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LPGA STATE FARM CLASSIC

June 5, 2009

Suzann Pettersen

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

JASON TAYLOR: Do your scorecard real quick. You started on No. 1. A birdie on No. 2, par 3.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: 9-iron to about 20 feet.
JASON TAYLOR: Birdie on No. 5, par 3.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: That was a 7-iron to about 15 feet.
JASON TAYLOR: No. 6.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Gap-wedge to about four feet.
JASON TAYLOR: No. 10, par 4.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Gap-wedge to about 12 feet.
JASON TAYLOR: November 15, par 4.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Made a 16-footer.
JASON TAYLOR: No 16, par 5.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Other way around. I made a 10-footer.
JASON TAYLOR: Thanks for coming in. 10-under overall after the first two rounds. Currently tied for the lead right now. Talk a little bit about how the day went for you.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, I didn't start too well. I woke up and thought I wasn't going to play. I have a slight flu coming. I was sitting in the fitness trailer for quite a while, trying to consider if I was going to play or not, thinking one week ahead. Our second major is just around the corner.
After a few tablets and a few kind of hot towels on my back, I kind of felt a little bit better. I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did that now. But I'm pretty much going straight to bed.
JASON TAYLOR: Questions.

Q. How much do you think your physical fitness helped you through today?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, I mean, of course it's just terrible when your entire body is aching. It's not like an injury. It's just aching from kind of a slight flu.
Hopefully it will get out of my body quite quick. I don't intend to keep this in my body going into next week. Just try to put myself in a decent position, and you never know how you feel tomorrow. It could just be a 24-hour thing going through your body. It's worth a go.

Q. Was this something that kind of came on this morning or did you not feel good yesterday?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I felt great all the way up until like 7:00 yesterday. Then I start to feel a bit sore throat. I felt the food didn't really taste. Then I can tell something was wrong. All night I was not really feeling well.
It happens. It was a bit cold here on Tuesday. Could have been coming from Florida, steaming hot coming here to, say, freezing every single minute. Or was it Wednesday? You never know what kind of causes a thing like this, but...

Q. You mentioned the LPGA. You won there a couple years ago. How important is to be playing well going into a tournament and a course that you love and is very important to you?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: We've obviously played there quite a few years. I don't know, two, three years now I think it is. Could even be more. It's a great golf course. Of course, in golf, like in any other sport, it's very hard to kind of predict the peak in your game. You can do a lot of stuff to try to make it happen. That takes a lot of hard work. That's kind of where we at now. Now it's just about to kind of ease up, try to let everything happen.
Obviously, like I said, I mean, you try to peak in those periods where you have the majors. This is kind of a short stretch we have here. We have McDonald's next week, then our U.S. Open, our next major, within three weeks. It's kind of hard to let go, kind of ease down, then take it back up. Sometimes it takes a bit of time. But in this time frame, you just almost got to keep it up.

Q. Are you happy with the state of your game right now? You have a couple of seconds and top 10s this year. How do you assess your year?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: It's been a pretty good year. I have no complaints. I keep putting myself in great positions. I work hard on my game. All I can do is just keep playing and keep putting myself in that position and we'll see.

Q. Seems like today there are generally lower scores being put up there. Anything you feel is contributing today to some lower scores out there as far as how the course is playing?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I mean, the course is fairly generous. The fairways are fairly wide. You have a little shorter irons into some of the par 4s, even mid irons into the par 5s. If you execute the par 5s, maybe play the par 4s 1-under, 2-under, maybe the par 3s 1-under, you're doing a great job.
I think the par 5s is obviously where you need to make up for some good scores. You keep hitting those fairways, you have some good angles into certain pins.

Q. You were at the Rail several years ago. At the time talking about Norwegian players, Sweden produces great players, are there any young Norwegian players out there playing on the European Tour, anybody we should watch for?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, I think it might be that we have two Norwegians on the Solheim Cup this year. We just had a Norwegian girl winning first time in Europe two weeks ago. She's fairly close on the ranking system over there. That could be great.
I mean, it's always hard to kind of go from a junior, hitting the seniors, then kind of when you turn pro, everything's got to go better. I think you got to compete against your same age all the way through your juniors, challenge yourself with a few tough tournaments. If you do that constantly, that gap going from amateur to pro is not going to be that tough.
I think it's all about kind of matching yourself up against kind of your age and your age group as you grow up, do a lot of hard work. I think the program back home is picking up a lot. We have a system that picks up the juniors already down to 10 years old. So, I mean, we try to kind of see where we can find them, then try to hold on to them so they don't go on to a different sport.

Q. How much do you think physical fitness leaks into the mental part of your game? Does it give you an edge mentally when things aren't going so well?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, I mean, for me, I love working out. It's not just something I do just because someone's told me. For me it's also about preventing injuries. We travel a lot. So, I mean, you recover quite a bit quicker through all these times we go throughout the year.
For me, my fitness kind of builds on my swing. Finally my technique is allowing me to kind of get a use of the power I have in my body. Like I said, we're going into majors. I've just kind of gone through a hard period, so my body is a little bit down. Then a couple days, four, five days, it should be pretty good up to kind -- should feel pretty energized and full of power.

Q. Do you need a hard period of working out?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, same as a golf game. You try to work your game to a certain peak. It's always hard. You're depending on so many factors. Fitness, you hit hard in certain periods, then you kind of ease up. My body feels pretty good.

Q. When did you start liking physical fitness? Has it always been a part of your game?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: No, it's been -- I remember all the way back on the national team, I was probably 13, 12, I loved it. I mean, I had my coach come pick me up before school, after school. I just loved it.

Q. It's been a while since you and Lorena went down to the wire in her backyard down there. Could you talk briefly about the experience. She had all the fans behind her, that type of thing. Was there anything you took away from that experience?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, I had all of Norway behind me. That doesn't get that far when you go to Mexico, when in Mexico City there's 20 million people.
No, of course you want to go head-to-head with the best players in the world. I know Lorena really well. She's a good friend of mine. She's a great competitor. I think both of us bring the best out of each other.
She pulled that one off. Not much I can do. I got outplayed. Shot 5-under on the Sunday and still lost. You will go through runs like that. She gets her fair share. I get my fair share. Whoever else goes head-to-head, all you can do is take the moment, try to enjoy it, try to take the best out of it.
JASON TAYLOR: Thank you.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Thank you, Suzanne.

End of FastScripts

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