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RICOH WOMEN’S BRITISH OPENAugust 1, 2018Laura DaviesFife, Scotland MODERATOR: Welcome to Laura Davies who is making her remarkable 38th appearance in the championship consecutively. Winner in 1986. Laura, how are you prepared this week? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Very well. Played 11 this morning, played the pro am yesterday. Course is amazing. You can see changes. Because nine years ago you can't really remember what the changes are, but you know it's slightly different out there. Greens are the best links I've ever putted on. I don't know how they've got them so unblemished. There's not a blemish on any of the greens. It's amazing. So condition wise, it's as good as it can be. The rough's not really long because of the hot summer. So I think the scoring might be half decent. If you keep it out of the bunkers, you've got a chance. MODERATOR: Your previous five appearances here, you've had two Top 20s. DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, like I say, if you can keep it out of the bunkers -- and last time we were here I didn't manage to keep it out of the bunkers, because if you hit it in one of ^ them, you kick out and you're obviously trying to get up and down for par, and that's never going to work. But it's a course I love. I really do. I think it's great. Every hole is different. Like I said, the changes, the par-5, 11, I don't think that's quite as good as it used to be, but other than that, everything they've done I think they've done really well. MODERATOR: And you've had a good start of the year. How have you been since then? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, I've had, yeah, that was a great finish, and I had a chance^ . Inbee had a great back nine and closed everyone out, but under the pressure I thought I was going to feel once I got off that first tee I really enjoyed it, so I'd like to get in contention again because since then I've not really got in amongst them again. I've had good starts, but last week was a perfect example, 4-under after 13 and then shot one over, bogeyed the last five holes. So I haven't quite sustained it. But I'm playing well. I'm putting well. Putting let me down last week, but that's just one of those things. MODERATOR: And one of the great things you're injury free. You had a great recovery with your achilles. DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah. I had an achilles problem, and then I had a chest infection, and I had to withdraw from two tournaments, which is most unlike me. But other than that, yeah, now, pretty fit. Ready to go and try and do well in the major. MODERATOR: Ready for your 38th appearance. Any questions? Q. Just curious, after winning the Senior U.S. Women's Open, has the confidence carried over? Is it still there? Do you still feel like you're riding a bit of a high after winning another major? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, no doubt. I had the week off after that, and then 4-under after my first 13 holes, and I thought oh this is great and I kept going. And then like I said, it was a bit of a letdown, it's a bit of shame really, because I love Gullane. I thought it was a great course. But my putting for some reason went out the window. Seven of three putts in the next 12 holes, so that kind of took me from 4-under to about 4-over, and I was struggling to make the cut then, and then when I needed some good shots on the back nine, unfortunately I missed a lot of fairways, so I lost a little bit of momentum the from the Open, but I'm hitting it well this week and putting really well. So yeah, I think that win -- wherever you win, whatever tour you win on, it's good for your confidence, there's no question, because the pressure is the same whether you win in the U. S. Open or a French Open or one of the Asian events, on the LET. The pressure is the same. Winning is the hardest thing to do. Q. And then the men obviously just played the Old Course for the Senior British Open. Do you think there will be a time when the women will have their own Senior British? DAME LAURA DAVIES: I think it would be brilliant obviously. I mean it's the obvious thing that hopefully should happen, and maybe will happen one day. But we'll just have to wait and see. But I think the USGA has set the target now. So other people will want the senior women players, because I think everyone enjoyed that tournament, and the galleries were good. So they obviously boasted with their feet, they came out and watched it. There's a real future for it. As long as you can get all the Americans, because you need all those players to come over and play in it. Whether you could do that, I'm not sure. Q. Hi, Laura. You mentioned you struggled with your putting last week, but you're putting well this week. Have you done anything in particular in the few days in between? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. I just lost my pace. I just started knocking them six, seven feet past, and I started missing the ones coming back. I three-putted 11 on the second round. And that was about a two-foot putt. I don't remember the last time I missed a two-foot putt, and it sort of spooked me a bit, and I then three-putted the next. And I don't know, it was weird. But you don't know how you're putting until the tournament. I putted nicely in the pro am. I putted well this morning. It feels good. You never know under the pressure of a tournament. Hopefully I'll knock all those three, four, five-footers in that I was holing at the U. S. Open. I don't think I missed any that week. Q. You probably have more experience playing links golf than a lot of people in the field this week. Playing the Scottish Open the week before the Open, how much of an advantage do you find it now playing the ladies Scottish last week leading into the women's British this week? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, definitely. It's a different sort of golf. You don't look at landing inside the pin. We're always looking where we want to land the ball. In America you're looking to land it exactly dead pin high because you can stop it. Here you've gotta look for an angle to come in with and land it on the front and hopefully run it up. The 13th out there, I had 100 yards and I had a little chip-in with a 9-iron. So there's different shots you have to hit. So definitely the more you do it. But I think the Scottish Open is as important as the British Open. I hate when people say I'm using that as a warmup. Most insulting thing I could ever imagine. Every tournament stands on its own merit, but that style of golf, it's great to do back-to-back weeks. Q. Laura, with your play this year and going all the way back to Phoenix when you were in contention there, has that sort of bolstered your hopes of qualifying for the LPGA Hall of Fame? And then I have a followup. DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, yeah, obviously if I'd have won in Phoenix I'd now only be one away, which would be every week you'd have a crack at it. I'd like to get in that position so that you had a chance every week to do that. That's something I've always wanted to do. That's why I'm probably here still trying. But it's a tough call now. You got the players like Ariya and all the other girls that are playing unbelievably good golf. Winning a tournament is not an easy thing now. Q. And when you're at your very best, you supported the Ladies European Tour so much that maybe you cost yourself some Hall of Fame points. Is there anything that seems unfair about that? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. No. I made a decision. I love playing in Europe. I love coming back playing all the European events, and at the time you're not thinking about Hall of Fame things. You're just playing where you're playing, and I think if I'd have played solely in America, yeah, I'd have been in the Hall of Fame maybe 10, 15 years ago, but at the time I made the decision to come back and play because I really enjoyed it. It wasn't a hardship. I wanted to do it, and one day I'll look back and it either will or won't have cost me and it probably will have cost me because two more wins is a big call. Q. Could you just assess the state of the British game at the moment, the likes of Charley, Georgia maybe? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Oh, very strong. Jody Shadoff. There's a really good maybe. Mel is starting to play well again. There's a good cross of young English players, which is great to see. I love to see it. Charley I think is going to have a massive chance this week, and Georgia wasn't playing great at the start of the year, but she's started playing well again now. So yeah, there should be a good showing this week. I mean every week you see the English flags at the top of the LPGA leaderboard, which is great to see. Q. Aside of its appearances, what's kind of your memory about the first one and do the anticipation levels remain as they always did for this event? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah. That was back in 1980 at Wentworth. It was on the east course at Wentworth. And yeah, that was close to my home, so I stayed at home. And I do remember -- I can't remember who I played with, but I remember the atmosphere there. It was very low key. And then obviously I won it in '86 at Birkdale. And then we went to Woburn and then all of a sudden we started playing the links rotation, which I think made the golf tournament what it is today now. So the more times we play on the great links courses, the better it is because that's what the British Open is all about. Q. There's obviously news about the new sponsor, and it's obviously important for the start of the women's game for that to get sorted pretty quickly and keeps pushing on to what Ricoh has done over the years? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah. Ricoh has taken this tournament to the next level. (Indiscernible) originally did a great job, which is George and his family supported it for so many years, and whoever the new sponsor is going to be, they've got a tough act to follow because literally it's grown and grown and grown. So if you're a company looking for a standard bearing event, this is the one. Q. Laura, there's still a lot of chat obviously about the state of the tour in Europe. What do you know about that and how things are changing, if they are? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, it's not good, is it? I mean we've not got enough tournaments to play, and I feel sorry for all the young girls that are great players that they need to play tournaments. It's not easy to get to America, play in the Symetra, try and get on the LPGA Tour. So I know everyone behind the scenes is working incredibly hard trying to get things going. We just need the backing of corporate Europe really to see the value in us, because I think we're well worth it. What the magic formula is, I don't know. I'm a golfer. I don't get involved in that side of it, and I just wish them the best because we deserve a good strong European Tour. Q. Are you worried about the Solheim Cup could impact that? DAME LAURA DAVIES: The trouble is what it will become. It's the top Europeans that play on the LPGA against the top Americans of the LPGA and that would be a shame. People like Georgia, she came three rapidly like she did, and Charley, but they were European Tour players, and they jumped on to the world stage early and it would be nice to give one of the other Scandinavians, Spanish, German girls to get on the Solheim Cup team, because that's a learning experience the first year on the Solheim Cup. Q. Laura, just a couple of followups from other questions actually. On the back of Randall about the LPGA Hall of Fame, they obviously have this qualifying criteria that revolves around points? Do you like that system that they use? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Oh, I love it. Anything you vote on I'm not a big fan of. It's judges. I lose interest in that quickly. But LPGA Hall of Fame is the hardest Hall of Fame, I think, probably to get in because it's completely performance related. 27 points is the magic number, and if you don't get it, you're not in the Hall of Fame, and that's fair enough. I like that. Q. And speaking of Solheim Cup, is the captaincy something that would be on your radar some day in the future? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. Q. Never? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. Q. Why is that? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Oh, looking after 12 players and you've gotta go and get them bananas and towels, it's too much for me. They lose -- Solheim Cup players lose the ability to function for one week every two years, and it would drive me insane to be asked to go and get bananas on the third green. I couldn't handle it. I'm not interested. I don't want to do it. I love watching it. I love being part of the TV coverage of it, and I'm European fan, and I'll have my crack at it. I've played in my 12, and I'd love to try and get in another one, but at the moment it's hard to get points because we've not got that many European events. It's just the greatest event in women's golf. I love it. Q. I'm guessing you've never used a green reading book in your life, and I just wondered what you thought about the decision yesterday to limit them. Should they be banned altogether? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Banned. How they were ever allowed in in the first place, I have no idea. I don't understand all the lines, arrows going this way and that way. I don't understand it. Q. I'm sure it doesn't speed up play either, does it? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. That's the problem, isn't it? People are lining up, and folks and standing looking. Just get a feel. I don't understand it. I've never been a huge gadget person. You can't get near a hole nowadays with that many gadgets out there. Q. A question about Charley Hull. What do you like about her game most and then what do you think she needs to just get to that next elite level to maybe do what you've done, win majors and be a top player? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I mean she's definitely got the game for it. I don't quite know -- when she won the tour championship, I thought that's it; Charley is going to go mad next year. That was two years ago. I thought last year would have been a really good year for her. I mean she's solid. She's always out there. She doesn't miss many cuts. What's it's going to take to get her to that next level of consistently winning like Ariya Jutanugarn, a winner like that, repeated. I don't know when she in the last three or four years, it's been a lot. I think Charley has got that sort of game where she could do that. Now she needs to find that magic ingredient. I don't know what it is, but obviously she's working very hard to do that. Q. Just a followup to the question about the schedule. What would be an acceptable schedule next year for the LET compared to what we've got just now? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Anything better than this year. Just moving forward. You're be not going to get an immediate 25 tournaments. It's like the Spanish Federation and the Swedish, not to have the Swedish Open I don't understand that. They've had so many great players over the years, and we don't -- we had a really good Swedish event, but the prize money wasn't good enough. Players weren't going because the prize money was too low. But how we don't have tournaments in most countries I've got no idea. If we got 15 really good European events -- and I'm not talking 200,000 Euros events, because no one is making any money on 200,000. It would have to be 4, 5, 600,000 now because things are expensive on tour. Q. If the Solheim Cup were held on British soil or held in England -- DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah. Like it's never been done before. Q. Correct. Would you entertain the captain then? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, that's not easy because I've never understood how it's never been in English considering English is represented probably equally with the Swedes. I don't know the actual numbers for that. But the fact we've never played on one of the great British English courses is incredible to me. Q. So you may be captain if that were the case? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Oh, I'm not saying that. (Laughs). Q. They still want bananas? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, the still want bananas and towels and things. Q. And which course would you like to host it on then? DAME LAURA DAVIES: Well, there's so many. Wentworth, Sunningdale. If you wanted to go down in London, you've Birkdale would be a great venue for it as long as it was early enough in the year. I mean the list goes on. Berkshire Golf Course. Walton Heath. The list is endless. But it's never happened. Q. But not preferably a links one? DAME LAURA DAVIES: No. I mean I think links would be great for a Solheim Cup, but again, it's in the end of September, middle to end of September and you could end up with ridiculous conditions and you don't want that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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