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LONGS DRUGS CHALLENGEOctober 4, 2007Carolyn BivensBeth DanielDANVILLE, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome everybody here today. I'm pleased to announce commissioner Bivens, who will make a special announcement on behalf of the LPGA. CAROLYN BIVENS: All right. I'd like to make the announcement of the new Solheim team captain, the next one. Next Solheim time will be held at Rich Harvest Farms just outside of Chicago right on the outskirts of Neighborville. It's a remarkable facility owned by a wonderful gentlemen by the name of Jerry Rich. Jerry and his wife, Betty, have the facility prepared like none other. I think each Solheim, and a number of you have covered most of the Solheims, each one reaches a new level. I do believe for all of the word class play that we witnessed in Halmstad, I think both the venue as well as the competition that will unfold in just a little under two years in Rich Harvest Farms is going to be something that none of us are going to want to miss. The captain owns 33 career LPGA Tour wins, the first of which came during her rookie season when she earned LPGA Rookie of the Year honors a little bit before 1980. She earned her first of three LPGA Player of the Year awards the very next season. In 28 years as an active LPGA Tour member, she has made the cut almost 90% of those events that she's participated in. She's clearly a consistent performance worthy of her 1999 induction into the most difficult Hall of Fame to earn your way into, the LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame. The Solheim Cup competition she's been a member of the very first team in 1990 back in Lake Nona. As a competitor she earn 13 and a half points for the U.S., becoming the very first at the Solheim Cup, playing every year except 1998 and this year. In 2007 she was the assistant captain. Today I'm proud to announce right here, Beth Daniel. BETH DANIEL: This is a pretty exciting. I'm a lot more nervous than I thought I was going to be. I'm sitting back there, I'm like 33 wins, who is that? I'm really excited about this opportunity. I have either participated in as a player, a spectator, or as an assistant captain in every Solheim Cup, so I've seen every angle of it. It means a lot to my, the Solheim Cup does. I think it's very important stage for women's golf, and it's just a lot of the fun to be a part of, too. So it makes me really look forward to the next couple of years trying to do all the planning and making everything perfect so that these players can go out there and perform to the best of their ability. This past Solheim Cup was very exciting for Betsy and myself, and I think at some point in time on Saturday afternoon Betsy said, They're making us look like geniuses. So basically it boils down to how your players perform in the competition. You know, as a captain or co-captain you can make some brilliant moves and look terrible and make some pretty lousy moves and look pretty good depending on how the players perform. This past September, a few weeks ago, they performed brilliantly. It was really exciting to go over there and bring the Cup back. That's really, really tough. So now it's our job in 2009 to have the team keep the Cup in the United States and not let Europe come over here and take it away from us for the first time. But big thrill for me, and I thank the committee for giving me this opportunity. THE MODERATOR: We'll open up for questions. Q. Seems like the wave of young players from Paula Creamer to Morgan Pressel, have really sort of embraced the Solheim Cup, which is not always the case on the men's side. Can you speak to that and sort of how important it is that players treat it that way. BETH DANIEL: Yeah, it's very true. It's not even the case always in the women's game that they embrace the Solheim Cup or a team competition. It's very tough sometimes with the younger players in particular for a couple of reasons. One of them is that they turn pro so quickly that they have very little the amateur experience and therefore very little match play experience. The other thing is that golf is such an individual sport that it's hard for some of these players to turn over and become a team player. But fortunately for American women's golf, we have some players that really get it. I think the future for American women's golf looks really, really good right now. And I know Stacy Prammanasudh on Sunday afternoon when she birdied the 18th hole to win her match and came back out o 17 and I was talking to her, she got this close (indicating) and said goes, Now I know where everybody wants to be here. And I'm like, That's great. Because she gets it. We seem to have a team full of players that get it. That makes a captain's job a lot easier. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: Well, I would hope that -- I'd like to think it was the veterans' influence over the years as these players were coming up. You know, I mean, Juli Inkster is a great example of somebody that's just passionate for the Solheim Cup and passionate for match play. You know, Pat Hearst is another, and Sherri Steinhauer. Sherri was a great help in past years, because she captained three of the players that were on the Solheim Cup teams when they were on the junior Solheim Cup team. So how cool is that, to captain a junior Solheim Cup team and then yourself and three of those players are then on a Solheim Cup team. So those players went to Sherri a lot and asked her a lot of questions because they had the confidence to do that because she had been their junior Solheim Cup captain. So, yeah, I think it's the veterans' influence. The U.S. team in particular right now is turning over. We still have some veteran players that I would expect to see there in 2009, but we have a lot young players coming up and trying to boot them out, too. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: That's actually a really good question, because that's probably the hardest part of being a captain or the assistant captain is the administrative part of it. Betsy was great. It was a great learning experience for me to be Betsy's assistant captain, because Betsy included me in everything so that I could learn. It's working with the LPGA staff and seeing how much effort and how much passion they have for the Solheim Cup. It's just thinking of every single detail. For instance, in Sweden we knew it was going to be cold so we told Mindy Moore to order Therma-Care patches and everything had one on the small of their back which helped them stay warm. I he earlier this week where Paula Creamer said in her press conference that they were holding up the Therma-Cares saying they're the MVPs for the week. Every little detail. Betsy, myself, Mindy Moore and Kelly Hyne, who is tournament director for the Solheim Cup, we made three trips in a year over there. It was talking to the hotel staff and, you know, you did everything -- you make meals, everything, exactly what everybody is going to eat, what time. Details of this are amazing. I thank Betsy a lot for including me in on that so that I could learn the details. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: I actually got a call Sunday from Carolyn, and the committee had met and she informed me then. I kept it quiet until right now, which has been very, very hard, because I have to apologize to a lot of the people, including Pat Hearst and Juli Inkster, who I had dinner with the other night, and they asked me point blank if I had heard if I was the captain yet and I said no. I'm a big trust person and I don't like to lie to people, so it was kind of like, We need to get this press conference done so that I can start telling people. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: Daniel lies to two potential teammates in 2009. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: I hope Juli is on that team, and I hope Pat Hearst is on that team, too. I think personally, yes, I think that Juli Inkster will be on that team, and I also thing that Pat Hearst will be on that team. Juli Inkster shows no indication to me that she's ready to stop playing. And if she asked my advice, which she wouldn't, I would tell her not to stop playing at this point. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: Is she? Doesn't surprise me. She's showing off for the home crowd is what she's doing. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: I played when I was 49. Q. How long do you think she can play at this level? BETH DANIEL: As good a shape as Juli Inkster is in, I think she can play at this level as long as her mind and her heart want her to. And I say that about any player. But I think the thing that separates Juli Inkster is that she's a competitor. In her heart she's a competitor, and she's not ready to give it up. That's basically what it boils down to for players when they get to a certain point. If they start losing that passion then you know it's kind of time to step down. Juli hasn't lost that passion. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: For some players it's physical. You know, I think in Rosie Jones' case it was definitely physical. But in my case, no. I mean, I've had all kinds of injuries throughout career and things that I've had to deal with, but physically I'm in good shape right now. But, yes, mentally I just -- I basically kind of lost some of the fire. But also, I would have a really good round and I would say, Oh, okay now I'm back. And then the next day I just wouldn't be there. So yes, it is. It's funny, I talked to or ran good Chris Evert and Wendy Turnbull, two ex-tennis players down in Florida. Talked to them both about when they knew it was the right time to retire. I've talked to a lot professional athletes because I was considering it myself. You know, both of them said the same thing: One day I would be great and the next day in a match that I should have won I just made all kinds of mental errors. Then Wendy Turnbull, who's really funny, she said, I just got sick of looking at these 18 year olds across the net. Basically, yes, I think that's kind of what it boils down to. But you also have to have that passion. Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: Yes, I can rule that out because, even if I play a few tournaments next year and the next I would not play nearly enough tournaments to make the team. Q. Are you lying right now? BETH DANIEL: I'm not lying. We're going to have fun in the booth today, aren't whoa? Q. (No microphone.) BETH DANIEL: No, she hasn't talked to me about it, but for the record I will say that I think Juli Inkster will break it. As a matter of fact, earlier this year when she lost in the playoff to me and Kim in Tulsa, I thought for sure she was going to break it then. But Juli Inkster I think will be the person to break it, and I'll be the happiest person for her, too. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Congratulations, thank you. BETH DANIEL: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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