THE SOLHEIM CUP

September 11, 2003

Laura Davies

MARTIN PARK: Laura, thank you very much for coming in. The course is quite lovely today, isn't it?

LAURA DAVIES: Hopefully that's how it will play the rest of the week. Obviously yesterday it was quite surprising how quickly the golf course filled up. Probably a hole and a half of it coming down, the fairways had gone and the greens were pretty wet, too. I think the weather forecast for the rest of the week and the greens are rolling absolutely superb. You can't say anything against the course. It's perfect.

MARTIN PARK: Straight out to questions.

Q. Why do I sense that you love this event?

LAURA DAVIES: It's just a team environment, bit of fun, the captains, the vice captains. Everybody for one goal. It's just so much more energy than just playing for yourself. You're always on your own, of course you've got your caddy with you. It's just more fun. It's strange that it's come around so quickly, just the year. I think it's been a two year gap, obviously for the reason we changed it for this one. It just seems the other day it was Interlachen and here we are now ready to go again. It's still the same feeling. Same excitement. The beginning of the week is quite a lot of work for us because there's quite a bit of photos, dinners and this and that. This time now we really start to enjoy it because we've got the opening ceremony and that's really exciting itself. That's when you know you're raising the flag and you're about to go.

Q. How's your captain doing?

LAURA DAVIES: I can't believe she's still doing what she's doing. Because we know how much pain she's in. She seems to be saying, "It's okay, it's okay". I'm just hoping she's not going to regret it. The doctors are obviously telling her what she can and can't do. She's obviously brilliant. They've even remodeled a golf cart for her. We can't say enough about her. Obviously it means a lot to her being in Sweden. The whole thing is such a shame, because she's obviously been looking forward to it a long time.

Q. (Inaudible)?

LAURA DAVIES: She got stung on the airline by a bee. Her mother was taken ill. There seems to be a history of problems with captains. Hopefully it will stop after this year.

Q. What do you say, Laura, is the strength of each team?

LAURA DAVIES: I think overall consistency of the American team. They're very strong. You can throw a blanket over all twelve. They're very good, strong players. We have individual bits of really, not genius, but really exciting golf and then some really steady players as well. We've got a bit more of a mixture.

Q. Your own game?

LAURA DAVIES: I played well. Driving it really well. I haven't holed any putts the first two rounds that we've played, but hopefully I'm saving them. Because that's the key. That's what's going to give you a match this week if you can hole putts at the right time. And hopefully our team is going to do that. Personally I think I'm playing as well as I've played for many years. I'm really looking forward to it.

Q. Could you describe the pace of the greens? Quick?

LAURA DAVIES: They're quick, yeah. I think they said 10 and a half to 11, which is going to be outstanding. They're not overly quick, but they're good to pitch into. You can stop the ball. Some of the holes downwind you're not going to be able to stop the ball. Like I said before I can't speak highly enough about the condition.

Q. How do you rate this team?

LAURA DAVIES: I think it probably is, yes. There's obviously a few players that could have been in, but we've now got the 20 top players that are playing Solheim Cup golf. The years gone by we had twelve, we didn't always get those twelve in the team because of the selection process that we have. This year, yeah, it's as strong as it could be, I think.

Q. How do you rank win Solheim Cup comparing to an individual title?

LAURA DAVIES: Oh, it's above that. No question about it. You'd have to win -- to win the Solheim Cup, you'd have to have at least a major and three or four other wins in a year to make it the same feeling of winning a Solheim Cup. I think all the players feel the same. I can't speak for them. But I just know the excitement on Sunday when you've won it. When you finish second in a tournament, you're disappointed if you had a chance to win, but you go, "Oh, well, there's one next week". With the Solheim Cup you lose. You really feel like a loser, and there's nothing worse than that.

Q. The bookies have Europe as favorites.

LAURA DAVIES: I wouldn't disagree with that. I think the teams are dead -- you can toss a coin up to be honest with you. I think the home town advantage is going to be the difference between the two teams because mentally the noise that's going to be coming for us, they have to try and quiet the crowds down. If they can't do that, they'll struggle. We did that in Interlachen. Every time you had a cheer it really took it out of you. You were more thinking about what was happening on the course than you were about your own game.

Q. Would you place a bet on Europe then?

LAURA DAVIES: If I was going to bet on it, it would be no question.

Q. Do you rate your Solheim Cup victories as the high points of your career?

LAURA DAVIES: Those two wins were the most enjoyable moments of my career. The most enjoyable Solheim Cup was the one at Loch Lomond because the crowd there is the closest I'll ever get to playing in England by the looks of it. It's just the way the galleries work. It was just fantastic. Although we lost that one, that was hard to take because we all had such a great week and then all of a sudden we blew it on Sunday. Plus the two wins is the three greatest weeks of my golfing career.

Q. And the low points as well, when you lost the important matches?

LAURA DAVIES: Well, the worst feeling probably was probably last year at Interlachen, because I must admit I thought -- not I think we'd done enough, but I thought that by Saturday afternoon, I just thought we were playing so well -- I certainly wasn't taking it lightly myself, but I did think we had done enough to win. But that was pretty hard Sunday afternoon shaking hands with all the Americans and saying, "Well done" when I thought we really should have done it. That was a bit of a blow.

Q. Laura, is there a strategy then do you think for Sunday's play? Or should there be a strategy?

LAURA DAVIES: If I was the captain, I'd go strong from the top. I'd lead off with Annika and then shuffle the package as you see fit and how people are playing because points on the board mean everything. It was proved at the Ryder Cup last year and by the Americans getting so many red numbers on the board at Interlachen. It makes such a difference.

Q. What about getting there, because it does, as you say we get there, we let it go. What about the first two days leading up to the third day? What about strategies during that?

LAURA DAVIES: I always say, I always think we should take a lead into the singles, because I think we're better at four balls. In theory we shouldn't be better at four ball. We seem to be better when there's the two of us. Whether we get on and inspire each other, I don't know. I'd say we're well up on the foursomes and four balls. I think we will be again. It's just whether we can do the business on Sunday in the singles. Only time will tell, but I'm very confident of it.

Q. How have the players been affected by what happened with the Swedish Foreign Minister?

LAURA DAVIES: I know a lot of the Swedish girls are pretty upset by it. carin Koch and her husband and Catriona were talking about it. I think they're pretty shocked by the whole thing. Obviously the rest of us don't know too much about Swedish politics, but we can see by their reaction this was quite obviously a tragic event. They were upset without a doubt.

Q. Have you spoken about the safety of the players?

LAURA DAVIES: No. I don't think we ever consider ourselves at risk to anything apart from three putting is about as risky as it gets for us.

Q. You're not worried at all?

LAURA DAVIES: No, not at all. No.

Q. Are you hoping to play all the matches again?

LAURA DAVIES: I hope so. It's not a record. I particularly think it's great that I've played in every series and matches. Standing on the sidelines watching someone play, I'd be cheering them on, don't get me wrong, if I miss out on the series, I'll be out there waving the European flag with the best of them. I'd rather be swinging the clubs. That's just me. There's not a player on that team that doesn't want to play all five matches. If they don't want to play all five matches, then what do they deserve.

Q. There was a lot of talk earlier this year, the Americans going 16-17 tournaments on tour without winning. Do you think there will be some added pressure that they will see this as some kind of a proving ground?

LAURA DAVIES: No. Because it's always the Koreans that win. It was the Swedes and now it's the Koreans and Australians. You've got so many international players, the Americans -- they're still the strongest -- if you win a World Cup with twelve players against twelve English, twelve Swedes, the Americans are always going to come out on top. So they've got nothing to do to anyone. In depth they're the strongest nation. But when you throw together a European team or the rest of the world team like they do in the President's Cup, it's always going to be hard work for them. Certainly the fact that they're not winning every week on the LPGA tour, all it does is say we've got a world class field every week, not an American class field. They're all there and they're getting stronger, the foreigners are getting stronger.

Q. Obviously a lot of attention on Annika this week where we are, you had that quite some time in the Solheim. Does that affect you, the expectations?

LAURA DAVIES: Well, the thing is you know what you want to do. Annika I'm quite sure will play all five games and she will be expected to win all five points, which is how I've always looked at it. Whether she has to attain that, but she won't feel any more pressure because people also think she'll do it. She won't mind that I say she'll play all five. If she plays well, no one can beat her. She might only get two, three, four wins. But it's just the expectations of others. They don't really bother you when you're out there because you expect more of yourself than anyone else does usually.

Q. Is she now the player you always thought she would be?

LAURA DAVIES: She's by far surpassed anything that I thought was possible. Her performance at Colonial this year, if she had putted half decent, she'd have made the cut comfortably. Her ball striking that week and the pressure she was under, the whole package was as good a golf as I've ever seen. I think she proved a lot to a lot of people that she should have been there. It was great.

Q. Her affect on even though you're now with her as opposed to against her?

LAURA DAVIES: Thank you very much. I'll take Annika any day. She's great to have her as part of the team. She's not one of the most vocal players, but just her presence in a room makes everyone sit up to attention. She is a huge part of our team. There's absolutely no question.

Q. She is more a team player than she was though?

LAURA DAVIES: Oh, yeah she is. No question. She wants this -- like she did last year, after she lost at Interlachen, she went straight to the team room before we got there and after the matches were finished and she wrote 364, which is the amount of days she worked out for the exact days we'd be back ready to tee it up again. It was only 364 days rather than the two years we had to wait. The minute we lost she was working on how long it had to be before we could win it back. People who think Annika is an individual, they're wrong.

Q. That was on this big blackboard?

LAURA DAVIES: Her and David had put some tape, they got some masking tape and put it all around the room, just 364 all around the room. What's that? After a couple of seconds we clicked what they wrote about. But yeah, she takes the Solheim Cup as seriously as myself and all the other team. She hates losing though. That's the thing about her. That's what makes her so good.

Q. Laura, there's such pressure in an event like this. What is the key to producing your best golf in a Solheim?

LAURA DAVIES: You have to try and block it out because the crowds make it -- it puts the pressure on you obviously. You have to try and block it out and go back to what you know best. It sounds easy. But the basics. You've got to hole putts under pressure, just try and block everything out. I think that's the only way you can do it because if you start looking around and getting excited about it all, you're normally going to let yourself down.

Q. How would you describe the relationship between Europeans and Americans during the course of the LPGA tour season? How does it change this week?

LAURA DAVIES: Like I say every one on that team I consider a good friend. I was down in the bar having a drink with them last night at the banquet dinner before we went in. We were just laughing as normal. Once the gun goes off tomorrow morning, there won't be too much love lost, but all it is, is the event. There's nothing personal about it. It's just we want to win, they want to win. If you see something you don't like, you're going to speak up. Whereas you might not speak up during the year, you're going to see everything and hear everything. It just makes it fun. If we all went around shaking hands and patting each other on the back, it would be no fun. You need the edge. I think we'll have it.

Q. Does it take a while to recover from a loss?

LAURA DAVIES: Oh, yeah. Like I say, it's no fun. If you lose your match you've got to go to the team room and some of the team are obviously happy they've won their match. You've got to try and keep on an even keel all week whether you win or loss.

Q. Who paid for the drinks?

LAURA DAVIES: Actually I think it was Rosie Jones managed to get a couple of beers out of here. Rosie is generous.

Q. I heard a story about when you were in Sweden and playing and you lost your baggage?

LAURA DAVIES: It was actually amazing in Sweden which I consider the safest country in the world. It was stolen from the reception at the hotel and it had my passport and computer and everything in it. It was a bit of a pain at the time because I think I was off to Korea a few weeks after and I had to reget the Visa and get another passport. It was a bit of a pain. One minute it was behind me. I was checking out of the hotel. Literally two minutes later it was gone.

Q. Was it with your team --

LAURA DAVIES: It was on Sunday morning. Checking out to go to the golf course after the final round. And it was gone.

Q. Laura, is playing a men's event on the PGA Tour, does that ever occur to you? Do you want to play it now?

LAURA DAVIES: I'm actually playing in the Korean Open in about four weeks time. I'm playing -- I think John Daly is going over and a couple of other guys. They've asked me about two months ago if I'd like to play in it, the men's Korean Open. Obviously back tees. I don't think I'd be up to playing in a PGA Tour event in America like Annika did, just purely because at the moment if I can't beat players on the LPGA -- Annika dominates the rest of us, so she can go up a level. But playing in a -- I'm not saying the Korean Open is low key, but the media coverage will be nothing compared to what Annika had. So I think I can be quite relaxed and play in it. To do what she did, you've got to show a lot of -- you have to be totally confident in yourself to do that.

Q. Have you always wanted to do it again after that other experience?

LAURA DAVIES: I enjoyed it. I played in four men's events off the back tee and I enjoyed it. You have to hit driver, whereas in the LPGA and the European tour, you don't have to hit driver. It's fun to get back there on the back tees and suggest yourself. I'm not suggesting I'll go out there and win the

orean Open, but I'm hoping to make the cut and certainly not make a fool of myself. I've been playing really well. I'll be going out there with some expectations. Essentially not to win. That will be silly.

Q. You haven't done this since the other event then?

LAURA DAVIES: The Johnny Walker thing about four or five years ago I think that was. I wasn't playing particularly well when that happened, unfortunately. Now I'm playing pretty good stuff. So it will be interesting.

Q. Who else is playing in the Korean Open? What makes you think we're not going?

LAURA DAVIES: I guaranty you're not going. I bet you any money you like I don't see any of you there. All I know was John Daly and all the top Koreans and probably a few of the Japanese will be there. From what I can understand it's a pretty strong field.

Q. Laura, don't you think that you're quite vulnerable, you and Annika? Would you like to see yourself or Annika given sort of five weeks in a row on a men's tour so you can really have a chance to show what you can do?

LAURA DAVIES: It's just novelty value really. I think what Annika was doing was brilliant. If you said to Annika, play five tournaments or ten or a spread of six tournaments in maybe in groups of 2, 3 or 4, I think Annika would prove to be a pretty useful player. She didn't putt well and that cost her a chance of making the cut. As for myself. I'm not going to play 10 tournaments on the men's tour, because I haven't won in 35 tournaments on the LPGA.

Q. In your hey day?

LAURA DAVIES: Between '94 and '96 when I was winning one in three tournaments, yeah, if someone had said do you want to come and play a PGA tour event then, I'd have been in the same frame of mind as Annika is now and I would have said, yeah, that would be fun and off you go. You're just stepping up a level and it would be interesting to see what happens. Potentially I'm not -- I wouldn't even contemplate it being -- unless it was something like the skins game. I think Annika is doing the skins game. That would be good fun.

Q. If you did give Annika these 10 in a row or 10 tournaments, would she be making cuts?

LAURA DAVIES: Yes. Definitely.

Q. How many out of 10 would she make?

LAURA DAVIES: I don't know because who knows how she progresses. The course she played presumably was a short course, but I didn't see that, because it was over 7,000 yards. It was par 70. So that to me seems like a very long course. Everyone said she's chosen well. Who knows, she might make two or three cuts towards the end. It's an impossible question. Personally I think she'd make some money.

Q. Would you like to see her do it?

LAURA DAVIES: She doesn't want to do it, so no. If she's not up for it -- she's still got things she wants to do on the LPGA tour. She wants to win more majors, she probably wants to win probably ten more money lists. If she did do it, it would be a shame for the tour. She's our number one player. The standard is getting better because of that. It's like what Tiger did for the guys. They're much better than they were three years ago just because they had to be, because they were being dominated by one person. Annika has only won three or four times this year. So already people are getting a little bit closer.

Q. What do you see, Laura, as the difference between what you did five years ago, what Annika did this year and Michelle Wie playing on the Nationwide next week and I presume she'll be playing at the Sony Open on the PGA tour early next year.

LAURA DAVIES: Michelle Wie is a different kettle of fish altogether. She hits it 300 yards. She's still so young. She's so fearless. She's got nothing riding on it at all. By then we'll presume she'll be 14. It's a completely different thing with her. When she's 20-21, I've heard all these other things she wants to play after the tour. Who knows in that time that might be the norm because the way she hits it is no different than some of the guys. It's incredible.

Q. Do you like the idea she's doing this at such a young age?

LAURA DAVIES: I would think she's having fun. Why not? She's having fun. She's young. I think she's playing with

ohn Daly and Nancy Lopez and some -- if people would come to me with ideas to do things, I'll always say yes, because why wouldn't you do it?

Q. I guess the question is would there be a difference of beating the crap out of everyone, pardon my language, out of everyone you're playing at your age and getting used to winning as opposed to challenging yourself at such a high level that you're used to struggling to make the cut or attaining that? Could it be a mental difference. Annika has proven what --

LAURA DAVIES: She's obviously the best 13-year old that's ever lived. There's no question about that. But whether she will be the best 18-year old, by the time she's 18 she might have played so much golf, who knows. It will be hard because I've seen a lot of really top amateurs that I grew up with that were so good early they sort of peaked. Only time will tell with her. I think she'll do what Tiger did. I think she'll come out and immediately win and be a great success. Whether she'll do well on the men's tour, I have no idea.

Q. Did you initiate the Korean Open as well?

LAURA DAVIES: Did I? No. Someone came to me and said, "Do you want to play in the Korean Open?" I thought they meant the women's Korean Open. Then I realized a couple of minutes later, when they said John Daly is playing, I figured he wasn't going to put a frock on. I figured out what it was. Like I said, any ideas for different golf tournaments to help raise the profile for the women's game. The women's game is getting better because of Annika. It all helps what Michelle Wie is doing. Aree Song just turned pro. It helps the younger players coming out.

Q. You have no second thoughts?

LAURA DAVIES: No. The only question about it is the Samsung, the World Championship, it's going on in San Francisco. I had to win last week to qualify. It would have been four weeks ago that they mentioned it. There was no hesitation at all.

Q. Although this tournament is obviously big now and despite everything you've done, the press coverage of this event in the UK, both the golfing and nongolfing press in the last few weeks has been poorly. You still don't get the credit even close to being the credit as newsworthy as the Ryder Cup. In your view what has got to happen with the Solheim Cup to get the credit it deserves?

LAURA DAVIES: I don't know. All we can do is play our best golf. I've not been at home. So I haven't seen any of the coverage anyway. So I don't know if it's good, better, or indifferent. As long as it's good during the week, obviously it's been good in Sweden because of the sellout crowds. I'm just here to play golf. If people want to watch it, great. And write about, that's absolutely fantastic. If they don't, what can you do? There's nothing you can do about it.

MARTIN PARK: Any more questions? Thanks, Laura.

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