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RICOH WOMEN'S BRITISH OPENJuly 30, 2008Karen StupplesASCOT, ENGLAND COLIN CALLANDER: Ladies and gentlemen, we have Karen Stupples, the winner the last time the Women's Open Championship was held here in 2004. Perhaps we can start with a few of the memories. KAREN STUPPLES: It looks love to me, my name in first place here, it would be lovely to do that again. It's brilliant to be back here at Sunningdale, and first time I've been back here since winning. Brings back a lot of good memories and a different feel to it with Ricoh being a new sponsor, but it would be good because I'll be able to make new memories and hopefully still as good. COLIN CALLANDER: Do you still wake up sometimes and think about the start to the final round. KAREN STUPPLES: No, but I think Cristie and Rachel do, but not me. The strange thing about it is, you would have thought playing the first two holes this week would have brought the magical thing back for me. It was playing the last few holes was really more magical, because I finished with three birdies in those last few holes and I could really enjoy the walking, enjoy the moment. And I just have -- the vivid memory I have is looking at the crowds and seeing the English flags everywhere and everybody shouting for me and that is my biggest memory and my best memory of the whole event I think. Q. When you look back to that famous victory last time in 2004, what was the key to winning around this golf course? KAREN STUPPLES: I've thought about that, and really it was for me keeping it out of the fairway bunkers and keeping it in play, and I made some very crucial six- to eight-foot putts. Any time I got into trouble or hit a putt that was too far past, I would make the next one coming back. I seem to remember leaving myself some very testy 5-footers at times and I just seemed to make more, which is what you need to do in a major championship. You have to make the putts that count. Q. You're having a great season. Can you just talk about this year and how you feel coming back, and you must be pleased with how it's going. KAREN STUPPLES: I am. I've been really pleased. I really spent time last year getting to know the travel and what I needed to do to prepare each week and getting used to the day care system and what we needed to do. So I really look last year as a bit of a learning year so I could come out this year and try and play the best I could and I'm lucky I have great support with Bobby and who takes care of Logan a lot of the time, which frees me up to practise when I need to. The day care on the LPGA is fantastic and I feel very free when I'm out on the golf course and I can play my game without any worries. Yes, I'm very happy that my golf is returned. You never know when you have a baby if you're going to play well again or not, and that was the risk that you take in terms of your career. But in terms of me personally, it's best thing I ever could have done. He really has been the most fantastic addition to my life. Q. Can you talk about the day care this week? KAREN STUPPLES: My mom and dad. There is no day care this week. But my mom and dad fortunately are only two hours away and they don't see Logan that much, so they are more than happy to come up and take him. They went to the zoo with him yesterday but I think he wears them out now. Q. As a previous winner of the Women's British Open, what changes have you seen in terms of your own career and levels of expectancy since you won that major? KAREN STUPPLES: I think my own personal experience, my expectations of my game increased significantly. I think it hurt me for a while, there's no doubt about that. I think everybody else's expectations I think some what increased. I don't think they are expecting me to be, you know, world No. 1, which I was happy with. I didn't really want that. I'm a pretty low-key kind of person. I kind of like to fly under the radar and take what comes my way, and especially now. I have more important things in my life than just golf now, and in a way I'm happy for that, because it frees me up to just enjoy golf for the game that it is. Q. With the Asian players coming through, you've done a lot for junior golf; what do you think of the state of Women's British golf at the moment? KAREN STUPPLES: It actually looks very positive. You see girls like Melissa Reid coming through, and a number of other players. Rebecca Hudson has now won a couple of tournaments and is starting to fulfill the promise that she showed as an amateur and I think it all bodes well. I would like to see Curtis Cups being won again by Great Britain and Ireland, that would be good, but I think that will happen in the future if they keep on with the same momentum that they are getting now. Q. Do you feel that good European players or young British players should try to get on to the LPGA to improve? KAREN STUPPLES: I think there's no doubt in my mind playing on the LPGA improves your game because you're playing against the best players in the world. I always remember my first golf coach said: You'll only get better by playing with people that are betting than you. So I always tried to play with the men and people that are better for me for improvement, and I think the same is true with the LPGA. You have the world's best players playing there; why wouldn't you want to go there to improve? Q. Who do you see as the main contenders this week? KAREN STUPPLES: Lorena Ochoa is going to be tough. Annika will be tough because this will be her last major. I think you can have Suzann Pettersen. She's yet to win on the LPGA this year; she's won in Europe, so I think she'll be pretty tough. I don't think you can rule out any one of the Korean players, because they all putt particularly well and they all drive it straight. Seon Hwa Lee has been playing particularly good this year. I think it's pretty open. This golf course is a great golf course because you can play it either way. You can play it very aggressive, and you can either be burned or get rewarded for it. It's very risk/reward, or you can play it very strategically. So you don't necessarily have to hit it a mile off the tee in order to get good results around here. You just have to make the putts. Q. Just back to the state of the game, two British players in the Top-50, do you think that says more about golf elsewhere rather than us being in a slump, as it were? KAREN STUPPLES: Definitely. You think about -- it's a tough comparison really because Korea is so strong with their golf programme coming up now, and so they do get them at a very young age and put an emphasis on the golf. In this country, we like to be more broad with our achievements. We like to go to university and do other things, as well, and we are not just boxed into playing golf from the age of eight or nine or 10; whereas a lot of other countries, from the ages of 8 they just play golf, golf, golf, and I think that's probably what you're seeing. We are more well-rounded I think because we have got other things and we are not as competitive maybe with lots of production of players. Q. Do you think they burn themselves out -- KAREN STUPPLES: No. They just have an appetite for success and they are driven and work extremely hard. And how long a playing career does somebody want? You look at somebody like Juli Inkster, she keeps going and going and going, but she also started fairly young I think. She didn't come up at 25 I think, she was very young, so it very much depends on the individual. They might. They might have had enough by the time they get to 35 and be done but by then they will have been playing 20 years and in the Hall of Fame. Q. The ones in the lead seem to sort of fade; do you know what happens to them at all? KAREN STUPPLES: I wouldn't know. I would assume they would probably go back to a normal life in Korea and maybe have a family. I don't know. Q. What's your connection with Faldo? KAREN STUPPLES: I have lessons at the Faldo Institute in Orlando with a man called Chip Koehlke, so I'm supporting them. Q. After you won, you had some problems with sponsors, didn't you? KAREN STUPPLES: I did. Q. Can you just sort of go over that and tell us what you got instead of the sponsors that reneged? KAREN STUPPLES: Really, well nothing new has come up. I don't have a bag sponsor. The hat I'm getting a little bit from Marriott, from the Faldo institute here. But the shoes, Titleist have stepped up, Titleist and FootJoy, so I'm getting a bit from them, as opposed to Hi-Tec, which pulled out of their contract; and Dalhousie, which was the golf course that sponsored my bag and hat, they decided not to renew. So nothing has come up. I've only just started playing well again. I'm always on the lookout. Q. What Koreans are playing well at the moment -- KAREN STUPPLES: I think Seon Hwa Lee is definitely playing particularly well. I don't think you can underestimate anyone. I think at any particular time they can pop up and play particularly well. They are just good at what they do and they work so hard and they are very driven. Q. This week is a great opportunity for so many people to see the women's game around the world. How do you assess the current position of the ladies game? KAREN STUPPLES: I think it's on the up-and-up to be honest. We have a lot of very talented players and I think as a profession, we've got something for everyone. You've got mothers playing, you've got young players playing, you've got a player from probably every country in the world playing, and so there's something for a fan everywhere to watch. We've got long hitters and you've got short hitters and you've got something that people can learn on every aspect of the game, and I think it's looking very good right now. Q. What sort of fitness regime would you have? KAREN STUPPLES: Chasing after Logan and carrying him and picking him up. No, actually I did a little bit earlier on in the season. I did a lot of stuff trying to get my hips back in order because after having him, they were a little bit out of whack. But time-wise I really struggled for time between trying to practise and get as much as I can golf-wise in and then running around and chasing him, I kind of pushed it at times and I just don't have the time or energy sometimes to do that. I want to try to hit the bed and try to get as much sleep as I can in the middle of the night. Q. Are you as fit -- KAREN STUPPLES: No, no, I'm definitely not as fit as I would like to be. I really feel like I'm still 15 to 20 pounds overweight after having him. I could do with losing that. I'm sure that every person that's had a baby knows exactly where I'm coming from with that. It's been very difficult. But I've put an emphasis of trying to get my golf game back more than trying to get my fitness back. I hope this season I'll be able to rectify that and put more time in on my fitness without losing sight of the main goal, which is trying to play good golf, as well. Q. Sorry, interested about these hips being out of whack. Can you explain, is this a common thing, or was it just your hips that were thrown, and how much did the baby weight? KAREN STUPPLES: Logan was eight pounds, five (ounces) when he was born, and I'm sure I'm not the only person that has had hip issues after giving birth. Just the fact, archaeologists, when they get bones of females, that they can tell whether they have children or not tells you your bone structure is different once you've had children. So you have to assume that everything has to kind of work its way back, and my hips were a bit stuck to be perfectly honest. They didn't want to move, and even just doing walking exercises, just walking with weights to try to get them to free up to move again, which is kind of interesting. You don't realise that you put so much stress on your body but it really does. Q. Inaudible. KAREN STUPPLES: Yeah, that's a long way off. Not even a little twinkle in my eye. COLIN CALLANDER: Thank you very much. And I don't think we've ever discussed archaeology in press conference before, thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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