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U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S OPEN

July 15, 2018

Laura Davies

Chicago, Illinois

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. We are here with Laura Davies, the champion of the inaugural U.S. Senior Women's Open. Laura, how does that sound?

LAURA DAVIES: Sounds great. Yeah, I mean, when it was announced, you hope you'll be sat in this position, but there's a lot of good players out there that you've got to get past, and Juli and Trish and Danielle, they were there right -- I got away from them in the end, but five-shot lead sounds a lot, but as I said yesterday, it's not, and I didn't sleep well.

THE MODERATOR: Talk us through the round a little bit, where your mind was. Were you looking at other scores.

LAURA DAVIES: Well, yeah, I tend to do that. Probably shouldn't. It would make life a lot easier for myself if I didn't. But I think 10 was the turning point. I had a good start, birdied the two par-5s and they didn't get off to great starts, and then 10 I hit my first really rank shot of the week. It was a horrible block out to the right, and left a ridiculous putt, and somehow managed to two-putt it. For a second I thought I was putting it in the bunker. So that was a massive -- when that dropped in the top side because I misread it and I pulled it. I'll be honest about that. It wasn't the greatest hole I've ever played, but I think that to me was when I really started to think I might have one hand on the trophy and just had to get the other one in there.

THE MODERATOR: Talk a little bit about the emotions being out there during the trophy presentation and what this entire experience has meant to you.

LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, it's great, seeing this thing paraded down for the very first time, and I get my name on it first, you know, this championship will be played for many years, and there will only be one first winner. Obviously quite a proud moment for me to win that.

Q. This is your 85th professional tournament win worldwide; where does this rank among all your wins, given the nature of the venue, the fact that this is the first championship, how this was a week of celebration of golf, as well.
LAURA DAVIES: Well, yeah, I haven't won for eight years. My last win was India 2010, so that's -- the pressure you're playing under when you're trying to just do something for yourself, prove to yourself you can still win, so this ranks highly up there. And obviously because it's a USGA event, it's hard to compare tournaments, but this is very high on my list of achievements, I can assure you.

Q. You talked yesterday about the role confidence plays in winning. Are you going to come out of here with a new set of confidence as you go into the next major championship on the LPGA schedule?
LAURA DAVIES: Well, yeah. I mean, winning is winning. It doesn't matter -- I think you see people like Steve Stricker and Freddie Couples, when they play the Masters and the PGA TOUR events, they go from the Seniors and winning regularly, and their confidence transfers over, and that's why I think they do quite well on the regular Tour, and Colin Montgomerie. You build up a bit of momentum, and a golf course is a golf course. Sometimes the field strength is a little bit different, but in your own mind, if you've done something like this, 16-under for four rounds around a proper championship course, it can't do anything but fill you full of confidence.

Q. Almost a five-hour round today. I know yesterday was long, too. You were waiting on every hole almost. Is that tough to block out, or as a professional do you just get used to it?
LAURA DAVIES: No, I'm terrible at it. All I do is whinge and moan all day about how slow the group in front is and just want to get on with it. That's just my personality, though. I get to the ball, I want to hit my shot. Unfortunately in professional golf nowadays, that doesn't happen. You just have a drink, have a little chat with your players partners, your caddie, and try and let the time go by because it is hard. When you've stood off a 3-iron off a tight lie into a par-5, the last thing you want to do is stand there and think about it. It definitely tests your patience.

Q. You alluded to it earlier, there's winning and then there's history. Every major golf championship has a first name on it, and now this one has yours on it. Can you talk about your feelings about the history of what has just taken place?
LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, exactly. I've been looking at the boards out there. You know, some of them are from 1890 and stuff, and all those names years ago that won the women's USGA events, they all had a first winner, and you look at them, and one day people will look at this tournament when I'm long gone, and they'll see my name up there on there. I'm hoping to come back for a couple more years and play, but it's -- if you talk about history, this thing is going to be around a lot longer than the rest of us, so it's just nice to get in there early. The trouble is the U.S. Open, I won that in my second attempt and never won it again, so I hope this isn't going to repeat history.

Q. You said yesterday you probably wouldn't get much sleep. How did you sleep last night, and were you happy that the tee times were moved up?
LAURA DAVIES: I was really happy about the early tee time for a kicker. I woke up about 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep until about quarter to 5:00, and then my alarm went off at 6:30, so it was a bit of a traumatic night, but that's what great championship golf is all about. It tests everything. You're playing in the heat, trying to sleep properly. Everything gets tested in these championships. That's another good reason when you come out on top, you feel pretty pleased with yourself.

Q. And I just wondered, could you compare this golf course and what it demanded of you from your typical LPGA stop and how you felt the USGA set it up?
LAURA DAVIES: I think they had a tough job because you've got some players hitting it quite a long way and then other players not, and you don't want to make it so hard for the ladies that don't play hardly -- they played very rarely in championship golf for sure. So I think they set it up well. I think they were unlucky with the scoring yesterday, it rained so hard, because it made it -- well, it softened up, because Friday afternoon when we were out there, it was becoming really hard, and I think if we hadn't had that rain, probably 3-, 4-, 5-under would have won it comfortably. I think they did a great job. That's what I'm saying, I suppose, and the condition of the course was superb.

Q. You won three majors in the '90s, one in the '80s and one now. What does it mean for you to win at least win major in three different decades?
LAURA DAVIES: Well, very nice. I mean, obviously that's what you're striving to do. You want to win tournaments, and when they turn out to be USGA events, it's the icing on the cake, really. Very pleased to have taken part in it and especially to be sat here now with the trophy. It's a great day in my career, to be quite honest.

Q. Going back to the 10th hole, Juli had two very easy birdies on 8 and 9, and you had to struggle a little bit for par on 9 out of the fescue. Just a little bit of a thought there, you were back where you started almost, and yet you still were feeling a little bit tighter, a little bit -- that tee shot on 10 left you a tester.
LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, well, it was a poor shot. The trouble is on that hole, on the practice round on Tuesday morning, I airmailed the green with a 9-iron, and there I stood with a 9-iron with virtually the same yardage from everything, and so I just -- I didn't back off it, I tried to hit a solid shot, and I just came out of it a bit and left -- well, it was a crazy putt. You could stand there with a dozen balls and maybe only two-putt it twice. It was just a bit lucky that I got away with that one. And then obviously a few holes later, Juli made that double, and I kind of started to relax then. But having said that, you can never really relax because anything can happen. You can hit a couple of balls in the really long stuff and you can rack up a big number. Certainly 10 was a huge boost for me, making the par.

Q. You mentioned the course; is it similar at all to courses that you're familiar with from back home, weather probably being a lot different?
LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I think, like I said again, Friday afternoon it was playing like true links golf. You couldn't fly the ball to the hole anywhere near. You had to drop it in short and roll it up, and with the long grass and the way they've set the fairways up -- the difference between this and a normal links course is the bunkers. If the bunkers were pot bunkers, then I think it would be about as close to a links golf course as you can get in land. It's just a great setup, really. It's just the bunkers are different.

Q. In 10 months' time you'll have a chance to defend this championship at Pine Needles in North Carolina. Can you talk a little bit about your experience playing U.S. Women's Opens at Pine Needles and just the overall sense of the course?
LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I think I've been there twice and missed the cut twice, so I'm not looking forward to it, if I'm honest. It's a really nice course. It's a course that I hoped I would have done well on, but I just didn't. I've not done well. I won the U.S. Open in '87, and I'm not sure I've had more than two top 10s other than the win, and I've missed the cut a lot. The way the USGA sets their courses up normally doesn't suit me. I don't know what to tell you. We'll see what happens in 10 months.

Q. How important was this tournament to the future of women's golf in terms of maybe the teenage girls that are golfing or watching this tournament, this is the first time that there has been a Senior U.S. Open for the women. The men have had it for 40 years, so how important was it to have this now?
LAURA DAVIES: Well, I think what it is, it means that the girls that are playing the regular Tour now, they might be in their 30s, 40s, because I know Karrie Webb said something like she's going to wait six, seven years before she's going to have a crack, so it's even on Karrie's radar, and she's backing off a bit with her career, she's not playing in quite so many tournaments now, but everyone is interested in a U.S. Open Championship. There will be a lot of the players on Tour -- maybe not some of the younger Korean girls. I don't think they last that long. Whether they'll come back in 30 years' time, we'll have to wait and see. But it's great for the girls on the Tour and all the amateurs around the country -- well, around the world. We've had a few come from overseas qualifying. Sofia Gronberg flew over and Cathy Panton, and so people are really interested, and it's a great chance to play championship golf again for the over 50s.

Q. What's the best celebration you've ever had after a major win? And how will you celebrate tonight?
LAURA DAVIES: Well, I'm flying back to London in about five hours, so no celebration tonight. But I don't know really. No, I'm not telling you. (Laughter.)

Q. Ladies Scottish and Women's British the next week --
LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, we've got next week off because it's the men's Open, obviously, and then we play at gull lane, where the guys are this week, and then we play at Royal Lytham the week after.

Q. Will you try to play at French Lick this fall and try to continue to make a run at the majors on this Tour?
LAURA DAVIES: Oh, absolutely. No, I mean, French Lick is a very different golf course. It doesn't suit my game necessarily, but I'll be there battling it out with the old girls, yes, definitely.

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