U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 14, 1995

Jean Bartholomew

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: We have 5 left, yes.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: About the day - it was a long day. I'd say, we waited a lot, I mean, almost on every tee. There were 2 groups today, so it was just sought of a struggle to keep your concentration and not get angry that you were waiting and then we had the delay, of course, so that was -- had you loosen up again to sort of -- more of a test of your patience today than anything, but the course was playing -- I think the pins were a little tougher today than they were yesterday, definitely. I didn't have many birdie chances at all. I was just praying for 2-putts a lot. Luckily, made my second putts today. It was a long day.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: 6:45.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: 5 holes isn't that much. I like the morning, anyway, so when I am up, I am up, so it doesn't matter. If I have to play 5 more holes or not, but I'd rather play them in the morning than out there in the dark trying to get them in. Especially on these greens, if you can't see the undulations, which we had the last few holes, it is just -- it is really hard.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: We had hit our shots to the green, we had walked up onto the green. She informed us that they were going to blow the siren. We had the option to putt out. We decided to putt out and so I mean, I had made like a 6 foot par-putt. My first putt went way past the hole and then, thank goodness, I knocked the second one in. I think I would have been real angry if I would have missed that one because I -- would have been 2, 3 foot putts in a row. I am glad to have ended that in on a good note than with a 3-putt.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I mean, it feels really nice. It is nice to know that I can play at the same level as these girls that play on the Tour full-time. I'd always felt inside that I could. It is just a matter of proving it somehow, and to me, I am just trying to take everything one step at a time while I am here and one shot at a time instead of looking at, oh, my God, I am leading The Open saying "okay, what do I have for my next shot" and try not to get nervous and play smart rather than get too excited. If you get too excited, you are going to get pushed up, do stupid things. If you do the opposite, you almost say "oh, I don't care" then you just sort of let yourself make bogeys, so it is sort of an in-between feeling I am trying to maintain.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Yes. I was completely on the other side. I mean, I had like a 70-foot put, something like that. I hit a horrible shot out to the right so I had about -- however long the green was, I would say, that length a putt. You couldn't really -- looking at it, I couldn't see the hole from where I was actually at that point we were just of like -- I thought it would break. You couldn't read the undulations. I'd thought it would break about a yard. And it broke about 5 yards, to the right, so missed 5-footer; just hit a really bad putt.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Yeah.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Well --

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: No. Well, I planned the trip to come home. I mean, if you stay straight through in Japan, you just almost go a little crazy. I mean, you miss America. You miss your family, so, I planned to come home.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I decided to do them both at the same time. I mean, it fit in perfectly because I didn't have tournaments in Japan right then and, you know, if I made it, I'd go with the Open and my parents would come to the Open. If I didn't, I'd stay home.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: About a week before the application was due - I forget when it was due. It was due June 1st or something like that.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Fairly fluent. I don't think as a foreigner in Japan you ever become completely fluent. It would take 10, 15 years because there are so many nuances in the language, but I could carry on a conversation about anything. You learn to understand a lot quicker than you learn to speak. So understandingwise, I am fairly fluent - that is the wrong word. Speakingwise, I still say I am at a child's level, but I could converse about anything pretty much.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: First, I want to finish the second round and then just keep playing the way I am playing, one shot at a time, and just try not to get nervous and, you know, take your breaks. This course, you got to take your good breaks and your bad breaks. If you are in the trees, you just got to chip out and play smart. I had to do that again today on number 5 - it is the one up to the right, the -- I think it is number 5, dog leg up to the right stupid push and drive -- after the delay, after the first delay, just hit the ball into the trees and even though I wanted to do something else, I just took a wedge and punched it out, top front of the green; had about 50 yards; hit a good sand wedge in there about 5 feet and made the par. So, it was sort of one of those if I took a bogey, I had to take a bogey just because I hit my drive in the trees.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: The first delay we were -- just finished 5, and then they called it.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I didn't look outside actually. I didn't know what I was doing.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: We saw lightning like over the hotel area, that they said that storm had passed, the really dark one that was not coming over us, but the one that was coming towards us, we saw some lightning not too far away, so we were sort of scared actually and I guess I heard, it could come up so quick here, the lightning, so it is better to take a precaution. It was just raining. I wouldn't mind. That is different. That is part of golf. You have got to play in the rain, bad conditions,. I am not going to mess with lightning. I don't think anybody should.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I think, for me, it has been putting, actually, the last couple of days which is -- I made a lot of my second par putts, the tricky second putts and I think that is the difference between a good score and bad score on this course because it is hard to get your birdie putts to give me length, so you'd always have tricky little second putts and I made most of those and a couple of nice third birdie putts, but I think, that is the difference and getting near the par fives and getting on the par fives in two things like that.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I majored in sociology, but my basic attitude when I went to Duke was to get as wide an education as possible. It is a liberal arts school, so you can't have business majors or anything, I didn't want that. I took a lot of philosophy, political science history, just to broaden my mind, more than anything. I didn't really plan on becoming a professional, honestly. Going to Duke -- that is one of the reasons I chose Duke, with graduating from there I thought I had opportunities to do other things besides golf. But I figured give myself -- I took a while to decide, but I -- actually I turned pro, I think it was '90, not '89, that summer after I finished college, I still played amateur, some amateur stuff. I think it was right in December of '89, or something, that I played my first pro tournament, but I waitressed a little bit. It is just something you do at night. It was fun. I never thought of it as a living or anything. It was just something to give you some extra cash and keep you going to the mini tours whatever you had to do. Somebody wrote yesterday that I wasn't satisfied with the European Tour and I think that sort of putting that Tour down and I wouldn't say I wasn't satisfied. I think it was -- when I went to Europe, you know, I didn't have a sponsor, so it was sort of hard for me, if you had two weeks off you would have to stay in hotels, whatever, that is where it got really expensive for me. That was difficult. I couldn't afford to really stay the whole time. If there were 4 tournaments, I'd play those, and come back home, but I got a lot of good experience; especially last summer I think I got a lot of confidence over there playing the 5 tournaments I did play; played with Laura Davies in England with the biggest gallery I ever played in front of in my life and I played really well. I think that was something that was just great for my confidence but there are really good players over there. You are playing in tougher conditions also. You don't have the perfectly manicured golf courses that we have here. And there are a lot of good players there actually and a lot of them have come over here and are doing well over here.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Eat breakfast. That would kill an hour. Take another shower, I don't know. Maybe take a nap for an hour. I am not a nap type person.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: No. I am sort of glad they are going with both tees. I thought everybody was going after the first tee, actually, so I thought actually I would have to go off later if I was in the top group, so that I think three hours isn't so bad. If you had to wait around 'til 1 o'clock again, that would be sort of tiring. Like today, I didn't know what to do with myself until 2:40; woke up at 6; read the paper; had a few laughs and -- did you get that one? Nice picture with the towel, that was really good.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Yeah. Just reading the scores. Because I didn't really look at what anybody shot, you know, what some of my friends shot that are playing.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I just turned 28 in May.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I just sort of read it with an open mind. I mean, I had -- I guess last year when I was in Ireland I was leading a tournament after the first round, I had to go through this. I shot like a course record the first day; then the second day I shot like a 78 or something, so the press was sort of getting on me. All the scores were bad. Then the third day when I shot 88, it was just hilarious what they wrote about me. The European press is even worse -- not worse, but they can really tear you apart. I just sort of take it with a light start. It is interesting to read what people think about you, but I don't really take it too seriously. I don't get angry or I don't get happy. I read it as for fun.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I tried to qualify the-- the first year I turned pro I tried to qualify I actually got to the finals and missed in the finals. Then I tried -- I can't remember, one more time I didn't get to the finals. And then I think I tried -- I can't even remember. I think I tried one other time, two years ago and didn't get to the finals either. Came from Japan, actually and went over. What was the second part?

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: I have had 2, 10th places in Europe and Japan I only started playing in Japan this year it took the year to get the card, so this March, I had a 12th. That was my best one so far out of 5 tournaments.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Yeah.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: 10th hole played longer today for some reason. I didn't hit my drive that well, but I had like 167, something like that, I hit a 7-iron and birdie putt was maybe 8 feet, straight uphill. 12, the 3-putt, that was ridiculous. We waited two groups on the tee there. I hit a 6-iron and blocked it way up to the right, about pin high way on the right side and just had a beautiful 3-putt there.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: It takes a year.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: What I did is -- well, I worked. I wouldn't say it is working, but what I have to do at my golf course, but in between I went to the Asian Tour. That was 4 weeks, 5 weeks, so that was 5 weeks; then I went back and forth to Europe in between the monthly Japanese qualifyings, which was really tiring, but worth it for me last summer because I had some good finishes in Europe and just got some confidence. But that was exhausting. Flying from Japan to Europe for two weeks; coming back for Japanese -- it is only one round a month for five months in Japan; then the final is the 6th month. Then there is a prequalifying before the 5 -- which is 2 rounds, something like that. It is more a test of your patience than anything. I mean, you are only playing one competitive round a month. That is not very good training.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Yes, actually, but I fly different airlines, whenever you can get the cheapest ticket.

JEAN BARTHOLOMEW: Oyasumi Nasai.