	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

RICOH WOMEN'S BRITISH OPEN

July 31, 2008

Rebecca Hudson

ASCOT, ENGLAND

COLIN CALLANDER: We have Rebecca Hudson with a 5-under par 67, currently two shots off the lead. Rebecca, excellent round of golf.
REBECCA HUDSON: Thank you. I was pleased with that.
COLIN CALLANDER: How were conditions out there?
REBECCA HUDSON: Oh, perfect, absolutely, the course is in great condition. We had no wind early on. Very nice conditions for golf.
COLIN CALLANDER: Is that your best start in this tournament?
REBECCA HUDSON: In this tournament, yes. I shot 3-under at St. Andrews last year but that was completely different conditions. It was brutal at times, but 4- or 5-under is very good.

Q. What time were you up and where did you come from this morning?
REBECCA HUDSON: Bracknell, I'm staying. 5:18 I got up, woke up.
COLIN CALLANDER: Why 5:18?
REBECCA HUDSON: I just remember looking at my clock. I just always do. I set my clock at 5:36.

Q. Why 5:36?
REBECCA HUDSON: My time was 7:36 and I always give myself two hours.

Q. You seem very relaxed.
REBECCA HUDSON: I try to have the same attitude when I'm playing at home around my golf course or the British Open. If you try to have the same attitude and feelings, and if you play well with a relaxed attitude, then why change it? Why should I change to be something else? I enjoyed it, and we worked very hard and we got the right bounces.

Q. Do you have anything to prove this week? I looked at your ranking, 176th, and you're obviously a better player than that; do you have anything to prove on this sort of bigger stage?
REBECCA HUDSON: I try not to -- if I think about that, you think, all right, I'll go out and show them. But you know, you get a ranking and you have to actually prove you're better than it, but is that the only thing, no, I'm not thinking about it.
The World Rankings are slightly -- we were saying the other day -- are not the greatest system for the European players, but we've just got to go out and show what we can do. If we just play our golf that we play week-in and week-out, we will be up there and we will be playing well.
COLIN CALLANDER: Can we go over the birdies and bogeys?
REBECCA HUDSON: On the second, driver, 3-wood, just short, didn't hit the best drive, to about three-foot in.
3, driver, 7-iron to about ten foot up the hill, which is good.
5th is a good hole. It was a drive, 8-iron to about 12-foot. That was nice. Difficult hole that, one, with the bunkers off the tee. I was pleased with that.
9, it was 3-wood off the tee and a 7-iron, not the best 7-iron in the world, to about 15 foot and I holed that.
10, 3-wood, 3-wood up to the green and 2-putt. The pin was back right, the putt was probably 15 yards.
11, hit it right off the tee and had to chip out, got it to ten foot and just missed.
12, I was very pleased, driver and rescue to about the front edge and holed a very nice putt from about ten yards up the green.
13, I hit a 4-iron about eight-foot.
18, I went for my birdie, hit a rescue. Somehow stopped on the back of the green, must have taken the biggest bounce, 190, which I only hit my rescue 175 and I knocked it six, eight foot past, downhill.

Q. Your drive at the 18, you seem to be amused by that.
REBECCA HUDSON: It wasn't the best strike in the world. If you look how far the girls were past me, no, it was not the best drive in the world. But I played what I thought was the most perfect shot into the green and I was surprised I made it to the back edge. Left myself, it was a horrid putt, and just hit it too hard. The driver was not the best.

Q. Have you got designs on going to the LPGA Tour at some point in the future?
REBECCA HUDSON: Not at all. Not at the minute. I think wherever you play golf, you have to have your life and you have to have your base there. I like Europe. The Tour is getting better, the funds are getting better, the courses are getting better and everyone is working very hard and I think we have a tour that we can move forward to.

Q. Playing today with the U.S. Open Champion, did you see anything in her game that you would have liked to have pulled into yours, or did it make you realise that you are able to compete with players of that standing?
REBECCA HUDSON: I think when you play with any of the top girls, I know playing with Trish at the European Cup at the beginning of the year, if you play and you watch them, you learn a lot from them because they have played in situations and they have done it.
If you just watch how they play, you can always learn something from them. Cristie's focus is amazing on the course and she knows exactly what she wants to do. She's not put off by anything. Sometimes if I have a fault, I probably rush something, so it's good to see that taking of the time and relaxing.
But you get a lot from any of the top players you play with. I learned a lot from Trish earlier in the year in the team championship.

Q. Are you getting let -- by the players to go?
REBECCA HUDSON: No, I'm quite happy. I would like to have a few invites to maybe play if I ever got to the Solheim, I would not like to go out there without having played one or two, but no, I'm happy where I am.

Q. What are the things that you have to do here well to score well?
REBECCA HUDSON: I think the approaches into the greens are very important. Sometimes you're aiming -- if the pin is on the right, you're aiming back left because you know that the slope will take it around. If you aim at the pin, you disappear into one of the sneaky hollows.
It's all about where you're going to pitch the ball and let it run in from, and putting yourself on the right side of the hole. The greens are absolutely fantastic, but they are quite quick if you get on the wrong side of them. You have to put your ball in the right place and give yourself putts that you can actually have a nice roll at.

Q. Could you have been a Korean golfer, or do you need to do a lot of other things, as well?
REBECCA HUDSON: What do you mean?

Q. How they concentrate on golf to the exclusion of most other things.
REBECCA HUDSON: It's like your job, you get 28 days holiday a year, you can't to your job at your best, I feel, every single day of the. It's like any job, you think I have to get away, I have to have my own space. I treat it like that, so probably the answer is no.

Q. What happens to you when you don't get your own space; what do you feel?
REBECCA HUDSON: Well, it's more that you don't get time off. If I'm playing constantly week-in, week-out, you get to the point where you just get burned out. We have a very good tour in Europe at the minute, and I think we've got 14 events in a row at the minute; and if I try to play 14 in a row, towards the end you lose the drive and everything.
So you need to take your weeks off to play the best you can, I think. That's my belief.

Q. Sorry to go on about America, but what about the financial thing? You could set yourself up for life, you're obviously good enough to, and you probably can't do that on the Ladies European Tour, so is that any sort of incentive?
REBECCA HUDSON: No, because I think I would have to go move out there and live out there, and my family, the ones I want to be with are not out there.
Fair enough, you might have a lot of money, but what's the point if you're not with the people you want to be with? If you're not happy, then there's no point in doing anything. Life's good and I'm happy at the minute. If you're happy, you enjoy your game, you enjoy your golf. I think that is a huge aspect of it.
I think if I got married and all of a sudden we said, let's go to America, let's buy a house and let's live there with who I wanted to, then the LPGA would be great.

Q. What about fulfilling your ambitions and winning majors?
REBECCA HUDSON: Why? What are my ambitions.

Q. I don't know; have you got ambitions to win majors?
REBECCA HUDSON: I have ambitions to play as good of golf as I can and to just go wherever it takes me. Golf will take me somewhere, and at the minute, it's going good. I need to improve to maybe get on a Solheim and then go on from there. There's so many things; I need to walk before I can run and I just can't jump in.
I like Europe. I want to support the Ladies European Tour, because I believe that it's something good.

Q. The women's tour, following the men's tour, do you hope that there will come a time when like some of the British players now, can go over and play a couple of events because they qualified? The European men are qualified to go over and play in the WGC events or things like that.
REBECCA HUDSON: Yeah, it would be nice. It's very difficult for the Europeans to get into anything. I think we only get two starts in the U.S. Opens from the European Tour, which -- I mean, it's difficult. I know they are the American tour and they want their best Americans there, but I do believe maybe they should offer a couple more invites to the Europeans, as well, or some of the other events on the Tour. We give them quite a lot of spots and we've been anxious to get a few more back.
I'd love to go play the odd one and I know quite a few of the other girls would like to go and play some events; not based over there but just play and have the experience. I think Suzann Pettersen and Morgan Pressel came over to play in Ireland and they got invites and that's great, and we like having them there and they are good for the Tour. They are good publicity. We would like that the other way, as well. It would be nice, but I don't have any say in any of that. But it would be nice for the LPGA to do that.
COLIN CALLANDER: Could the key be changing the World Rankings?
REBECCA HUDSON: Yes, to show that we -- actually, okay, I'm Top-50 in the world and I would like to.
COLIN CALLANDER: That's what happened to the men.
REBECCA HUDSON: It would be nice, but that's not in my hands.

Q. If more people were like you and supported the European Tour, do you think it would be that much more successful; are you fighting a lone battle?
REBECCA HUDSON: No, most of the girls do play in America because of the money. We don't have the money the LPGA has and lucrative deals that they can build their life over and don't have to do anything else. So I can see why they go over there.
There's actually quite a lot of girls who are actually staying over in Europe because they see the money is getting better and probably eight years ago, it was probably only just the Top-10 that could make a living. And now we are looking at the top 20 who could make a nice living and hopefully in the next few years it will be the top 40 and they won't have to have other jobs and look for sponsors to do that.
COLIN CALLANDER: Rebecca, thank you and well done today.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297