	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

CN CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

September 2, 2009

Cristie Kerr

CALGARY, ALBERTA

DANA GROSS-RHODE: Cristie, welcome to the CN Canadian Women's Open. You're a past champion, a few years ago, but now coming into this year, you got 18 starts, 11 Top 10 finishes, one win and you've been at the top of the LPGA Official Money List for a few weeks as well, so needless to say, it's been a pretty good year.
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. It's been a great year. My game is where I want it, my head is where I want it, and I've got some great goals. Pretty loud out there, I guess. Being in Canada, it's to be expected.
So I'm playing great, and I'm back here at Priddis. I played here the last time it was here, and it's a fantastic golf course, so I'm looking forward to the week.
DANA GROSS-RHODE: Can you talk about real quick the momentum coming off the Solheim Cup and being a team leader there and doing well in Portland and now being here, or is the adrenaline rush kind of starting to wear off?
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. Absolutely. Solheim, I think, took a lot out of us as a team. I got sick last week; Paula had to withdraw because she was sick, and we were all exhausted.
I mean, Solheim Cup is like three tournaments in one, I mean, with all the things we have to do and the golf. And it's just so high energy, high energy all the time. And you know, in Portland we were all exhausted. I think we're starting to recover now.
And you know, just looking forward to, you know, playing this event. I love the CN Canadian Open. I'm a past champion, and have good memories here at Priddis.
DANA GROSS-RHODE: Questions for Cristie.

Q. Cristie, 10 years ago I know a lot of balls rolled down a lot of fairways, but can you remember anything about this course that you would like to change?
CRISTIE KERR: Like to change?

Q. As far as scoring in this tournament. You were almost Top 10 here, I think, in '99. What would you change to get to No. 1 this trip?
CRISTIE KERR: Well, I mean this is a very challenging golf course, especially the Back 9. It's pretty hilly, so you have to manage your energy for the week.
You know, I was actually battling some problems with my feet back then, and it was freezing the last time we were here. And I think the weather is going to be good, so I think that's going to allow for me to have a little better scoring.
I just have to putt well, just have to hit good shots on the greens and putt well. The fairways are quite generous, and you have to score. You have to get up-and-down when you need to get up-and-down and just keep the momentum going.

Q. Obviously over 10 years you've seen a number of golf courses since you've last been here. When you get back, though, do you remember? Do some things come back to you and maybe ways to play holes and things like that?
CRISTIE KERR: Absolutely. I remember the course really well. I remembered how much I liked it back in I think it was '99 maybe, 10 years ago already. Unbelievable.
You know, just being a great layout and how I played the course. I played the course well when I was here the last time, even under some increment weather; so I'm looking forward to this week, and hopefully the weather will hold out.

Q. You and Lorena go back and forth in terms of winning and No. 1 in world rankings, LPGA rankings, whatever. Do you have any sort of friendly rivalry or any sort of association, any funny stories that you guys have shared over the years?
CRISTIE KERR: I've always enjoyed playing with Lorena. She's a great competitor, a great person, and we're friends off the course.
On the course it's kind of all business for us, and there's always those little rivalries. You always want to play your friends and beat them when they're playing well. You never wish any ill will. You want to beat the best in the world when they're playing their best.

Q. Getting off the topic of golf, how's the wine business coming?
CRISTIE KERR: The wine business is good, actually. Curvature Wines, not K-E-R-R. Spelled C-U-R-V-A-T-U-R-E. It's a wine which we've made this year in association with Pride Mountain vineyards, which is in Napa, California, St. Helena and Suzanne Pride Bryan is a breast cancer survivor.
I've been friends with them for a very long time and been interested in making a wine, and we kind of sat down earlier in the year when we were out there and are like, are we going to do this. We decided to come up with Curvature Wine. It's a Cabernet-based wine, 80% Cab., 15% Merlot, 5% of a Petit Verdot blend and it's delicious. It's amazing.
It's in the bottle. We're printing up the labels and putting them on, and we'll have a place holder where you can go and actually buy the wine. And 100 percent of the proceeds are going for charity, for breast cancer research. So it's exciting for us. It's a great project, and we're going to be going out to Napa probably later in the year to blend our next year's vintage.
DANA GROSS-RHODE: I think everyone's wishing they had a glass of that right now.

Q. Cristie, do you find that you tend to maybe lean on your caddie any more in a week like this because of elevation and maybe the club selection being different than your standard week on the East Coast?
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. Possibly. I'm not exactly 100 percent of what the elevation is here. Somebody could probably tell me in the room.
My caddie knows that, and I really kind of keep it simple. He's pretty good at judging.
Yeah, you definitely utilize him more, but I work great with my caddie John Killeen every week, and we just try and keep it simple because a lot of things change. Temperature makes the ball go further, and altitude.
If it's colder, it doesn't go quite as far, so you just try and kind go to the yardage for the pin, try and figure out what that's playing, our best guesstimate, and we go from there.
DANA GROSS-RHODE: Cristie, before we end can you talk a little bit about the Pro Am that you had at Liberty National?
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. It was our fifth annual event for Birdies for Breast Cancer. It was our fifth annual Birdies for Breast Cancer Celebrity Charity Pro-Am.
We had some amazing people come, Michael Schway (ph.), who's a famous chef. Todd English was there cooking for us. We had a couple people from the show "Gossip Girl," which I'm sure a lot of the teens in Calgary are familiar with, 20 LPGA girls.
It was just amazing. We had a Thursday night cocktail reception, followed by Friday, you know, golf, followed by a gala, so that was pretty cool. And we're tallying how much we've raised before our expenses, and it's going to be significant.
So it was a lot of fun. It was great to have all the LPGA girls there, and we had a fantastic day at Liberty National. They just hosted the Barclays, and that was a big success, and it's just amazing to be in partnership with Liberty National for this.
Also, the proceeds for that event are going for the new Cristie Kerr Women's Health Center at Liberty Medical. It's going to be a 5,000-square-foot facility. I got some surprises as far as who may be doing the design work behind that, maybe somebody pretty famous. And it's going to be the first place in Hudson County that has digital mammography and the only place where women who don't have the funds to get diagnosed and treated can go there. We're not going to turn anybody away, so we're going to be saving lives.

Q. When you come into a tournament like this, do you consider yourself a favorite? Do you put yourself in those shoes and say, "come get me?"
CRISTIE KERR: I do. Especially the way I've been playing. I'm just having a lot of fun playing professional golf, and you know what, No. 1 is just kind of a result of all the things you've done throughout the years. And that's kind of where I am right now, and if I do the things as well as I have done the rest of the year, it'll end up being No. 1 at the end of the year. That's my goal.
Nothing to be afraid of. It's a fun chase; it's a fun race in a sense, and I'm looking forward to it.

Q. To follow back up on your friendship with Lorena, do you guys ever talk golf or do you say, no, we stay away from that? It would be interesting to kind of hear the insider's take.
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. A lot of our relationship has to do with golf, so when we're on the course, we kind of just chat it up. And off the course she's just an amazing person. She has her own charities that she supports. And you know, can't be 100 percent golf all the time.
You know, you have a mutual admiration for what each other does, and you just kind of go from there.

Q. Lacoste commercial, can you talk about that? Looked like you guys were having a little bit of fun.
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. Definitely. As well as Yani. Yani Tseng, Lorena and myself are the top three Lacoste athletes, and we did some pretty interesting things when we're over at the Evian Masters because they're a major sponsor of that event.
We shot commercials, did photo shoots. We picked out our clothes for next year, very happy. And no, just had a lot of fun. We had fun with it.

Q. Obviously you've won a number of tournaments during your career, but when you won a few years ago in London, I wonder when you look back, when you went against the field like this week and what was there, is that more of a feather in your cap than maybe an event where there's not as many top players?
CRISTIE KERR: Well, for sure. We've always thought of the Canadian Women's Open as one of the unofficial majors. And it used to be a major with the du Maurier. So it always gets the greatest field, it's always at a great course. And certainly you want to beat the best in the world. And I consider myself to be one of the best in the world.
It's definitely fun to be competing against your peers and the top players, and when you win in an amazing field, whether it's the U. S. Women's Open or Canadian Open or Michelob Ultra at Kingsmill, those are the best fields. That's where you want to win.

Q. Kind of a girly question for all the guys in the room. You mentioned getting to pick out the clothes. Can you talk a little bit about sort of the fashion style on the golf course? There's a lot of glam girls out there, and I know you have your own sense of style. What would you say is your kind of routine for what you're going to wear in a tournament like this?
CRISTIE KERR: I'm not so trendy as some people are, will paint their face or they'll put fancy stuff in their hair. Sometimes I do that, but I'm more of a modern-classic kind of feel where I'll wear a really nice bottom or great Lacoste top or sweater or pants, great shoes, great jewelry. So that's kind of like how I am. I'm not so trendy where I'll wear the little socks that have the balls on the back of them and stuff like that.
DANA GROSS-RHODE: Thank you all very much. Cristie, good luck this weekend.
CRISTIE KERR: Thanks.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297