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LONGS DRUGS CHALLENGEOctober 7, 2007Suzann PettersenDANVILLE, CALIFORNIA ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Thanks for coming in and joining us today, your third victory of the 2007 season. Your second play-off victory of the year. How are you feeling right now? You must be on cloud nine. SUZANN PETTERSEN: I am. I was talking to the press before I left Norway after the Solheim and I said, there is a lot more events to go and it would be nice to get another win in there and it came pretty quick. Now I will probably have to try to go for another one. It is just great being out here. You play against great players. You truly have to dig deep and get the best out of you every day to get it all together. You play against players, you know -- you expect them to do well. You know you got to play your heart out. It was a nice finish. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: What were you thinking during the play-off when it was for this year's rankings No. 1 versus No. 2, do you think that was symbolic or a thought even going through your head? Did you think that way? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I lost to Lorena last week in a bet we had, so I guess I evened it out this week. (Laughter). ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Let's go over your scorecard really quick. You started with a bogey on 1. SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yes, I missed a 2-footer for par. And then on the 3 I hit my driver out of bounds and managed to get a birdie on my second ball and I made a putt, probably a 15-footer. Then what's next? ASHLEY CUSHMAN: The birdie on 5. SUZANN PETTERSEN: The birdie on 5, I hit a rescue about 200 to just over the green so I had to chip back and hold my 2-footer for birdie. Then the double bogey on 9. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: It was a double? SUZANN PETTERSEN: No, no, it was a bogey. I 3-putted. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: How far was the first one? SUZANN PETTERSEN: 25 feet. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Then the bogey on 10. SUZANN PETTERSEN: Bogey on 10, I hit it left, pin high so I was in the (indiscernible) on the left and I just tried to get up and down. I had a par putt about a 20-footer, 15-footer. Missed that one. Then bogey on 11. I can't believe I won. (Laughter) There is bogeys on this scorecard. I bogeyed and then I was in the first bunker on my second shot an next bunker on my third shot and then I had a par putt about 15-footer, missed that one. Then I had a 7-iron on 12 to 20 feet and then made that one. ASHLEY CUSHMAN: Birdie on 15. SUZANN PETTERSEN: Birdie on 15 I hit a 3-wood, I think from the pin I was 240. 210 to the front. I hit that, too, probably 25 foot and just tapped in the birdie. Then I hit a 5-iron on 16 and I made a -- I don't know -- 30-footer, I guess. It was long. I don't know. Q. If you can take us through the play-off holes, how many yards you had to the green on your approach, what club you hit each time and how many yards -- how many feet you had on the putt? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I had a 3-wood off that tee and put it in perfect position there. First one actually got a little left. That actually came much closer and I expected it. I only had a wedge left. It was 118 to the pin and that was a perfect number. I just let it bounce short and let it skid up. That was perfect. You just expect Lorena to make her putt. And then on the second hole I had 128, so I just hit a hard wedge. Tried to skid it up there again. Came out pretty much how I wanted it to and pretty straight putt. Q. How far was that putt, the winning putt? SUZANN PETTERSEN: 10-footer, 8-footer. I don't know. It is so hard. 8-footer maybe. Q. We all agree on an 8-footer. SUZANN PETTERSEN: I don't know. It was in the hole. Q. You mentioned going through the bogeys, you can't believe you won. Did you sort of stabilize things and how proud are you? It was kind of getting away from you there for a while. SUZANN PETTERSEN: I can look back and maybe on 1, I should maybe have hit a hard 8 instead of a little 7, tried to hold the green and that ended up being a bogey. Some poor swings, like I had a poor swing on tee shot in 3. I hit it out of bounds and hit the car path. That's just a poor swing. From there, I mean, I hit some good putts. They didn't go in. I had a few long par saves that I didn't make. When I walked off 12 making that birdie, getting it back to 9 and getting up on the 13th green and you see Lorena is only 10, my caddie goes, Hey, we're right there. I know you don't want to look, but shhh, we are right there. That kind of gave me a little kick. And then had a very good birdie chance on the next one, the 14, that just slid by. Had some good shots coming in and I felt like maybe I should have birdied 17, but I mean, what do you do? I get in the play-off, and I just tried to play my heart out. Q. Obviously, any win is significant and satisfying. How much more is it when you beat the No. 1 player in the world? She has obviously had such a dominant year. To beat her in a play-off, does that mean anything extra? SUZANN PETTERSEN: There is not a nicer person out there you want to beat. Lorena is, I mean, she is great golf player but she has a great personality. You just have to like her. Playing with her yesterday, we both pushed each other. We are all competitive. But at the same time, we kind of support each other and want the best out of everybody. But, I mean, what better scenario than beating Lorena in a play-off. I would take that if you gave me the chance. So it was very nice. Q. Can you talk about Bogey, the dog, you have taken a liking to this week? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I played with this guy -- I played with the general manager of the club in the Pro Am. When we played, we met Bogey and his father on the 4th. I was like, Oh, my God, I just love dogs like that. And I totally fell in love with it. Ever since, it has kind of been they leave us to see Bogey either before the round or after a round. I mean, I could take Bogey instead of trophy. He is so cute. (Laughter). It is the first thing I will have when I retire. Q. (No microphone.) SUZANN PETTERSEN: At least it wasn't double bogey. Bogey works. Q. When you play 18 as well as you did today, what does that tell you about yourself when the conditions are dark and the green is dark and we're losing daylight. You hit perfect shots on the green. SUZANN PETTERSEN: When we walked off the second time, I thought, Better just get it over with because I don't want to come back in the morning. (Laughter) That was another thing just to get the putt in the hole. I don't know if we could have played much longer. I had perfect yardages, and you just try to pull off the shots. I probably hit my best putt, the last putt I had in the play-off. That was really nice. Q. You've won twice in play-off now. You won a major this year. Are you starting to feel more and more comfortable in these real tight pressure-type of situations? SUZANN PETTERSEN: It is kind of funny because, I mean, I would say yesterday the more often you are in those positions, the more you start to learn yourself. You learn how you are going to handle yourself, your body, your thoughts and how to kind of get the best out of your game. But when you are coming down the stretch and you know you are right in the hunt or you are leading or one behind, I just seem to get very calm. I mean, you just try to put yourself in positions where you know you can get the good score, and it is probably a more stressful moment before that. When it finally comes down the stretch the last couple of holes, I just seem to calm down myself a lot so I start to feel my body more. I can feel how I breathe, and that's kind of more the mental side of it. Q. Did I hear correctly, you said you made a wager with Lorena last week? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I will tell you the first thing she said when we met in the cars to go hit the tee shots, she said, How much? I said, I knew that was going to come from you. (Laughter). I said, Well, you have the time up to the tee to make that decision but she never made the call. But that's -- I mean, she is just so cool. Like I said, you wouldn't probably say this about a competitor, but she is just a very nice person and we have a lot of fun. And I think it is good for all of us. I mean, we're all young. We're upcoming and we're competitive, but at the same time we're good friends. I think that also brings a lot of good things to the Tour. Q. What did you bet last week? SUZANN PETTERSEN: We played each other and we said, Let's get something going, and we had two holes coming down and one was a very short par 5. So she said, Okay, put some money on who can finish the lowest in the two holes. And I slipped out my eagle and she just pumped in and birdied putt from nowhere, from miles. Then she won that bet because I 3-putted. But, I mean, it is just one of those things that, I mean, we are both out there to have fun and may the best one win. At least someone can stop her streak. Q. How good do you think you can be? Can you supplant her at No. 1? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I would love to. That's what I am trying. It has been a very good year so far. I think it also is a lot of confidence. You get there and you know you can pull off the shots. You know you can handle the pressure, and it is like everyone can get the ball from A to B but who can actually make the final putts. The more putts you make under those conditions the better confidence you are going to get. And with confidence you can go with the flow. It is just nice. I mean, if I said before this year that I was going to win one tournament, I would have had a great year. And if I would have won two with a Major, that was fantastic. And four wins this year with the one I had in Europe. What more can I expect? Now I am just trying to see how many I can win in a year to test yourself and give yourself the challenge. Q. Did it take a while to get over the Kraft Tournament, had the lead and didn't close it? How long? That looked like a tough way. SUZANN PETTERSEN: When was that? (Laughter). There was a lot of good things happening after that. Like I said before, it was a very good learning experience. I learned more from that -- I learned more from finishing second or third or whatever I finished than to win it, and I think it has really helped me. I mean, the next couple of events I played pretty good and I didn't let myself get down. I learned what I can do different when I get in the same situations. If you play well, you will get in those situations a lot. So I think it was actually the best thing for me that I actually didn't finish at all. Q. Was it painful? SUZANN PETTERSEN: Sure, it was painful. You play to win. But at the same time, you probably learn more from not winning than you will. Q. Can you just go over the 15th hole one more time, how far you had it in on your second shot? SUZANN PETTERSEN: I think I had, like, 210 front and the pin was like 38 on. So it was 240 -- about 248 or something. And it is kind of a risky shot because the green is so tiny and so narrow. If you hit that on the right side of the green, it bounces down, you can be stuck with that trunk standing there. I told my caddie, we put it into play but at the same time it is the perfect yardage and had the shot in the back to go for it and it came out pretty good. So it was lying against the fringe, which is what made the putt difficult. I almost made it. It was just a nice tap-in. Q. (No microphone.) SUZANN PETTERSEN: James Walton. Q. Lorena said on the play-off hole she was behind you. She hit first into the green. She thought she had a chance to put some pressure on you. Did she? The first one you stuck it in pretty close. SUZANN PETTERSEN: It was just kind of match play. If you are the first one to hit and you stiff it, sure, you put the pressure on. She kind of left the door open a little bit, and I had perfect yardages both times and that kind of helps. The first one was perfect and the second one was still -- it was like, you almost are getting into the Solheim state of mind. Just put it inside the opponent. You can always have the last putt. Even though they would make it, you were the closer and always put the pressure. Again, I just tried to knock it closer. She wasn't that close. And having perfect clubs in your hand, you expect to head within those -- in that distance. End of FastScripts |
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