Q. You got off to an interesting start, with an eagle at 2.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Oh, yes, right.
Q. And then the drive at 3. Could you talk about, was that what you're talking about when you were shy, you weren't letting it go --?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yeah, yeah, what I'm very proud about is making that chip on the second hole was great. I mean that was wonderful. To make a shot like this is amazing, and people shout. And it took a lot of energy out of me. It's tough to go through. So I think I got on the next tee, and I was not being careful enough. But I came down and I just rushed a little bit too much. And when I -- I made that double. What I'm very proud about it is I finished that hole and said, okay, that's it, I've done the worst and the best. Let's go. That can happen anytime. So I've been shy after that, because it's okay, could happen again. So I've been very careful, that's why I've been shy, too, yeah. It's tough to do the best and then the worst right after that. But at the same time that's how I have my win this week. I just waited. I've been very patient after that. I kept repeating to my caddy that always tells me, just be patient. Let it go when it doesn't -- when you don't feel good, you're a bit shy -- just keep going, do whatever you can with the ball and wait until it goes away, just be patient. So I was repeating to my caddy after that, okay, I was making some shots, okay, I was there, but I was not a good feeling. So I was saying, okay, I just -- I'm being patient. I'm going to wait. I'm waiting. And I was right again. That's the only thing to do.
Q. Did you hit driver on 18 your first three rounds? And what did you hit today?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I hit the 5-wood today. The wind was pushing a little bit, and I didn't think I would go in the bunker, actually, but I hit it pretty good. Yesterday I hit 3-wood, because the wind was pushing, and I didn't even -- but I stayed on the fairway. And the other day I hit driver, I think.
Q. (Inaudible.)
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: No, not yet. I have to find a golf course.
Q. When you stood on the 18th tee with a 2 shot lead, did Jean Van de Velde cross your mind?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I thought about it on the 17th, but I said that could be interesting, getting a 3 shot lead on the last one. That actually came to my mind, just at that particular moment. It didn't come after that. But on the green, before I putted, I thought, wow, if I make it, I'm three ahead, and I just -- I would go on 18 the same as Jean, and that's it. Then I didn't make it, so maybe that was good I didn't make it. I don't know.
Q. How would you describe yourself to somebody who's never met you?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Well, you want the answer to be short?
Q. Medium.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Medium. That's tough, in English it's going to be tough to say. It's tough to speak about yourself. It's easier to speak about the way I am. I think the first thing is I love people. I love to share with people. I love to be around friends and family. I wouldn't like to be alone on an island, I couldn't stand it. I really need to be around people and feel I am alive, that's my way to feel that I'm having a good time. I'm a hard worker. I think I can say that, too. And I always -- I've never felt I had enough worth, I felt I didn't work enough. And now I'm getting to the point where I can say I'm a hard worker, I work a lot. And if I get something, I deserve it, because I work a lot. But before I was hard worker, and I was not able to say that, because I was never adding things together. I was like I won five tournaments in Europe, and I was winning a tournament and the week after I felt like I didn't win a tournament. I don't know if it makes any sense to you, but that's how I was. I could say I was, and I'm happy about it, but I work so hard on the mental preparation and stuff like that, that I improve so much that now I can say that I'm adding things. And that's why today I've been able to win a major, and I was not really shaking the way I was winning even in Springfield last year. I just handled it pretty well, I think. But just because everything I have at the moment, I keep it inside as an experience. And when I live something else, I add it to that particular thing, that I was not before. That's why I was a hard worker, but tough with myself, very tough with myself. And now I'm still hard worker. I'm not going to change that, but it's going to give me the ability to enjoy what I'm doing more. And I don't know if it's enough for you.
Q. How old were you when you started thinking about perhaps turning pro, number one. And number two, what was the determining factor that led you to becoming a pro?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: That I could what?
Q. To becoming a pro?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I started to think about turning professional one day when I was 16, pretty early, actually. The fact is the reason why is whatever sport I did, even at school, you know, when you just do basketball -- we have like four hours a week where we just do sports, different sports, and you do whatever -- do you have to do whatever they tell you to do. And whatever sport I was doing, I didn't like to run, example, and every year they did a cross, like running for 30 minutes, and there was a winner at the end. And I didn't like to run. But I won that one, because it was a competition. I beat all these ones that trained and everything. I was very tired after that, but I was able -- I've always been able in competition to reach at least for a moment the best level. It's something in my brain. I've got a pretty strong mental, I would say, and I played tennis before golf. And like when I was ten years old, I had no handicap, no really -- I don't know how you say it --.
Q. Ranking?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Right. I got no ranking at that time, but I was playing a lot and making a lot of team competition, just in my club or whatever. And I played like 8 tournaments, small ones, and I won 7. So I've always been a competition person.
Q. What was the determining factor, though, when did you think that you might be able to make it on the professional tour?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Well, straight away. The day I decided I would quit school and work to become a golf professional, at that particular moment I had to think I could make it, because if not, you don't do it. Because in France the system is not the same as you. I had to choose. I really had to choose. You can't do both. I was in a scientific year, and I had no time, because I was playing with the French team here and there tournaments, and I had no time -- it was half and half, and I was not able to do both. So I had a chance and a coach that thought I had some abilities. And my parents said you can choose, but really be careful, because that's your life and you've got to live with it the rest of your life. Either you stop school, or play golf, but you can't do both. And you can handle one thing and not too. So they gave me the choice. And I thought about it and I decided to quit school and learn a job, because that's the way my parents told me, they said, okay, but don't think it's going to be easier than going to school. If you want to turn professional one day, you have to work hard and learn to be a professional golfer, and not just play golf like this. So I went to a private school in the southwest of France, where there was a group of players, and we do physical in the morning, golf all day long for five days a week, like I was in golf school. And I just learned a lot out of it. I turned pro pretty quickly, because I had to go straight in and learn from it. I won the English Open in '94, and here we go, I just learned every year a little bit more. And today I'm here. It's just amazing. But I've always been a competition person. When I was doing practice, practice has never been my thing. Everybody could beat me during a practice round. When I'm in the competition then I'm -- I would say a different person, and I'm really myself playing.
Q. How many tournaments are you going to enter this year?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: How many tournaments?
Q. How many are you going to enter on the LPGA Tour this year?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: How many I'm going to play?
Q. Yes.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: The maximum I'd be able to play -- well, actually I'm from Europe, so I might go back a little bit. But I'm going to play the British Open and --.
Q. (Inaudible.)
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I'm going to play mainly the LPGA. It took me so much to come here, that I'm playing here. Like I said, I can't focus on two different things. So I'm really focus on the LPGA Tour.
Q. Are you going to win this next year, too, to successfully defend?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: It's too far for me right now. But for sure I want to enjoy playing here and I'm going to keep playing in the states for -- maybe I go after the British, I might stay a little bit in Europe and play in Europe, if I can I might make it in the Solheim Cup, I might be a captain pick, I might have to play a little bit there to do it.
Q. How much sweeter is this victory knowing who you beat to get it?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: What?
Q. Beating Annika, how much sweeter does that make this victory?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Oh, I didn't think about it on the course. If I think -- if I would think too much about it I would not have won this tournament. It's a major, playing with Annika, it was quite a lot to end on. And I just try to look at her as a player. And she was making mistakes out there, like I was. I've been playing so many times with her, like at the end of last year, so I've seen her do amazing things. But she makes mistakes, like everybody does. So I think that helped me, too, playing with her all the time. I mean getting so close to her, to see that she's a wonderful player. She's the best out there, all together, all year long she's been the best. I mean she is. And -- but to see that she was about to be a human, and miss shots helped me a lot to win today, I think. Because I knew she could make three birdies to finish with. But she could also not make them. And I could still get my ten.
Q. Pardon me for bringing up such a sad topic. But what is your feeling about the war in Iraq and America's involvement in it?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I don't feel very comfortable when I look at it on TV. When I look at it I don't look at it as a French person or all these things happening. I'm looking at it as a person, private person, like you do. And with no French reading on my face. When I look at it I don't feel comfortable, because I hate war, like everybody does. That's the only -- and actually I can tell you I don't understand a thing. I just look at it and I just don't understand where we are going with this. And that scares me. That just scares me for the world, you know, it just scares me. I just look at that time and I just don't feel -- and I don't like the information they give on it. They are like 24 hours on TV, and I don't catch it, I don't understand it. I don't know if you do, because it's not my language, when I look at it. But I'm really scared because I don't understand what they're doing, really. They say it's going to be quick, and now it's like, where are we going? So I don't feel comfortable watching. I do try to watch, but I have no opinion on it, why we should go -- this is not my job, and I don't have the energy to spend on that. And my opinion would not change anything on it. And I just would like to know what happens. But I don't get it.
Q. (Inaudible.)
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: No, really not. I've been -- at the beginning, yes, when I spoke to my friend who plays on the PGA TOUR, when he first called me and asked me how -- do you have any problem with the Tour? And I said, no, why? And he said I had problems and he explained. The next two days I've been watching carefully -- I was not hiding, but I was inside, working, looking at how people reacted to my name being French on the first tee. And once I've seen that people didn't get confused about the fact that I was -- yeah, I'm French, but Americans, there are a lot of American people who are against the war, too. And we have no power on that. They decided to go for it, they go. I have nothing to do about it. And people understood that. And I really thanked them for that. I did already. And people understand very well. I think they are just clever. I'm just a normal person. I'm French, yes. I'm very proud to be French. I love my country. But I love my country more because of the future we have there, the food and wine and everything I love about it. But that's it. The rest is just political stuff that I don't understand a thing about it. I just don't want to, actually.
Q. You mentioned your husband helps you a lot in golf. Did you meet him through golf, was he a golf professional, and has he taught you anything in golf?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yes, he's a golf professional. He's been playing five years on the European Tour. He's been a professional player for like ten or 12 years. And yeah, he's coaching me. I have a coach in France, I have a teacher, since I turned professional, she was the coach of the French team. So when I turned pro I started working with her. And then he first started to caddy for me on Tour in Europe. And then we decided that -- he decided and we decided we would keep working together in 2001. So we went to the qualifying school for the LPGA in 2000. And of course he -- yeah, he's coaching me, mainly because he's around and he's the best person I know to be able to give me advice on anything, because he's so good. He's also a very good player and a very feeling person. He feels golf a lot, more than I do, more than I did. Now I do, a little bit more. Already, it's just amazing how a person can give you -- I think it's very good, because he's been able to teach me his feelings. And I didn't know that could happen. But he's been able to do that with me. And I don't know if it answered your question. He's a good player, too.
MODERATOR: Eagle on 2.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I had a 3-wood to the green, I stayed 15 yards short of the green, having a lob shot to do, but I made it in the hole. So that was good.
MODERATOR: What club did you hit?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: 58 degree sand wedge.
MODERATOR: And chipped it in?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yes, I chipped it in.
MODERATOR: Double bogey on 3.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I pulled my drive left, and had it back under the tree, and it went out-of-bounds. So I played another one. I made 7-iron to the green after my second drive.
MODERATOR: You repeated and hit another drive?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yes. And so 7-iron and two putts.
MODERATOR: 7-iron, 2-putt?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yeah.
MODERATOR: Bogey on 8. Par-3.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: I did a very good shot from the tee, 5-iron. And pitched up on the top. And there's not much room to pitch it over there. I think I pitched it on the top of the hill, it's a little bit down slope, and my ball just went behind the green. I was in the seagrass. I didn't get it that time. I chipped very well this week, very, very well. And maybe this is the only one I didn't chip well, so I didn't get it. I really did a poor one. And I was still five meters from the hole. So I made 2-putts.
MODERATOR: And birdie on 13.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: That was a good one. 5-iron. I just went past the hole, past the green. I was just outside the green. And I was maybe -- I think six meters from the -- six or seven meters from the pin and I made it.
MODERATOR: On 18 you 3-putted. What did you hit on the green?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: 9-iron.
MODERATOR: Off the tee you hit 5-wood into the bunker.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: 5-wood, 5-iron from the bunker and 9-iron, and then 3-putted.
MODERATOR: And your putt was what?
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: The first put?
MODERATOR: The par one, four feet? Yeah.
PATRICIA MEUNIER-LEBOUC: Yeah, four feet.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Congratulations.
End of FastScripts....
