOTT VERPLANK: Well, I mean, this club was founded by Oklahoma State golfers, Joe Walser and Ernie Vossler. So this club has always been huge to the Oklahoma State golf family. That's why so many guys - other than Gil Morgan, everybody else who's an Oklahoma State golfer lives here or has lived here. It's kind of been like - that's how I ended up here. I played golf at Oklahoma State, and everyone that played the Tour from Oklahoma State - not everybody, but a good number moved down here, and they were great to us, and they still are.

You know, it's kind of the home away from home. Now that they have Karsten Creek and all that up in Stillwater, this is kind of the home away from home for Oklahoma State golf. Probably that is the main reason that I initially got here. It's still a big deal. I still have my orange and black and white golf cart and have all my Oklahoma State stuff around. There's an awful lot of Sooner fans here, but we all get along pretty good.

MODERATOR: Scott Verplank, enjoy sleeping in your own bed, and best of luck on Thursday.

The transcript for the above interview is courtesy of ASAP Sports.