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KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP

March 31, 2007

Paula Creamer

RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA

PAM WARNER: Paula, thanks for coming in and joining us today. 1-over today but still one shot off the lead. Just talk about your day today.
PAULA CREAMER: Kind of an up-and-down round the front nine and then kind of settled down at 10. Played some good golf and gave myself a lot of looks.
Dumb bogey on last hole. Kind of wish I could go back and hit that wedge shot again. Other than that, I'm one back, and tomorrow is going to be definitely a shootout for the winner.
PAM WARNER: Can you talk more about going into tomorrow, maybe winning your first major?
PAULA CREAMER: You know, I feel good. I feel really confident about my golf game right now. I hit eight greens on the back nine. I kind of made it two little tournaments for myself, hit five on the front and eight on the back. I just wanted to give myself good looks. A lot of these pins out here, you can't shoot at and you just have to take your medicine and take what the golf course gives you. I did that a couple of times today and tried to stay in that mind frame and going into tomorrow, I know I have to do that because there will be some difficult pins out there tomorrow.
Birdie on 1, I had 112. I hit a pitching wedge to about six feet.
Birdie on 2. I went driver and then I laid up to 75 yards, hit my 58-degree to three feet.
Bogey on 3. I missed the fairway right. I hit a good shot to the front, just around the front but I didn't get up-and-down and missed about a 10-, 15-footer and didn't hit a very good chip.
Bogey on 15. Really I was in-between clubs there and I went to one extra club and I hit a little 5-iron and I kind of fanned it off to the right and I didn't get up-and-down. Didn't even have a chance to get up-and-down.
And then bogey on 8. I 3-putted. I hit it a little long, it was landing 25 feet or so and I hit it about six feet by the hole and missed it coming back.
Birdie on 11. I hit my drive through the fairway on the left and I hit a really good shot underneath the trees and I had a perfect 9-iron, about 130. I hit it to about four feet.
Then bogeyed 18. I had 205 to the front but I laid up to 77 yards, which is the perfect 58-degree wedge for me and I flew (ph) over the green and 3-putted.

Q. I think the bogey on 18 knocked you out of tomorrow's last group; is that good, bad or does it matter?
PAULA CREAMER: Well, I think it's -- I can only think of it in a positive way because there's nothing I can do about that right now.
But actually I don't mind it. I feel comfortable there. Either way it's fine. In the lead group you're with the leaders -- I'm only one off. There's going to be a lot of people in those last five groups; there's going to be a lot of people in contention. It doesn't matter to me where I'm at. Obviously I wanted to be at the top but I'm not, so I can't change that right now.

Q. You seemed annoyed at the time that it took to play the round. How did that length affect your game today?
PAULA CREAMER: It was long, it was hot, and I felt my skin frying out there. I put sunscreen on seven times today. It was long.
I tried to keep positive and keep walking, get ahead and do that. But it's the same for everybody and you're just going to have to, you know, grind it out one more day tomorrow.

Q. The conditions, did they get noticeably different from yesterday or the day before? Se Ri kind of intimated that 17 green today was a little ridiculous, I think the word she used.
PAULA CREAMER: Well, they always have the pin over there on 17, and that's just a pin you don't go for. Left half of the green is a no-no. I think the whole golf course is playing harder. The scores show it. 4-under was leading today and it's still leading today going into it.
They are getting firm. They are drying out, but the fairways -- the golf course is playing hard, and that's good, what's that's what we want. We don't want a birdie-fest out here by any means, and you want to be able to eliminate the mistakes and go out with a solid 18 holes and 18 pars and you're good to go.

Q. How much do you think the conditions play into the pace of play, or is it just Saturday at a major and everybody slowed down?
PAULA CREAMER: A little bit. I think there's lots of thinking. You have to think so much. There's pins out there like I said, where you can go for it and you have to realize where you need to hit it. It's just a lot of thinking. Pace of play though is slow. We've never been known to be the fastest tour on earth, and that's changing, I hope, with the new policy. But you have to just kind of keep it ongoing. You don't want to be out there forever.

Q. This is such a tight sort of race, so many people on the leaderboard and to see what happened with Lorena on 17, is that a disconcerting reminder that it takes only one hole to fall out of the pack a bit?
PAULA CREAMER: It does, of course. When you see that -- it hit the tree and it bounced back, she made quad on that hole; it's one of those things, you can't be too greedy, can't be going for things. There's a time to do that, and that's Sunday down the stretch, if you know you have to do it. It does, just keep relaying to myself that you have to stay patient, stay focused on the next shot every time.

Q. Given the conditions of the course and the way the leader board is, do you think tomorrow is going to be bunched all the way? Seems like it would be difficult for someone to pull away.
PAULA CREAMER: It is. It's going to be somebody under par is going to win tomorrow. I don't think anybody shooting over par tomorrow is going to win the tournament. You have to just realize -- I had a lot of birdies today considering the condition out there, but I'm sure there's other people that had five, six birdies. You can do it, you just have to eliminate those bogeys. I think the biggest thing is that you have to go out and hit every fairway so you can give yourself a chance with your irons.

Q. You've been in this position before heading into the last round of a major, thinking of Cherry Hills specifically, two years later, are you different, are you more patient now?
PAULA CREAMER: 100% yes. I could have let my round really get away from me at times out there but I tried to just keep grinding. I kept telling myself how many holes there were left, there's 27 holes left and just keep it on going. There's something before it's a moment that you realize that you have to be patient and I think that now I've realized that you can say it to yourself over and over again, stay patient, but until you believe that, it's hard to actually do it.
And I think that me coming out here and being able to hit certain part of the greens intentionally away from flags, the more I keep doing that, the better I feel about my game, the more confidence I have in knowing where I can hit the spots.

Q. On Wednesday on the first tee, I thought someone came up to you and asked you if you were feeling better, as though maybe you weren't feeling well?
PAULA CREAMER: Last week in Arizona I was kind of sick, just allergies and stuff. I feel fine.

Q. Did you do anything to recoup?
PAULA CREAMER: No. I just drank my orange juice and my Vitamin C. No, I was fine. It just down in the desert my voice kind of gets a little -- I don't know, deeper, I don't know. Some people ask, what's wrong with you; I think it's just the air. (Laughing).

Q. Se Ri is the only one in the top group that's won a major does that give her any sort of advantage?
PAULA CREAMER: She's been there. It does. Tomorrow is 18 holes. You know you have all that past experience and you translate that into tomorrow and you take what you've learned from those other major wins that she's had.
But I don't have any wins in a major but I have had wins not in a major, so I think that it's still similar, but the biggest thing is that you just have to go out and play your own game. I won't be looking at leaderboards very much. Just try to stay focused on myself and there's going to be a lot of cheering going on; as long as I just keep it in the short grass, that will be the most beneficial.

Q. What's different about a major, if you could just boil it down to 50 words or less?
PAULA CREAMER: 4-under is leading now. I think that's the biggest thing; the golf course is hard. People I think are realizing it's hard, but it's out there. You can go low. If you get your mind-set, you can shoot 67 tomorrow, but you have to just play smart, that's the biggest thing.
PAM WARNER: Thanks, Paula.

End of FastScripts

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