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MICHELOB ULTRA OPEN AT KINGSMILL

May 10, 2007

Natalie Gulbis

WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

MIKE SCANLAN: Natalie, you shot a 67 today, 4-under, great round to start off the tournament.
NATALIE GULBIS: Thank you.
MIKE SCANLAN: You're two behind the lead right now. Just talk about your round today and how you feel you played.
NATALIE GULBIS: It was a very good round of golf. I hit a lot of fairways. I think I only missed one fairway. Missed a couple greens. The conditions out there are very scoreable. I mean, the weather is good. There's no wind and the way that this golf course, Kingsmill and the staff here have it set up, I think you're going to see a lot of good scores. And the players are so good, you can really score on this golf course if you're hitting the ball well.
MIKE SCANLAN: Can we go through your scorecard?
NATALIE GULBIS: Birdied 1, about ten feet.
MIKE SCANLAN: What did you hit?
NATALIE GULBIS: Like 7:15, I have no idea. 7 maybe. 7 or 6.
MIKE SCANLAN: Birdie on 6, par 4.
NATALIE GULBIS: I hit a 9-iron, ten, 15 feet.
Birdie on 9 was an 8-iron to about 20 feet.
MIKE SCANLAN: Bogey 10.
NATALIE GULBIS: I pulled it into the left fairway bunker.
Birdie on 12, I hit a 9-iron to about seven, eight feet.
15, I hit an L-wedge from 60 yards to about ten, 15 feet.

Q. How big was the up-and-down at 18 to just make sure that you finished on a high note after a good round?
NATALIE GULBIS: It was good because I had really -- I had a very easy shot from the center of the fairway with like an 8-iron that I fanned so I wasn't too excited about. And it's always nice to recover, and like you said after such a good round of golf, you don't want to give away anything at the end.

Q. If you can go through the rest of that hole, what did you hit up on to the green on 18?
NATALIE GULBIS: I had a good drive. I had 8-iron in to a pin that really sets up well for me because it's a left pin and I completely fanned the shot right of the green and had a really easy chip. I mean, there was nothing really in front of me, it just broke a little bit and I hit it to about 2 1/2 feet.
But I missed it in the right spot. If I was to miss a shot left it, would have been -- a lot of times in golf you have to miss it in the right spots to save some shots.

Q. How was the 7:15 tee time this morning?
NATALIE GULBIS: Very early. I have not been in a B tee time since the beginning -- since my rookie year. So it was a tough time for me this morning. I love to play early, but it was different.

Q. This course here has been good to you in the past, you've never been out of the Top-25, one year you had a really high finish and a hole-in-one last year as I recall; what about your game matches up well with Kingsmill, and do you think that this might be another good year for you here?
NATALIE GULBIS: Yeah, I love this golf course. This is one of my favorite events all year. It's extra special because of the relationship I have with Anheuser-Busch being a sponsor of mine.
And the golf course sets up well for me. It's a good ball-striker's golf course. There's a lot of right-to-left shots off the tee which definitely suits my eye well and the greens are pure. So if you're putting well, you can make a lot of putts here.

Q. Is that one of the advantages to going out first?
NATALIE GULBIS: Greens are so pure. I mean, no one's touched them. And even these greens are pure in the afternoon after there's been 130 people for a couple of days, but in the morning, the ball just tracks really nice.

Q. How much time do you normally spend in pre-round preparation and playing so early this morning, did you alter that in any way?
NATALIE GULBIS: I altered by maybe five minutes not much. I usually get to the course about two hours before and my normal warmup is like an hour to an hour and ten, depending on if there's a shuttle before. If it wasn't so early, would have hit a few extra chips but not so much.

Q. So you got here at 5:20 or so this morning; no extra alarm clocks or caffeine?
NATALIE GULBIS: No, I'm a morning person, so I usually get up pretty early.

Q. What was difficult about it? You mentioned that it was a little more difficult.
NATALIE GULBIS: It's a different tee time. Usually for the first couple of rounds I'm used to being an 8:30, 10:30 but every weekend here is different. Last week I was in 20th place, 18th place going into Sunday and my tee time was at 8:00 a.m. so you never know what it's going to be with the weather in golf. I've had tee times at 6:00 p.m. at night because of weather. You guys have seen that here the last couple of years with the different tee times and delays.

Q. I was just wondering if there was any change in your status that led to the B tee time?
NATALIE GULBIS: Yeah, my performance this year. I think I'm 40th on the Money List. So when you drop on the Money List, you get kicked out of A tee times.

Q. What's your level of patience like these days? Everyone's expecting you to break through and do great things, I'm sure you are, too. But that's been the case for a couple of years. Are you as patient with yourself as you ever are?
NATALIE GULBIS: Absolutely not. I'm not a patient person. I work really hard. I love to putt my time in. If there's something I need to work on, I spend more time on it.

Q. What's missing?
NATALIE GULBIS: Consistency. I've been very inconsistent. I've had good rounds and I've had -- I've had big numbers during rounds that I haven't had in years past.

Q. How much of that is mental and keeping yourself focused and not drifting in the middle of rounds?
NATALIE GULBIS: It's a combination of both. A combination of mechanics and of course definitely mental, too.
MIKE SCANLAN: All right. Natalie, thanks a lot. Good luck.

End of FastScripts

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