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U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S OPEN

July 13, 2018

Trish Johnson

Chicago, Illinois

TRISH JOHNSON: Back nine was very good. I hit some good shots, a couple of -- I don't think I had -- yeah, apart from the bogey at 9, which you say it's a three-putt, but I mean, it was a bloody long putt. It was probably the best part of 60 feet, and probably the only one apart from 18 that I missed, so I can't really -- it was the drive more than anything else. It was a poor drive. Hit a good second shot but just got a huge bounce.

Q. The eagle you had --
TRISH JOHNSON: Yeah, that was a good shot. That was probably the best shot of the day, because that green is wicked. Yeah, I hit it absolutely perfectly, just pitched into the bank and up to about 10 feet and rolled it in, so that was a bonus.

Q. What did you hit?
TRISH JOHNSON: 5-wood.

Q. From how far out?
TRISH JOHNSON: 192 I think it was. So yeah, it was a good -- I hit a lot of good shots, some bad shots. The bad shots were pretty bad. I said to Laura yesterday, you have a chance to win if you don't make doubles, and of course I made a double today, and you've got to keep those off your card. It was a dreadful drive. I mean, if I tried to do that, I couldn't hit as bad a shot as that, so hopefully I won't do that tomorrow.

Q. How many competitions have you played this year?
TRISH JOHNSON: Actual tournaments, Morocco, Seattle, Jabra. This is my fourth.

Q. What's the most difficult thing to get back when you haven't played very much?
TRISH JOHNSON: Just -- I think it's -- that's a good question, actually. Just you don't get any momentum. You can't really build any momentum. So if you have a bad tournament, you have to wait a few weeks to -- so it's a lot of pressure because you have one chance each time. So that's quite difficult. Fortunately, obviously I've played well in -- I played well in the tournament before Seattle, which was a sort of -- it was a kind of LET event, which I finished 15th, so that gave me a bit of confidence going into the following week. So I literally -- that was the first time I played two tournaments back-to-back since November, and played quite well in them both, so that helps.

Yeah, I hadn't played at all really coming into this tournament from Seattle because I hurt my wrist a little bit and my shoulder was bugging me, so I was down at my dad's, and I just thought, do you know what -- for the first week, I thought, God, I'm not practicing. Then I thought, last time I played I won, so I can't be in too bad a form. It's more up here. You can talk yourself into, I haven't practiced, I'm not -- but actually you're probably not playing that badly. So I just decided, come out here and do some work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so far, so good.

Q. So based on that work you put in and your success coming in, did you expect to be in this position after two days?
TRISH JOHNSON: I'm not -- it's not really about being in position. Did I expect to be about 4-under? Yeah. Yep, I probably -- before I would have said -- before it got this bouncy, I would have thought it would be more, it needs to be more, but now that it's this bouncy, I'm quite happy with 4-under to be honest. Yeah, position-wise, I don't know. Of course everybody is trying to win. I'd rather be in first position than not, every day, because I'd rather end up in first position, so I'd rather start in first position. It's got to be easier.

But I mean, it's two days to go, and there's a long way to go. I could have played myself out of it today when I made double bogey, if I let it go and made another double or something, and fortunately I didn't. Yeah, I'm fairly chuffed with the back nine. Pretty good.

Q. What did you do with your wrist and hand? What happened?
TRISH JOHNSON: I don't really know. I've had a bit of a shoulder issue for a while, and it just sort of went into my wrist. Paige, the lady that sometimes works on the Legends Tour, I saw her this morning, I said to her, can you just see, I've got some things wrong, and she did some stuff, as she normally does. I've had loads of treatment. I had a week literally of treatment trying to get it right, three different people, all of whom I trust implicitly. They haven't made it that much better. She was in there for five minutes this afternoon, and it was amazing. But she is, she's a bit of a freak, really, in a very nice way, in the best possible way. She's just amazing that she can sort of work out what's wrong with you.

So yeah, it was -- it wasn't going to stop me playing, but it seemed to feel a lot better today.

Q. You played behind JoAnne Carner, who shot her age yesterday and put up a good fight today. Can you just talk about the inspiration?
TRISH JOHNSON: Yeah, to be honest, she was probably for me, more so than any other player but Laura -- I know Laura and me are pretty much the same age, but she's always been sort of a superstar, but JoAnne was the first one when I first came on Tour, the LPGA, to me she was just amazing because she was -- obviously she was always so different. She was so carefree, but she was very generous, as well. I used to go out with a guy that caddied for her for a while, so we used to play a bit of practice rounds together, and if I couldn't play a shot or -- there was one thing I remember particularly at Dinah Shore. I couldn't play this chip shot out of the rough. I just had no clue how to get it to stop, and she just looked at me in that way that she has, like what are you doing, come here, and she just showed me the shot, and I just thought, oh, yeah, wow. It was so easy. And she's in competition, but she doesn't care and she'll show you how to do something because I think she gets as much a kick out of that as she does out of winning. But I mean, she's just -- she's ridiculous. She's 79. Unbelievable. And she's just such an inspiration. She's such a character. Everybody loves her. Simple as that, everybody loves her. Yeah, I love playing with her. If I ever saw my name in a draw with JoAnne, I'd be chuffed to bits.

Q. What's your strategy going into the weekend?
TRISH JOHNSON: Stay ahead of everybody else. Shoot lower than anybody else who's behind me. That's the idea. Whether that's going to work, I don't know, but that's the strategy. No, I mean, just try not to make any silly errors, which are very possible out there. Apart from that -- that was a really poor putt, as well, but I made some really good up-and-downs. I played very sensibly.

There are times when -- perfect example is No. 2 or 3, the par-5, and it's a shortish par-5, but the pin is right on the left. You've got to go up the right side because you can't carry the bunker on the left. But you go up the right side, you're going to be left with 60 feet if you're lucky enough to get on the top, and I just said to Heather, we'll just go straight at the flag. If we end up in the front bunker it's an easy up-and-down. If we don't, we'll just have a straightforward chip, and that's what we did, and I had the easiest chip you could possibly have, whereas yesterday we went up the right side, and it was like the Himalayas. You've just got to sort of be sensible and figure out your way around, really. It's a hell of a golf course, and when it gets windy -- you kind of need it to be windy because it's too hot otherwise.

Q. What's your home club now?
TRISH JOHNSON: Fox Hills in Surrey. That's where I play. But my original home club, it's quite ironic, actually, is Royal North Devon, which is where J.H. Taylor comes from, which I don't know if you heard one of the guys mention one of the very first tournaments here was Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor. He was the pro at Royal North Devon where I come from.

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