U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

May 29, 1996

Cathy Gerring

CATHY GERRING: '92.

CATHY GERRING: Thank you.

CATHY GERRING: The Open has always been the most special tournament to me to play in, and I think throughout my whole struggle to come back, I always thought that this would be a tournament, for two reasons, that I would love to play in again. First of all, it's the Open, and to me it's the championship that we play for all year. But secondly, because I won the three times on our tour, you're given I think a six-year exemption with that. So when I got burned in '92, I still had five years of that exemption remaining. And when you come back, you come back with that same status. However, coming to the Open, I was going to have to prove that I belonged, that I deserved to be here, and so I went through the qualifying and was fortunate to get through. So I think that makes this all the more special, because I can go back out on the tour and play based on what I performed prior to my accident. This accomplishment has happened since I got burned, and I've been able to come back and play and at least feel like I've earned my spot here and not like just a regular tour event.

CATHY GERRING: No. Come on, you live in Cleveland, which is just up the road, you know how bad the weather has been. It's been awful. In fact, I called Jim this morning at Muirfield, I guess that's another good reason to be here is my husband is the head pro at Muirfield Village, which is where The Memorial is this week, and it's always a tough week for me, or has been the last two or three years, because the questions are endless: Are you ever going to try again? When are you going to play again? And not only am I not there to get those questions, but I'm playing a tournament. But I do wish them good weather. But, anyway, I called Jim this morning, and Muirfield is closed, they had inches of rain last night and the golf course was closed when I called. So it has been an absolutely horrible, horrible spring. I have a child in school now, Zachary is almost 8, so I've really been limited on trying to -- normally I would have just gotten out of there and gone somewhere else and practiced, but with him in school, I sort of took my chances. I think I've played, since the Sprint, I played practice rounds for the Open qualifier, so I played three rounds then, and then I've played two other 18-hole rounds before coming here.

CATHY GERRING: Well, I think I really probably felt more pressure than I've ever felt for one single day or one round of golf at that Open qualifier for several reasons. And the biggest of which is that I really, really wanted to play in this tournament. Pine Needles is a place that a lot of people talk about as being very, very special. Ms. Bell, being who she is, and that this is her place, I just really wanted very, very badly to qualify for this tournament. I've probably made the mistake of not setting any goal for this week because I really don't know what a realistic goal would be. It's really a very difficult position to be in. I've never gone this long without playing competitive golf. And as I said down there, it's not like being a rookie again, because when I was a rookie, I had just come out of college golf and been playing and never had -- I did not -- literally did not play golf for three years; I was not able to put two hands on the club and swing it for 18 holes. So it's a tough, tough sport to stay away from for that long. And I think if there's something that's missing in my game, it's that lack of competition, not having been there, not having had those feelings of competition, those are the feelings that I've missed and the reason that I've come back. I really don't know what to expect.

CATHY GERRING: What am I going to play? I'm going to play -- I'm basically going to play the ones that are close to home. When they asked me, at the Sprint, what my schedule was, I said, well, I haven't seen Zachary's baseball schedule yet, so I can't make my own schedule up yet. But I have seen that now and I'm going to play East Lancing next week. I'm going to play Toledo, Rochester and Dayton.

CATHY GERRING: Well, I need to play -- that just made me feel like I belonged at this tournament. And even though you often hear that the Opens are typically weaker fields because there is a qualifying and there's not as many players that are exempt, I can't think, with the exception of one player, Amy Alcott, not being here. But with that exception, I can't think of one player on our tour that should be here that isn't here playing. So in that respect it's a great field. I'm not going to come back out here and shoot 74's and 75's and walk away and say I'm happy with that. And I'm not going to come back out here to play just to satisfy this need to compete for myself. If I don't feel like at some point I can feel competitive and can get myself to a point where I can compete to win golf tournaments, then I'm not going to stay out here.

CATHY GERRING: Technical in that I don't hit the ball nearly as far as I used to, so it's really hard for me playing with my buddies out there. Well, Juli Inkster, my best friend out here, playing with her, and knowing that when we last played practice rounds together in '92, that we were hitting the same club on par 3's and so forth. And now the pride factor of having to say what are you hitting, Juli, and me having to take one or two more clubs, that's been hard to stomach, just because I felt like that was one of the strongest parts of my game was my length, that I could beat golf courses with length. And I don't have that anymore. And I never had a great short game. It was good enough to get by, but it was never one that could save me. But my biggest problem with my hands, I think we talked about this, is that I lost 6, 7 layers on both hands, of skin, and in one of those layers of skin is your sweat glands. So I lost all the sweat glands in both hands, so I don't have anywhere, when it gets hot, for the fluid to escape or whatever, so they swell really, really bad in hot weather. Maybe somebody is helping me out this week in keeping it cool. And when it's really cold is the only time my hands really hurt. So, George, if you see me withdraw from a tournament this year, it will be because it's too cold and I can't play.

CATHY GERRING: I think I've lost 20 to 25 yards.

CATHY GERRING: I don't have the speed -- I don't have the strength to generate the speed. At least that would be my opinion, maybe there's another reason. But I'm even considering going to a different ball to be able to hit it further.

CATHY GERRING: Well, I think I'm going to give myself time to improve. Because our spring was so bad, I don't know that I've been able to prepare myself properly this year. But I would say by the end of next year and maybe the following year. In the back of my head the Solheim Cup is at Muirfield in '98, which is really a very special event for me because I got to play in the very first one for the American side. I think I'd like to make it through that year and just see if I have any progress towards winning golf tournaments again. And if I don't, then, I don't know, I had four years to try to find something else to do and I couldn't find it, so I don't know what four more years is going to do for me. But at least I'm out here. I never, ever envisioned myself doing anything but playing golf. That was my whole life was -- my dad was a golf pro, I married a golf pro, and I just really never thought I would do anything else. I really don't -- I don't know that I'm cut out to be a teacher, but I'd love to be able to make it again out here and have some type of success. It's just too much fun.

CATHY GERRING: Yes, I did. I had another little boy and they're great fun. But I said oftentimes that that's what made my life so great, was that I could have this -- I could have a career and a family and just felt like I was on top of the world. There wasn't anything that I was lacking that I wanted, other than what I had. I think, too, one really hard thing for me is that I think every athlete fears getting hurt or having some type of career-ending injury. And I guess with golfers you pretty much always think of your back or something like that. But I never thought that I would get burned. I still, to this day -- I still can't believe it. Sometimes I just say I can't believe that that's how things ended for me four years ago. I don't know that people that see me now can even -- you just don't think -- they don't understand how bad it really was. My mom had asked me to bring these pictures that someone had taken four days after the accident, and I got those out and I looked at them and you could not believe it, if you saw them. It was pretty unbelievable. And I think if you saw those pictures you'd look at them and say this person is never, ever going to play golf again. But your body is a wonderful thing, and it heals. Fortunately mine healed well enough that I was able to come back.