FIELDS OPEN IN HAWAII MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 1, 2006

Morgan Pressel

AL ABRAMS: Welcome to today's Fields Open in Hawaii teleconference with Morgan Pressel. My name is Al Abrams, media director for the tournament. Joining me are Tim Humes, executive director of the Fields Open in Hawaii, and Mike Mattucci of the Fields Open tournament staff. Tim and Mike are both available to answer questions about the tournament. Before we turn it over to our special guest for a couple of opening comments, I wanted to bring you up to speed on some key facts about the tournament. The Fields Open in Hawaii is a new tournament on the LPGA Tour. The tournament will take place the week of February 20th to 26th at Ko Olina Resort and Marina on the island of Oahu. The first round of the tournament is scheduled for Thursday, February 23rd, and the final round will be held on Saturday, February 25th. Tickets can be ordered on the web at ticketmaster.com or by calling 877-750-4400. Now it's my privilege to introduce a young player who has already enjoyed a great deal of success as an amateur. She was runner-up at the 2005 US Women's Open and she won the US Women's Amateur. She tied for sixth at the LPGA's final qualifying tournament and is entering her rookie year on the LPGA Tour. I would like to welcome to the teleconference Morgan Pressel. Morgan, please begin by giving us a few thoughts about playing in the Fields Open in Hawaii and on the LPGA Tour, then we'll take some questions.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Great, thank you. I'm really excited about going to Hawaii in general and getting the season started. You know, I've heard a lot of great things about Ko Olina from my coach especially who spent quite a bit of time there as well as other people who I know who have gone over and played. I'm really excited that Fields has given us an opportunity to play a second event over there. Makes it easy spending two weeks. I'm really excited. It's going to be a lot of fun.

AL ABRAMS: I'll turn it over to our operator to begin the Q&A.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about all the good young players on the LPGA Tour at this point, including yourself. I wondered if you could maybe give me a list of who you consider the best of the young players and why.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I think along with myself, two others that are obviously getting the most publicity now are Paula and Michelle. I think there are some other really good players that are either going to spend a year or so in college or will be out in a few years, still young. There's Mina Harigae, Angela Park is really playing well now. There's some really good juniors that lot of people might not have heard of.

Q. What would you say about Paula and Michelle's games? Is it publicity?

MORGAN PRESSEL: No, they've got great games. They've got great games. Another couple people that you could put in there are Brittany Lang, as well, and Ai Miyazato is obviously a great player.

Q. Is there any specific parts of their games that you really like?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I think Paula is a very, very good putter. I think that is one thing she does really well. Obviously, Michelle's length doesn't hurt her.

Q. How about you, what's the best part of your game?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I like to think that the best part of my game is my consistency throughout my bag. Not necessarily that I hit the ball a really long way, but I hit the ball down the middle, hit my irons on the green most of the time, hopefully putt well. That will make the difference.

Q. I wanted to get an idea of what you had going in school and how you think that might not necessarily cause problems, but just to get an idea of having to play for a few weeks on the LPGA, be a senior at St. Andrews, go play the LPGA without getting any kind of rhythm that maybe the Paulas, et cetera, might have.

MORGAN PRESSEL: I don't think this will disturb my rhythm that much because I've been doing it for a long time, playing tournaments, going back to school, playing tournaments, going back to school. Even when I'm back in school, normally there's a break. I don't believe I'm going to play the Mexico events because I can't. But, I mean, my teachers as far as me leaving have been really supportive, will email assignments and things like that, so it won't be a problem.

Q. You don't have to give them a cut of whatever you make?

MORGAN PRESSEL: They haven't asked for that yet (laughter).

Q. Having played so much against Paula as a junior, having her go through her rookie year ahead of you, can you use her as any kind of a gauge in terms of what you want to accomplish?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I can see how much better she's gotten even since I played with her in the juniors. She's really worked hard. Obviously, I can look at her and know that it's possible. But I'm still going to have to work really hard and still going to have to improve quite a bit.

Q. Where do you need to improve?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I think a couple of the big things I'm working on are my length off the tee, gaining 10, 20 more yards, that could really help, as well as my putting. Any time you can work on your putting and become a better putter, that's what's going to win tournaments for you.

Q. What have you done for your length equipment-wise? Have you had a chance to hit the Callaway test center at all, kind of get matched up?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Yes. I was out there a couple weeks ago, out in Carlsbad. I spent a couple days there. I have a new set of irons. I'm probably going to start with the X-18 Pro Series as well as getting a new driver that I think fits my game much better. I can already see I'm hitting it further.

Q. What kind of driver?

MORGAN PRESSEL: It's the Fusion driver. It's got nine degrees of loft. Just tweaked the loft a little bit, but changed the shaft, which was the main difference. It's a Grafalloy, Pro Launch Blue. But it's a 45 grams shaft, but is a stiff. I can swing it faster, but I still don't lose any of the accuracy.

Q. What ball are you going with?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Probably the new HX Tour, Callaway golf ball.

Q. Going back to the Paula question, just to be extremely blunt about this, do you see her as a gauge of saying, "She won twice, was second on the Money List, I want to do better than that"? Be honest.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I'd like to do better than that. I mean, any time that I can do better than that, it would be nice. But I'm going to go out there and play my game, wherever that puts me. If I've improved as much as she did through her transition, then maybe I will. But I'm going to go out and try and win as many times as I can.

Q. Can you talk about if your goals changed at all when the LPGA allowed you to play a full schedule before your 18th birthday as opposed to having to wait.

MORGAN PRESSEL: My goals didn't change at all. I was probably planning on playing four or five events before my birthday anyways. Just because it didn't count didn't mean that the tournaments didn't mean anything to me. I was still going to go and try to play the best that I can. But now it's just that everything that I would have been doing counts and I can play a couple more events, but it doesn't change my goals at all.

Q. A lot of us in the media are anticipating you and Paula and Michelle in the future, et cetera. I'm curious, how much do you look at Annika Sorenstam? She's still the No. 1 player in the world, 10-time winner last year. How much do you look at what she accomplished and how much will you gauge your own game on what she's doing out there as opposed to the younger players?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I look up to her a lot, and always have. Right now she's the one to beat, so she's the one I'm chasing after, that's for sure. She's got an unbelievable game. We'll see who can stop her first.

Q. Are you able to tell how close you are to where she is? You finished ahead of her at the US Women's Open. How close do you think you are to being at that level, a No. 1 player?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I think I still have a lot of work to do. Hopefully I can continue to improve quickly. You know, there's a point where it will start to go a little more gradually. Hopefully it won't take too long. But I don't know. I don't know.

Q. Could you tell me, looks like Annika and Michelle might at least miss one of the tournaments over here. How do you look at that? Do you look at that as an opportunity for you or disappointment? How to you view that?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Well, I mean, I don't look at it as a disappointment. I mean, they can choose their schedules as they please. But just because the No. 1 player in the world isn't there doesn't mean there aren't a lot of other good players that are playing in the events. They're going to be stacked fields. It's going to be tough to win either way.

Q. How about with Michelle missing? You're coming five thousand miles, and I guess she probably won't be coming about 40 of them for one of the tournaments.

MORGAN PRESSEL: What did you say?

Q. How about Michelle missing? Are you disappointed you won't have an opportunity to go head-to-head with her in one of the tournaments?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I mean, I understand the whole point of six sponsors exemptions, eight or seven, however many she can have, including overseas events. It's just the way it happens I guess.

Q. Could you tell me how you're going to work your school thing. You talked about emailing. Could teachers allow you a certain amount of time away from school? What classes do you have this quarter or semester?

MORGAN PRESSEL: My school has been very good about when I miss. I've already spoken to all my teachers like on the first day of class. "Guess what, I'm missing tomorrow." We've gone through it. I've gone through my schedules. They know when I'm going to be gone. They give me the work. I make up things when I come back. Just keep communicating.

Q. Specifically with the two weeks over here, will you be emailing or faxing tests or papers?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Probably I will. I'm sure I will be. I'll definitely have my computer with me. I'm going to need it.

Q. For your classes when you're over here, will you do any assignments for English or whatever based on things that you're doing here or things that you see?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I might do some stuff for photography, take a few pictures. I like to do that.

Q. You have a photography class?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Yes, taking digital photography this semester.

Q. Do you think there's anything to take pictures of in Hawaii?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I don't know (laughter). I've heard it's pretty, but... I hope I'm not disappointed.

Q. From a materialistic standpoint question, now that you've turned pro, have you had the pleasure of buying a car yet?

MORGAN PRESSEL: Nope. I don't drive. I don't even have a permit. I don't have a license.

Q. What do you mean you don't have a license?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I mean, I don't have a license.

Q. Why not, if you don't mind me asking?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I didn't get my permit until just after the U.S. Open last year. You have to have it for a full year, so...

Q. Most kids get their permit at age 16. Were you busy?

MORGAN PRESSEL: You can get your permit at 15 actually. I didn't.

Q. I'm sorry to hear that.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Oh, big deal.

Q. The six, seven, eight exemptions for Michelle, the one that she's not exempt for right now is the U.S. Open. Would you have any feelings one way or the other having gone through qualifying quite a few times if the USGA gave her another exemption?

MORGAN PRESSEL: I don't think that the USGA will. I'd be very surprised just because of what happened last time. You know what, I don't think that she -- I mean, I don't think that she needs an exemption. I've been through qualifying. Everybody who just doesn't make it on the Money List, other amateurs, other professionals that aren't members of the tour, they all have to go through qualifying, too. I don't see why she shouldn't or why she should be afraid or expect an exemption. I definitely don't think she should.

AL ABRAMS: Morgan, thank you very much. We appreciate you joining us today. We look forward to seeing you at Ko Olina in a few weeks.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Great, thank you. I'm excited.

AL ABRAMS: For anyone who is interested in covering the tournament but hasn't applied yet, please call me the 212-367-4527, I'll send you an application. Media center will be open for business on Monday, February 20th. You can pick up your credentials beginning at 8 a.m. on that day. Thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you at the Fields Open in Hawaii.

MORGAN PRESSEL: Thank you.

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