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MICHELOB ULTRA OPEN AT KINGSMILL

May 7, 2004

Suzann Pettersen

WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

PAUL ROVNAK: Thanks for coming and joining us. You are 6-under right now, one back, this is a second tournament back after recovering from the surgery on the elbow. I imagine you got to be pretty pleased with your performance today. So far just tell us about it and we'll go from there.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yes, I am actually very happy how everything is going. The best thing is actually I played with no pains which is, for me, a very big relief. I can try go ahead do what I am supposed to do without being kind of frightened that something is going to hurt or something. Game is getting better everyday. Yesterday was a bit up-and-down, played some good shots. Today was a little better and I think it's going to get better as the weekend goes by.

PAUL ROVNAK: Questions.

Q. Were you playing with pain before?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, when I started practicing I was -- I have been really pacing myself, I mean, I could really stay on the range for like 6 hours in one stretch. But since I got back I have had like very limited practice, probably quite good quality, but like today I can't go hit balls for three hours now. I have to kind of hit a few wedges and --

Q. Last year, you were playing, was it sore?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: No, this happened -- it happened like this (snaps fingers).

Q. When?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: It was mid-January. I had the surgery probably three or four days later. It was like straight in.

Then I had four weeks to recover from that and that went pretty well and I thought everything -- everything felt pretty good. And the doctor said you can go ahead and you can start doing some chipping and putting and slowly get back on track. Just collapsed totally. I got inflammation in my whole arm and I just was told to leave everything for another eight weeks, so that was when I really started to think what I was going to do. (Laughs). But it's much better now. I have to ice it everyday and give it massage and stuff, but at least it's working.

PAUL ROVNAK: For those may not know what exactly, what it was, would you explain.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Loose bodies stuck in the joint like small bone articles, they get stuck. When they get stuck, I can't stretch and I can't bend it. It kind of sticks like this. I mean, they have to go in and just remove it and clean the joints. I have done it once before and it went super back then but now it was a little bit more.

Q. How long ago was the previous?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Previous was the fall, two years ago. Two and a half years ago.

Q. Is this like something that -- what causes it?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: They don't really know. I mean, they are just telling me it has nothing to do with golf and thank God for that. But they just -- they are telling me that a few people actually are born with this thing; that it just seemed to just break off. It's like you don't get enough blood to the bones and it just dies and it breaks off with, I mean, you can either get it by hitting it or you can lift something which is a little too heavy. So I mean, if you have two healthy elbows you don't really think what you are going to do. You lift lift what you can lift, or whatever and you don't really think of it. It hits you after a few days, then it's bad, bad, bad.

Q. In retrospect can you think of something that you might have done back in early January that might have brought this on?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, I can actually tell that -- we had a sports gala, like a sports gala awards in Norway, and I was doing -- doing pictures and quite a stupid story, have this really good Rally driver back home and they were going to take a picture with him and me. I was going to hold him. He was sitting in my hands with the arms around my neck. That's when it happened.

Q. Who is he?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Peter Sunberg.

Q. What does he do?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Rally driver. He won the Rally, I think it's European. I don't think you have it over here.

Q. What would you estimate Peter's weight at?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: 60 kilos. I mean, you know photographers, hang on, two minutes, I am standing there, it is like (laughs), 12, it -- that's probably what caused the fragments.

Q. I guess you are feeling so good before that happens that you don't even think --

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Exactly. You never think of it. Then it hit, it took me like three days then I was totally out of play.

Q. How dark did that eight weeks of nothing get for you? How much did you wonder what you were?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I can tell you I am so glad to be able to play golf again. I mean, I think -- I mean, you are in the tunnel and you can't see the light in the beginning but after a while you kind of -- you are so far away from playing golf, so you kind of have to keep up the mood in somehow and I mean, I got to do a lot of fitness which really helps me out of the season, much more than I would have done if I had started playing earlier. I think you just have to take the positive sides from it and when I was coming back hitting because I was hitting it crap for like a week or some. That feels even worse, you can hardly hit your wedge from A to B., Without -- it's tough. But I think I am stronger now than I was and I am more patient. It feels like I can play a long with myself much better.

Q. Do you feel like you probably handle pressure better because -- that sounds like it's probably as pressure-packed as anything you can face out here. Is this daunting --

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I think so. At least I am really happy to be back. And I haven't got the practice that I would love to have starting a new season but I think you just have to take it as it comes. You can't control everything. If you plan something and it doesn't work okay, you have to reschedule everything. I think I have rescheduled my schedule this year like ten times.

Q. Most players who have to go through an injury like that are told to work on your short game. All of a sudden their short game gets a lot better. Did you find that to happen?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: That's true. Yes, I mean, I have been practicing my short game tons, tons. Because that was the one thing I was told you can do that. I don't know, I mean, you practice a little bit. It's like short game is so much feel, I mean, you can always practice and practice, you practice technique, practice the base, when you get out on the course you have to feel the shot. So I guess my short game is much better. Probably my putting as well. Just trying to play every shot.

Q. You had a highlight in yesterday's round eagled at 14; is that correct?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, holed my 6-iron.

Q. From how far?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: A little 6, maybe 150.

Q. Bounce?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: A few yards short and just -- click, straight in.

Q. Nutritional things this -- any changes that you have made to maybe help strengthen the bone, take more calcium, for example, than you used to?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Not really. I take all the things that I need to take. In general, I just eat normal and I am pretty -- I do what I am supposed to do, I think. I don't take any extra stuff. I can't prevent it anyway. It might happen again next fall. Thank God it happens when my off-season is there.=

PAUL ROVNAK: Let's go over the birdies and bogies. Birdie on 2.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I had a little 5-iron into four feet.

3rd I had a little chip, went for the green, had a little chip and I had like three feet, two feet -- two feet.

Then I had birdie on 5, I had a little 5-iron again, from 15 feet.

Bogey on 6, crap drive out to the left in the rough and missed my up-and-down. I had a good fair chance to hole that putt but I missed it from eight feet downhill.

Holed my -- holed 20-footer on the par 5.

PAUL ROVNAK: Do you remember what you hit in?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I went for the green and I didn't get catch it so I was down in deep stuff. I had kind of 40 yards from the rough. It was uphill so it -- yeah.

Then I doubled 9. Pretty good drive, good rescue and I just left it on the wrong side and that's as stupid as it gets. I just didn't hit the shot -- I kind of hit it; then I decided oops, can't hit it. And it is like stupid, stupid, stupid. So that was 9.

Then I birdied 11, wedge to four, five feet.

PAUL ROVNAK: Birdied 17.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: 5-iron to five feet.

18, a little, little 8 to, say, 15 feet. I holed that.

Q. Did you play here last year?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I did.

Q. Weren't you in here a day or two a year ago?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I was up there all day and I just didn't finish it up on Sunday. Great, great golf course and I really enjoy being here.

Q. A fair portion of 17 was, if not destroyed, terribly altered by the hurricane that came in here. Does it play any differently now that they have rebuilt that right side of the hole and maybe there's not as many -- a tree or two is gone now?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I actually haven't been down on the right side. I can't help you.

Q. Does it look different?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: No, I think it looks the same. Was it the hurricane?

Q. Yes.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I didn't know that.

Q. Hurricane Isabel.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Really? No, I couldn't see it. The course is in great shape. You just look at it and it is like: What a beauty.

Q. How good is the shape of the course right now, when you go through the calendar year and you see courses all over the country?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: This is, for me, the course of the year. I think this should become a major. It has all that a major needs. It has, I mean, 18 great golf holes. They can set it up really, really hard with the rough. And they have, I mean, the whole venue, it's great. I mean, all the volunteers, everything, it's just how we want it to be. It's my favorite course of the year. I guess like it was last year.

Q. Speaking of 18 you did not have the easiest second shot into there. Thought about it a long time in the middle of the fairway. What were your concerns? Was that one of those, well, this is going to be a tough shot that I am going to have to stay down; is my elbow -- did you even think about that?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: No.

Q. Thinking the shot more?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: To be honest, I haven't thought of my elbow once through these last two rounds as I played.

Q. Did you think about the elbow at all last week?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Sometimes. Sometimes it just feels tense in a way. I kind of have to shake it so it gets a little loose. But no, I am very happy how the situation is right now.

Q. Tell me about the shot at 18. That was not a very easy -- you had a tremendous downhill --

SUZANN PETTERSEN: 120 front, I had 130 to the hole and it is on a downhill lie, it's really downhill. I know nine is going to get the yardage but it is like I have to chase it so much so I was afraid if I didn't quite catch it I was going to come up short and that's the last thing you want to do on that hole. I just gripped down a little late and tried to chase it up there and came out exactly how I had thought I should do, so.... It's just a great golf course. Great golf course. Need to hit the ball really good. You need good ball striking to get around this golf course.

Q. A large number of the players who come in here the last two days have commented how they have gone for virtually all the par 5s, but very few of them have actually been on the green in two. Is that -- those holes -- do you need to restrategize those holes a little bit? Everybody seems to be hitting fairways woods and coming up short or long?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I don't know, one thing on this golf course, no matter if it's a par 4 or par 5 you really need a solid drive to be able to kind of get into there for you to reach the green. I mean, I think even if you hit the drive good you have a lot of good opportunities on the par 4s as well, if you feel you hit the ball good. The par 5s, they are short, but they are like just limit if you can reach it. You really need a solid drive. I think if you are in the area where you feel you can reach it, you have to go for it. I mean, if you hit a good shot you will reach it. So I mean, I think it's just -- it's a matter of striking the ball good.

Q. What did the injury and the rehab do as far as your goals for the season? Did it change what you wanted to try and accomplish, Top-10s, winning tournaments, did it change that much?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, the worst thing was to kind of miss the first major. That was -- I thought I was going to be able to get back to that before I -- before the arm collapsed the second time, but I think the goals are the same. I mean, and I as me and my coach have said I am not going to go out there until I feel like I am ready. I don't want to go out there and kind of feel my way in there. I want to go when I am ready. Give myself the time and I will slowly get there.

Last week I felt I played pretty good. But I mean, I haven't played a competitive round for five or six months. That's just how it goes. I think the goals are the same. I think -- I mean, you just have to get ready when you are ready. No matter how long time it's going to take you. Once you are ready, you are playable, you can be up there and you can compete on the highest level.

PAUL ROVNAK: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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