U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

May 29, 1996

Laura Davies

LAURA DAVIES: I played the course yesterday and I love it. It's probably one of the best. My first was in '86 and this is the best course I think I've played out of all the years I've been playing the U.S. Open. I love the way it sets up.

LAURA DAVIES: There's no such thing as a bad U.S. Open course. But this is a great U.S. Open course. I think being as long as it is, with the great finish, really. If you're in contention, with those last five holes to go, it's going to get very exciting, you're not hitting short irons, it's all long irons into the par 4 holes.

LAURA DAVIES: I think on 14 I hit a driver and a 6-iron. 15 was playing straight downwind, and I actually hit driver, wedge. I think we're going to hit a 2-iron off the tee, and leave myself about an 8-iron in there. 16 is a par 3 and I hit a 7-iron. 17, I think I hit the wrong club, I hit 2-iron off the tee, and I'm probably going to hit a 3 wood. A 2-iron left me a 4-iron. A 3 is going to leave me a 6 or 7-iron. And on 18 I hit a huge 3 downwind, which was the right club, which left me with a 9-iron, because it does play so much downhill. That's some long clubs, and I noticed lots of them of hitting a couple of woods, and Jane hit a long iron into 17. You know, it's playing long.

LAURA DAVIES: No. 1 I hit driver and 3-iron from the rough, which was just short. I think I can get home there with about a 4-iron or 5-iron, if I can get a good drive away. And No. 10 is a long par 4, it's probably a driver and a 4-iron.

LAURA DAVIES: The thing is that it was weird, because the greens aren't quick. And we can putt on them today and yesterday and they're going to be slow, but come Friday, Saturday and Sunday, they're going to be kicking up. It's a scary sort of course. I don't think length is ever going to win you the tournament, a great short game is going to win you the tournament. It's hard to gauge. I haven't got a score in mind that might win this week. I think it's going to get tougher. It did play easy yesterday. Although it's no pressure, the fairways are pretty generous. You feel somewhere along the line they're going to make it difficult for us. If the wind goes up, over par is going to win, definitely.

LAURA DAVIES: Yes, typical U.S. Open greens. If you read them right and hit the putt on 9, they're going to go in. But if you get on the wrong side of the hole and lose confidence, you're in all kinds of trouble, even though they're slow. I have a hard time believing they're going to be at that speed during the tournament.

LAURA DAVIES: Marlene and Floyd said to me typical of this course would leave things short of the pin rather than long of the pin. Marlene knows more about golf courses than I do. I looked at that and it seemed to me she was pretty much right. If you go long, it's not going to reward flying it past the pin, you have to be sensibly under the pin. So you do need to place it.

LAURA DAVIES: It's fun, you know. This year has been a great year, it's simple as that. And last year was good, and the year before, I just keep winning, and that's what it's all about. If you can keep winning and enjoying it like I am, it's the best job in the world. It's not even a job, it's a hobby.

LAURA DAVIES: Last Sunday was different. That was a bonus event for doing as well as I had done, and as well at Beth and Dottie and Annika. We'd earned our place in that tournament. And that's a bonus week. And it's obviously a double bonus to go on and win it.

LAURA DAVIES: It's going on leaps and bounds. I think the biggest thing is the standard of play. 1988 was my first year out here, and if you wanted to make a cut you had to sort of be around 2 over, 4 over for the two days, maybe 5 over to sneak in. Once you drop the shot in the first two days you're under the pressure to make the cut. And that says it all for me. I know people say it's pressure trying to win tournaments, but the biggest pressure I've felt is trying to make the cuts. That's the huge thing. Some players that come out here, I think that's why they're good so early, because they know what they have to do. Some of us have been there 8 years. Used to be, before, everyone was good enough, and it's not anymore. And obviously to win a championship now, so many people can win them. Back in '88, '89 it was dominated by the name King, Sheehan, Lopez, Daniel, they dominated. They win their fair share now, but there's so many other people that can win.

LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, it is. You can't relax at all. You just cannot in any tournament. I don't care whether it's the U.S. Open or the Thailand Open, that, to me, is an important week. So you're immediately under pressure. You never want to miss a cut. And that's the first thing I'm thinking about, that's what I'm thinking about, is making the cut. Obviously you want to be leading, but if you aren't leading play, you can't do anything. That's the first goal of the week, and you start adjusting as you play your first two rounds as you get near enough to contention.

LAURA DAVIES: I think there's more than 2, 3 or 4. That's the trouble, there's so many that can do it. My tip for the win if I had to put some money on it, I'd go with Kelly Robbins, I think. And then I think Annika, obviously. Karrie is -- the way she started the year, she's capable of anything. There's so many players. Beth Daniel, she hit it well in the Skins game, although she didn't win anything. She's striking it as well as I've seen her hit it. You could name 20, 30 people, and you'd hate to leave any of them out.

LAURA DAVIES: It's nice to know you've won it, because you know how important the tournament is, you want to win it again. I think it does work, in a way, a little against you, although it's nice to know your name is always going to be on that list, it would be so lovely to win it again. I don't try any different, but this week somehow makes you feel like you really want to be holding that big silver trophy. When you've done it once, you've experienced it, it's fun.

LAURA DAVIES: I think it does, because you have to be able to play all the shots. They set the par 3's up where you're hitting different shots in. This week is different because the par 5's, there's only two of them and they're reachable. That's unusual. It's like they're all par 4's out there, there's a massive succession on par 4's. You can't go to sleep, even on the short ones. Once you're in the rough, I've heard a few girls say the rough is not tough, but I about broke my wrist on No. 12 yesterday, it's not long, but if you're on the wrong side of it and into where the opposite way the grass is growing, it's unbelievably tough. My goal is I'm not going to hit that many drivers, I'm just going to try to keep it in play, I'm going to sacrifice the wedges for the 7-irons in the green and keep it in the short stuff. That's the plan.

LAURA DAVIES: I hate bad weather. As it was, I get on with the job, because I'm used to it. Given the choice, I'd rather play in the sun any day. I like playing golf in nice weather like anyone else. But once the bad weather is there, you don't pack your bag, you stick in and try your hardest. Birdies don't matter, it's pars that matter.

LAURA DAVIES: Obviously it would be lovely to win majors, but winning tournaments has been my thing. I've won 43, I'd like to win 50. I might not get my 44th, but it's nice to win any tournament. People probably don't believe me, it's just as much fun winning in Thailand as the U.S. Open. Nine times out of 10 nowadays you've beaten a great standard of field, and there's nothing quite like the moment you know you've beaten them all. Luckily I've won quite a few. People make a big deal of the majors, so it's probably nicer to win them, because along with that comes more recognition, but personally a win is a win.

LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I mean sometimes you get somewhere and you've got to play a course like I'm going to try to do it this week. Last year at -- where did we play last year -- Colorado, I tried to overpower the course with my driver and got murdered. I'm not going to make that mistake on an Open course, I spent too much time in the rough, which meant I couldn't get the ball on the right place in the greens. And my putting couldn't get me out. I was never in the right spot. So this year Matthew and I have decided -- because I'm hitting my irons well, that if I hit a lot of 2-irons off the tee and keep it in that short stuff then we think that's what's going to give me the best chance. But usually you get to a golf course and the rough is not like this, so you can afford to be straying off into the rough and the trees a bit more. But here you can't do that, it just doesn't happen.

LAURA DAVIES: Adams.

LAURA DAVIES: Yes, he's been caddying for me just over two years now.

LAURA DAVIES: There was a guy, Mark Fulcher, in between, but Tony packed it in about four years ago.

LAURA DAVIES: Yes, that was again a contributing factor last year. You were guessing with clubs, it was fun with the driver, because you could hit it over 300 every time, but with the irons it was becoming a guessing game. And certainly I didn't have a good U.S. Open. I tried to be too aggressive and it didn't work out, and that was one of the reasons.

LAURA DAVIES: This week, I know I'll certainly use it off 1 and 10 and the two par 5's. And 14, definitely, because I think 14 is the best hole on the course, it's an absolutely magnificent hole. You have to hit a good long drive, because your second shot is to a well guarded green. Other than that, let's see, probably No. 2, because 2 is pretty wide Open, use a driver there.

LAURA DAVIES: No, not 15. I hit a 2-iron on 15. No, I'm not going to hit on 9, not going to hit it on 8. What's 7, is it a par 3?

LAURA DAVIES: I can't remember that hole. Maybe that one. I think I did use a driver on that, and we were going to use a driver there, as well.

LAURA DAVIES: I think they hear so much about it that they're expecting to see the ball hit a long way, I think people enjoy it. But I think they're expecting it now, because that's basically what people write about.

LAURA DAVIES: It wasn't the out-driving, that's the thing that was written about. It was the fact that I had -- if John hadn't holed that putt on 16 from 40 feet, I'd have had a 20 footer to win that Skins game. That was the fun thing, I had made enough money on the earlier holes, that I was still? Contention with the others. That was the nice thing. I had a chance to win that Skins game.

LAURA DAVIES: No, I mean there's a couple of things possibly, but nothing definite at the moment. John is going to be my partner for the J.C. Penney, which is going to be fun.