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U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S OPENJuly 13, 2018Laura DaviesLiselotte NeumannChicago, Illinois Q. Laura, two solid rounds. How are you feeling about where you stand? LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, very pleased. Had a bit of a rude awakening on 11, my second hole. Hit it -- where did I go, just through the back. Didn't hit a particularly poor chip and then three-putted for a double, so that was a nasty start, but came back really well. I'm really pleased that -- I had one other bogey out there, but overall played really solid. Putted really well. Holed out really well today. It's so hard to get the putts dead to the hole, and I made most of the ones coming back, which was nice. Q. Liselotte, the course, has it played to your expectations? What have you learned to be successful here at Chicago Golf Club? LISELOTTE NEUMANN: You've got to putt well. No, the golf course is phenomenal. I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite courses I've ever played. It's very challenging, and it's getting a little dry. It's running out, so you've just got to be really careful off the tees, make sure we stay short of some of the bunkers out there, and the greens are tricky. It's hard -- I don't know, I just had a hard time getting the speed right today. I just putted horrible. Yesterday was great. I putted awesome, made everything, and then today was like the total opposite, just didn't really make much except on the last hole, but just probably four three-putts, and on the par-5 -- what hole number? 12, I was like short of the green, I tried to putt it up and I putted it over down in the bunker, so it was kind of like a nightmare putting day for me. Q. When you two won the U.S. Women's Open back-to-back in '87 and '88, that really sort of kick-started the global growth of the women's game, really became international after that. Do you feel like the existence of this tournament is somewhat a result of that, of what you guys did to grow the game? LAURA DAVIES: I think a lot of young Europeans and Asians decided that it wasn't just an American sport, and at that stage it had been dominated wholeheartedly by all the names we all love, Lopez, Bradley, Daniel, Sheehan, and I think the fact Lotter and I came out and did what we did, no one had heard of us, didn't have a clue who we were, we'd be playing European Tour golf, and yeah, back-to-back wins made all of our peers back in Europe -- look at Trish Johnson, she's still playing on the Tour at 50-odd, and they started believing that they could go and play in America. I don't know if it relates to this tournament in particular, but it certainly made a lot of foreign girls think that they could take the Americans on. LISELOTTE NEUMANN: I agree to that. Q. Laura, Juli was just praising your wedge game; is that from loads of practice? LAURA DAVIES: No, not really. Q. How do you hone your touch? LAURA DAVIES: I do practice my short game a fair bit because obviously you have to because that's where the tournaments are won and lost. You don't really ever win it with your driver or your long irons, mid irons. You normally win it around the greens, on the greens, chipping, bunker play, and yeah, so that's what I do practice. What I don't do is stand on the range pounding 8-irons and 4-irons and stuff like that day in and day out. Yeah, you have to practice a certain amount, but obviously natural ability with the hands -- LISELOTTE NEUMANN: I don't know, you had some great bunker shots today. LAURA DAVIES: Bunkers were good to me today, in fact the last two days. Yeah, you've got to practice it. I know everyone thinks that I practice, but that's a bit of a myth. Q. Your distance off the tee, where does it compare now to, say, 20 years ago? LAURA DAVIES: It's about the same just purely because the equipment is that much better than it was 20 years ago. I'm obviously not quite as strong as I used to be. I find in the rough I don't move the ball out of it as I used to, but technology and the driver heads and the shafts and the golf ball allows me to be the same distance. Q. You were both part of a premier pairing this week; can you both talk a little bit about the fans walking on the fairways and inside the ropes? LISELOTTE NEUMANN: Yeah, I think it worked out great. When we first heard that people were going to walk down the fairway, you're like, ooh, we're not really used to that. But I think it worked out great. It was kind of fun to see the people that came out, and they were a little bit closer to us, talked a little bit with a few people walking up to your tee shot. It didn't bother at all. It was actually a really nice experience, I think. LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I like it. I think it's a good innovation. I think other tours could do it. Maybe on the PGA TOUR you couldn't because there's too many people, but a tournament like -- I think the galleries might be a little bit bigger than everyone expected. I know I'm surprised because every group you looked at had people with it, and we did have quite a few, but it wasn't just the marquee groups that had the people in it, and it was really encouraging to us as players to see people still want to see us old birds hack it round. It's quite nice. I think everyone walks away this week thinking that -- I think it's a great success. Whatever happens on the weekend with anything in the tournament, this has to get bigger and better because I think it's been great. Q. I asked JoAnne Carner if we'd see her next year, and she said, certainly, and didn't hesitate for one second, at 80. Just your thoughts on still being competitive at 80, and do you see yourselves playing that long? LISELOTTE NEUMANN: I hope we're alive. I mean, to see her out there is just so great, you know? It's so fun to watch her. I was warming up kind of just a couple of girls behind her this morning, I'm watching her just feeling all her shots out there. I mean, it's amazing. It's got to be a little tough, I think, with the heat and all the walking and stuff, but she's something else. It's impressive. I hope we're alive at 80, and I want to be out here. LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I agree with Lotter. Just to see her, and I watched her hit one shot. We were playing 17, she was playing 3, and she hit this lovely little -- I don't know if she birdied it, but it looked like she hit it pretty close, and the old swing looked just as good as it did years -- maybe not the power, but it looked a very similar swing. She's added so much to this -- well, she's made this tournament. She was there at the dinner on Monday night, Tuesday night -- whatever night it was, and just brought the house down. She was just impromptu got up and made a little speech. She's such a character, and to be playing at 79 and next year at 80 is extraordinary. Yeah, we might not make it, mate. But I'd love to try. I'll be trying to be there at 80. LISELOTTE NEUMANN: Yeah. Q. Another question about JoAnne, she's known obviously as a character, but she's been very generous with her advice to players over the years. Just wondered if either or both of you have an example of advice that she's given to you on the golf course. LAURA DAVIES: I was in Florida my rookie year, Trish Johnson and I, we both came out here in '88 I think it was. Well, you came, as well, '88? We were just messing around in a bunker in the second tournament of the year, and JoAnne just happened to be there, and we watched her, and she obviously saw these two young rookies were watching her practice her bunker shots, and she came over and she spent a little time with us. She probably doesn't even remember it, but I'll never forget it. I was probably 24. I know in these days with 16 year olds winning LPGA tournaments, that doesn't seem young anymore, but at the time the fact that she spent that little -- just 20 minutes, but it was enough to give us a few little tips, because her short game, it's a master class -- in the old days it was for sure, probably still now, but I'll never forget that. LISELOTTE NEUMANN: I had a great experience with her. We played at Grand Cypress in Orlando. It was the Tournament of Champions, I believe, and she was out hitting pitch shots like probably 40-, 50-yard shots or maybe even shorter, 30-, 40-yard shots, and I was out there, and I think I probably skulled one or something because she came out with a cigarette in her -- she goes, hey, Lotter, you've got to keep your head down, and then she hit some shot, kind of opened the face, and she stood there with her cigarette and hit probably 10 shots, and I was watching her, like, okay, got it, keep that head still. It was a pretty cool experience. She's quite amazing. Q. This golf course prides itself on its links style, the old country effect. Does it give you any satisfaction that the co-leaders going into the last two rounds are from the old country? LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, it is kind of. It's not a true links as such. Obviously we're not near the water. But it's got that feel to it, and you certainly could, if you chose to, play virtually every shot with a run-up, so I understand what you mean by that. But I've tended to try and go through the air a little bit more with the shots, but if it gets any faster, then I think you might find players having to run it up because you won't be able to throw it -- there was one hole out there, the par-3, we all went in the back bunker, No. 6? LISELOTTE NEUMANN: Oh, 13. LAURA DAVIES: That hole tomorrow you'd have to chip on the front and try and run it up to that back position, so absolutely. I can see this as a real links challenge, not with the greens as soft as they were yesterday, but they're getting there. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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