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UL INTERNATIONAL CROWN

July 22, 2016

Chicago, Illinois

KRAIG KANN: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the press center here at UL International Crown. Quite an interesting day for Team England. We have three members of the team here, Shadoff and Clyburn halved their match with Watanabe and Suzuki today for Team Japan, and Mel Reid loses 1-down to Nomura and Miyazato. Let's start with you two on the end about your match and the importance of the day realizing what was taking place with Charley Hull, which I'll get to in a second.

HOLLY CLYBURN: Yeah, it was obviously tough. We knew that we wanted to go out there and get them two points as quickly as possible. But it never is going to be that case. We're always going to think about what's going on and think about Mel at the same time, and we just tried to do our best out there, and we scrambled that point, and Jodi played absolutely fantastic by my side, and with her without, we would have been in earlier.

JODI EWART SHADOFF: Yeah, it was really tough knowing that Mel was on her own out there and not knowing if Charley was going to be joining her at any point. You know, the Japanese girls played awesome. It seemed a lot harder to make birdies today than it was yesterday.

HOLLY CLYBURN: Correct.

JODI EWART SHADOFF: It just felt like the putts were harder to read, and they just weren't dropping. Yeah, birdies were not hard to come by today, and I think we both scrambled well, and I'm happy to get a point out of it at least.

KRAIG KANN: That point puts Team England at five points total. Let's talk about Charley Hull. As everybody knows here, Charley was unable to compete today. Her statement went out to the media, "I am gutted that I was not able to play today. I woke up feeling poorly with my asthma and a fever earlier this morning, sought medical attention. When I arrived at the course, I really wanted to join my partner Mel at some point during the match, but at the advice of the medical team the best thing to do was to rest and get healthy for my team for tomorrow."

You were out there being introduced by yourself and standing on the tee by yourself knowing this. What was that like for you?

MEL REID: It was pretty embarrassing walking out on my own. It wasn't ideal. But I haven't actually seen Charley yet, but she's the only person that can really judge how she feels, and so she must have been feeling really, really bad this morning for her not to play.

I will go and see her. We were just saying we're actually going to go and see her as soon as we get back and see how she is and hopefully she's well enough for tomorrow.

Yeah, playing on her own against two of the best players in the world, I knew it was going to be difficult. I think when I parred the first, I said to myself, well, that's not 7 & 8, so that's good. But yeah, I spoke to the girls before. They were kind of cheering me up a little bit, and so I just tried to really hang in there and ended up playing pretty well, so it was good.

KRAIG KANN: I know you didn't win the match, but you did a whole lot for your team today from a lot of people's opinion. You were clearly the underdog. It became the darling story of the day. Are you proud of yourself? What do you feel about you, Mel Reid?

MEL REID: I'm extremely proud of myself. You know, I've been struggling a little bit this year with a bit of game time. To play the way I did today, I think we were 6-under or something like that, so my aim was to shoot 4-under. I thought, if I shot 4-under I've got a pretty good chance to not be embarrassed.

For me, it's a huge positive. To get anywhere near the 18th was going to be a huge achievement, and I am just really, really pleased I gave the team a huge chance of even a point.

Q. You joked with Mark after 1, hey, we made it to the back nine, and on the range, you said, it would be great if we got through 13. At what point did you say to yourself that we could win this thing?
MEL REID: When I holed my putt on 14, the par-3, I thought, do you know what, I've got a chance here, and then obviously Mika drained hers. I knew they were going to birdie 16, and then a great birdie on 17 from them, so they finished birdie-birdie-birdie. I finished birdie-par-birdie. There's nothing more you can do. If you lose to a birdie, then it's fine. It was probably the putt on 14 I thought, wait a minute, I could give this a go now.

Q. Mel, the eagle from the fairway, what was the club and the yardage there?
MEL REID: I had 70 yards, and I hit just like a three-quarter lob wedge.

Q. How were the fans reacting to you as they saw that you were this huge underdog?
MEL REID: Yeah, I mean, not many of them liked it yesterday, and then today we seemed to get more and more fans as it went along. I must say a huge thank you to them, because walking up a few of the holes they were just amazing. You know, everyone cheering me on. I needed that. I felt kind of on my own a little bit out there, but you know, the crowd were amazing, and they really kept my spirits up.

Q. Mel, your friends and your family, everyone knows you and says you like to take on a good challenge. How different was your focus today and your mental game compared to yesterday playing alongside Charley?
MEL REID: Do you know what, it was completely different. I would say that I am best when I -- like when I'm really under severe pressure, not just in golf but in life. I've been under quite a lot of pressure in many situations, and you know, I did see that today. I could have quite easily just been like, do you know what, I'm on my own, I'm not going to -- I know I'm not going to win. But I don't know, there's something that switches inside of me where when I'm under severe pressure, I tend to just turn it on. I need to learn how to do that every single time I play. But yeah, I seem to perform my best when I'm under a lot, a lot of pressure.

Q. In a strange way was this sort of a best-case scenario for you in terms of setting up maybe a great second half of the year?
MEL REID: I mean, I hope so. Me and Mark actually said when we holed that wedge shot, we said, things are turning. This year it's been the type of year where I've been up a lip on a bunker, I've been plugged in -- I've been in divots on the fairway. It's just been that kind of year, as well, which obviously hasn't helped. But hopefully this is a turning point. This is really encouraging signs out there today for me, so going into the British now next week, hopefully this is the turn of my year.

Q. How important was it for this to come playing for your country, this kind of performance?
MEL REID: Well, like I said yesterday, this is the perfect situation. Obviously not just these girls but Charley, as well, it's fantastic banter between us. We're really, really good friends. We get on really well. There's no egos or anything, and that was kind of the perfect situation for me, and also because it's match play.

You know, you can kind of test things out that you've been working on. Yesterday I didn't play great, but today I played well. This is a perfect situation. It doesn't really matter if you make a double-bogey, you're just going to lose the hole. You have to make birdies and it kind of gets your mindset into a very aggressive way, which is when I play my best I would say.

Q. Jodi and Holly, this goes down as a 1-3 day on the books, but how much enthusiasm and how much momentum do you think you gained from Mel's performance today going forward for the rest of the week?
JODI EWART SHADOFF: It's huge. I mean, hopefully Charley is back for tomorrow, so to have all four of us out there tomorrow, I think just keep the same mentality tomorrow against Thailand. We played pretty decent today, too, so I'm excited for tomorrow.

MEL REID: I think to get any points today, they fought really hard. Absolutely amazing. We needed that point. So very, very proud of these two, as well, for sticking in there and getting their point.

Q. Mel, can you give us a timeline kind of how things occurred this morning, when you got to the course, when you saw Charley, maybe when you first knew that there was a problem?
MEL REID: What time did I tee off? 8:45. I got to the course about 7:45, started my warm-up at about 10 to 8:00, I think, five to 8:00. I was actually hitting my second putt, and then Mark told me that Charley was most likely not going to play, and that was it, really. Obviously Becky our team manager gave me a bit more information, but I haven't actually seen Charley. I kind of just needed to warm up and get in the right state of mind.

Like I said, as soon as we get back, we're going to go and make sure that she's okay and give her a couple of hugs and hope she's ready for tomorrow.

Q. Was there a sense last night that she was off?
MEL REID: Yeah, we actually had a dinner last night, very kindly hosted by UL, which was amazing, by the way, I must say. The steak was incredible, and as soon as we ate, she didn't feel good. She thought she was going to have an asthma attack, so we all took her outside and then took her home.

She clearly wasn't feeling very well yesterday. I mean, she seemed fine in the day, but it was last night that she didn't feel great.

Q. So you still haven't seen her or talked to her?
MEL REID: No.

KRAIG KANN: To the point that was made about one point today and the importance of that, you're at five points right now. You sit atop your pool heading with one day left going into Sunday. You came in here, you'd never played in this event, you were kind of yukking it up, having a good time and very loose. Today seems like it almost was a victory day for your team. I'd like to know how much fun you're having and how important it would be just to get to Sunday now based on everything you've been through thus far.

HOLLY CLYBURN: Yeah, we're having a ball, really. Like Mel said, our banter is just flowing daily and minutely, and that's just how we go, really. It says it all when we're walking out to Spice Girls really. But today does feel like a victory. I couldn't be more proud of these two girls to the right of me right now. We've just got to sort Charley out, and like Mel said again, we will.

Tomorrow is another big day. Anything could happen, and hopefully we'll have our games back in shape.

KRAIG KANN: Jodi, you've played in Solheim Cups and you sit at a table like this with people from other countries, but this is different, as you've said from the get-go, and it does seem like y'all are having a lot of fun. Do you see what's in front of you right now about potentially getting to Sunday and wearing a crown?

JODI EWART SHADOFF: Yeah, I mean, we can't get too far ahead of ourselves. We still have two days left, so we've got to concentrate on tomorrow and getting out there and getting four points tomorrow. You know, you've got to respect the two matches that we have tomorrow because they're going to be just as tough as today and yesterday. Yeah.

KRAIG KANN: Final comments from you, Mel? Are you going to sleep okay tonight?

MEL REID: Yeah, no practice for me today. Yeah, I'm going to sleep very well tonight. I'm absolutely exhausted. Those girls played very well.

Yeah, you know, there's a big day tomorrow. We need to rest up. Thailand are a very tough team, and yeah, we need to go out there and do our best to get four points if not the best we can.

HOLLY CLYBURN: As quickly as possible.

MEL REID: Yeah, none of this 18-hole stuff. I'm not into that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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UL INTERNATIONAL CROWN

July 22, 2016

Mel Reid

Jodi Ewart Shadoff

Holly Clyburn