U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 3, 2003

Angela Stanford

Q. (Inaudible.)

ANGELA STANFORD: I know it's not over yet. Good start though. I was trying to remember my starts in the past and I guess they have been so bad I don't remember them. But I think that's the best one.

Q. I think you had one putts on six of the last nine greens. That was good scrambling.

ANGELA STANFORD: I think good chipping. I didn't think I was hitting the ball that far off line. So I don't think they were difficult chips. The chip on 12 was probably the hardest of the day. And that was just I had a good -- a bunch of three and four footers that didn't have much break right at the hole.

Q. When you saw the scores at 1-under with the lead, were you kind of apprehensive, thinking, I'm playing in the afternoon and it's going to be tough?

ANGELA STANFORD: Well, I know it's the Open and it's going to be tough. Actually, sometimes you think, okay, good, nobody's running away. I know it's going to be tough, but mentally I'm ready for that. I know it's going to be tough so I'm going to go out there and I'm going to be patient because I know 1-under's leading, so nobody's burning it up. So I'm just going to be patient.

Q. Obviously earlier in the week, having won and going through the traveling that you went through, did you get the rest you needed and did you feel good and comfortable?

ANGELA STANFORD: I think so. I had a good nap one afternoon and had a good night's sleep last night. So I think that's a mistake I've also made in the past is that I come to Opens and spend a lot of time on the driving range or putting green and I think that the thing that I've learned is that everything should be okay, like it shouldn't change that much in four days. So why don't I just go get some sleep. And so that was key, the sleep.

Q. How long does the high of winning last?

ANGELA STANFORD: Well unfortunately I've had to kind of compress it a little bit and put it on hold. But it helped today. It helped quite a bit because I was more patient. And I knew, okay, all have I to do is hit my spots. I tried to do the same exact thing I did Sunday in that final round. And it really helped. My confidence was up. When I got into a little bit of trouble, I didn't freak out, whereas in the past at Opens or any golf tournament I would just completely freak out. And so the high helped today.

Q. So now you can remember what you did in a final round. So it was kind of a blur to you?

ANGELA STANFORD: Exactly. I got to watch a little bit of it yesterday, so I'm kind of starting to remember just hitting the middle of the green and making good two putts and not making it so hard. And that's kind of what I took into today; just make it easy.

Q. What do you make of the leaderboard that's kind of emerging today? We have got amateurs up there and we have got a lot of people that we even haven't heard of as much.

ANGELA STANFORD: That's two things. It's a great thing about golf and it's the great thing about Opens. I like the movie Tin Cup because it's classic. It's an Open field. Anybody that plays gets through the local qualifier, the sectional qualifier and they play here, they have a shot, just like anybody else. Because this game is just like that. And I think it's a lot of fun. Some people would say, oh well, the top names aren't on the leaderboard. Well, yet. They might not be there yet. So I think it's fun.

Q. What was the best part of the round today?

ANGELA STANFORD: Probably the birdie on 10 and 11. I had just bogeyed -- it was actually a good bogey. And when I birdied -- I bogeyed 9, I got up-and-down to bogey 9, to birdie 10 and then 11 and get up-and-down like I did on 12, I think those four holes, like I said, in the past I would either lose it or I would get to the two birdies and think and get way ahead of myself. So I stayed very much in the moment, in the present today.

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