U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 24, 2005

Angela Stanford

Q. Tell us how you feel about the round overall.

ANGELA STANFORD: I am happy to finish right now. I think the delay, the weather delay, hurt my concentration a little bit. I think you get in a rhythm out there where you are so focused and you are focused on every shot, then I think I made the mistake of maybe letting down a little bit in the delay, not knowing how long we were going to be here.

You don't want to stay focused and then be focused for like an extra hour, but I let down and I got back out there and just wasn't all there. I really kind of struggled.

Q. What hole were you on when the delay came into effect?

ANGELA STANFORD: We were on 3, tee.

Q. Did you come into clubhouse or did you stay out there in a van?

ANGELA STANFORD: We walked into the clubhouse.

Q. Let's go over your card. No. 1, the bogey.

ANGELA STANFORD: That's just the tee shot just kind of trickled into the tall stuff, the rough. Hit it up into some more rough, chipped it up, didn't make the putt.

Q. No. 4, bogey.

ANGELA STANFORD: Hit a good tee shot and miss-hit the second shot, hit it in the bunker, didn't get up-and-down.

Q. No. 6, bogey.

ANGELA STANFORD: Three-putt. Just lack of focus and concentration, just banged it past the hole and didn't make it coming back.

Q. No. 15, the bogey.

ANGELA STANFORD: Kind of a three-putt. I was just on the fringe, past the flag and just hit that putt too hard. I knew it was going to be fast by the hole, but just hit it too hard. Actually thought I was going to make that next putt coming back.

Q. 17, the birdie.

ANGELA STANFORD: That was, like, I think, like a 30-footer. And I got over it and thought, man, I have had these 20- and 30-footers all day, and just reminded myself that, you know, I am a great putter and it's going to go in, and good thing it hit the hole because it probably would have gone in the water.

Q. Annika is not taking this thing over like a lot of people thought she would. At the same time, players like yourself are not taking it away from her, is that frustrating that you guys are still letting her hang around a little bit?

ANGELA STANFORD: Well, we don't mean to do it on purpose. It's just a tough golf course and I think if you are at plus 3, plus 4 right now, you still have a chance. I don't think I have ever seen it where it's really been two people under par at the cut. It's just the golf course that you can't relax, I mean, it's just tough out there.

She's probably playing extremely well. You just miss-hit a couple of shots out there, you are going to pay for it.

Q. Can you expand little bit more on 17. Seems like the way you made birdie was about the only way you could make it today.

ANGELA STANFORD: Yeah, where that pin placement was, it's been hard for me to gauge like an 85-yard shot or 90-yard shot with the altitude. And so at that moment I was thinking middle of the green, put it back at it. I just hit it too far and just good putt.

Q. Seemed like everybody was guarding against --

ANGELA STANFORD: Yeah.

Q. Is that pretty much the only option?

ANGELA STANFORD: It goes along with the golf course. You don't want a forced error. If you can hit it, and I told my caddie at the beginning of the week, I haven't seen a middle of the green yet that I haven't liked. So you don't want to put yourself in a bad spot. If you get too cute there and you knock it in the water you are just -- that's a forced error.

Q. Do you think come Sunday that they will stick with that really difficult pin placement on 17 or do you think they will put it somewhere where maybe they want to see some birdie attempts on 17?

ANGELA STANFORD: Maybe tomorrow. Sunday, I think it will be tough. But that hole doesn't need any help (laughs). It is tough.

Q. You got the lead coming in today. 3-over today. Are you still feeling pretty good?

ANGELA STANFORD: Oh, yeah. Again, the way I feel about my putting right now, I think many can go down the stretch, I was just happy to get it in, just mentally this course wears on you, and I have tried to get as much rest as I could this week and just the delay, and so I am just happy to be at 1.

I am going to go home, rest up and come back tomorrow.

Q. How much will you draw on the win in '03 being in contention again this weekend?

ANGELA STANFORD: I think just the whole being in the moment, staying in the moment, I struggled with it a little bit today, but I am going to draw from that quite a bit just with the one shot at a time, stay in the moment, just play each shot.

Q. You pretty much did almost everything you needed to do to win. You know you can hold up under pressure?

ANGELA STANFORD: Yeah, it's just golf. There's nothing I could have done at the time to stop Hilary from winning. I made her make the putt on the 90th hole. So, you know, everybody has talked about Annika, well there's nothing we can do to stop her. It's not like basketball or softball or anything else.

So I am just going to come out and do my very best and unfortunately in golf you never know if it's good enough (laughs).

Q. You talked about this being mentally draining. Is it the golf course? Is it the fact that it's the U.S. Open or combination of the two?

ANGELA STANFORD: I think it's a combination of the two. For me, personally, the U.S. Open has always been the biggest tournament of -- Solheim is I think different from individual play, so this is always been the biggest tournament for me. It's our national championship. So that, along with the fact that I think this is one of the toughest Open courses I have seen just strategically, where you have to place your ball and sometimes in Opens you can just drill it down the middle of the fairway and, you know, if you hit it into the rough you have got a shot to get it out.

I think it's probably 70% golf course, 30% Open.

Q. Do you like it?

ANGELA STANFORD: I love it. That's the way it should be.

End of FastScripts.