THE SOLHEIM CUP

September 18, 1998

Laura Davies

Charlotta Sorenstam

TIM McNULTY: This morning Laura Davies and Trish Johnson and lost to Dottie Pepper 3, 1. This afternoon in the first match, Laura played about Charlotta Sorenstam and they halved with Betsy King and Chris Johnson. Any questions?

LAURA DAVIES: No more important than any of the other matches today. You try your best. Off to a horrible start. Gave 3 holes away in the first 5 holes, which is never good in stroke-play, in foursomes stroke-play. You know, it was a bit of a struggle after that. I felt we really came back well and I thought -- when we stood on the 16th tee, I must admit I really fancied getting, at worst, a half out of it. Trish shot it. It was about 20 feet, just on the edge. But Juli stepped up like a great player and Dottie holed the putt. That's what great players do. You give them too much of a lead, they'll take you apart. 3 and 1 was a pretty comfortable beating.

LAURA DAVIES: Very pleased, yeah. Charlotta, obviously her first SOLHEIM CUP experience, and she played like a veteran, played very well. Held us together at the end. Both hit a really good shot at 16, but Charlotta had the longer putt, but very importantly, she made it. That's really strong play and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think personally -- gosh, I haven't really spoken to Charlotta about it -- I was very disappointed we didn't win the match because I never, ever expected we would lose it. Certainly, a 1/2 was the worst we were ever going to do. I thought -- it was just one of those things. The 11th was a big turning point, I thought.

CHARLOTTA SORENSTAM: I played a little better than I expected. I didn't make as much putts as I wanted. I felt really comfortable out playing with Laura and being on the golf course. It was nice. I played pretty good, but this is a little better than I thought. I didn't miss that many shots at all.

CHARLOTTA SORENSTAM: I think both my driving and the iron shots.

LAURA DAVIES: I felt like we lost today, we lost by 3 points today. We have to win by 3 points tomorrow and that's our goal, I think. Even if we only get 2 points back tomorrow, it's still not a disaster. You keep going on as long as they don't reach 14-and-a-half points, you'll always have a chance -- in fact, 14 points is good enough for them. When they reach 14 points, then I'll give up. But until that point, if we're down in every match, we'll never give up. Pia told us whatever you do, if you're 4-down, try to get 3-down, if you're 3-up, try to get to 4-up. Never be satisfied with the position and, you never know, something good might happen. Today nothing good happened for any of us, really. I don't think any match, really, that was in the balance turned out for us. It was disappointing, but Saturday, last time, the chips went our way.

LAURA DAVIES: I hope so. We're all professionals. We all want to play, want to try and put points on the board with a team. Especially playing twice today and only getting half a point. That's a horrible start. If the captain doesn't feel I should or doesn't think I'm play well -- personally, I think I am and I'm hoping I'll get two goes at it.

LAURA DAVIES: Very similar. Very similar. The greens are very firm. I think the thing that surprised me so much in practice we were all sitting in the bunkers hitting millions of shots. It seemed easy, doesn't really matter. Today, if you run in the bunker, you almost certainly won't get up-and-down because they're very, very clever bunkers. Obviously, you're getting the ones nearest to the finish, if you miss a shot, it's going to be the closest bunker and then you have absolutely no shot at all and I think Trish and I, this morning, is the reason we lost the game is because she hit a few good shots into the holes and they went into these bunkers and we lost the holes with bogies. This afternoon, a little bit the same. But the course was quick, the greens very firm. We played front yardage, really. But the way Jack has designed the course is very fair because there is always an angle to come in at it from.

LAURA DAVIES: It was good. I enjoyed it. One time I stepped out of line a little on No. 9 tee. We just start of tried to get back into the match. I walked up to 9th tee and we had the honor and I just hit. I didn't realize they were still putting. The only thing I really did wrong today, aside from missing about 50 putts.

LAURA DAVIES: I just said sorry to them. It's a little bit -- not unsporting, but it's a little bit bad manners, I suppose, to hit before they get to the tee. It was just a pure mistake and Trish and I were thinking, we just got from 4-down to 3- and let's just get back to 2-down at the turn. As it turns out, we didn't miss anything because I pulled it into the rough, anyway, and we lost the hole. It didn't really matter. (Laughs).

LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I just said, I think -- anyone that -- I know the first time I played in the first SOLHEIM CUP, it was very nerve-racking. I know these Swedes are very cool, but I imagine even Charlotta was feeling pressure on that first tee. Boom, she came on down the middle and had a good shot in. Unfortunately, it went down the bunker in the back. But she started out very well and played very well right through the 18th to get us that half. All day long played solid -- not enough putts and if Charlotta had holed a few more, we'd have definitely won. That's how she played all day. Very solid.

CHARLOTTA SORENSTAM: I wasn't really as nervous as Laura thought I was. It was really a great feeling just being out there and hearing the crowds and playing match-play. I really enjoyed it, just felt great and I think it showed in my game, too.

LAURA DAVIES: I mean, you're playing for the European flag. Simple as that. There's nothing -- I mean, we're English, Swedes, loads of different nationalities. It's certainly no problem. We're not just playing for England. The European -- the flag will do us very nicely, to be honest with you.

LAURA DAVIES: No. (Laughs). A golf European, I am. All that other stuff -- I'm a golfer, I don't know anything about anything else. I just know when golfers get together, we have fun. That's all I know.

CHARLOTTA SORENSTAM: We know what the sign looks like.

LAURA DAVIES: We had it in the quiz last night. Pia tested us. Only Lotta knew it. She's the only one who got it right.

LAURA DAVIES: Guess. Think about it logically.

Annika. Who do you think? (Laughs).

LAURA DAVIES: It was very nice, really, wasn't it? It was a hat and a shirt and one of those things we were hitting out on the range, balloon thingies. We were all very pleased with them. I didn't take part in half of the competition, so I wrote myself out. Me and Lotta, we were teammates and we pretty much destroyed our chances by not turning up for everything. (Laughs).

TIM MCNULTY: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. These ladies have to get to a team meeting. Thanks, Charlotta and Laura.