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U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 9, 2010

Kelli Shean

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we're happy that Kelli Shean dropped by to talk with us again. Kelli said she couldn't sleep at all last night, excited, and we know what that would be about.
She shot 40 on the front, 39 on the back, 79. How do you feel about the way you played today, Kelli?
KELLI SHEAN: Well, it was a lot tougher out there, obviously. You know, I wasn't driving the ball as well as I was yesterday, and yesterday I made an extra couple of putts.
But, you know, I mean, basically I just didn't drive the ball as well as I did yesterday. I'm probably the only player who hit 14 twice today; I'm pretty sure of that.
You know, I think tomorrow I just got to focus on driving the ball better.
THE MODERATOR: What you did yesterday was so monumentous as an amateur to be tied for second on this golf course, and I know you said you didn't sleep because you were just so excited about the whole thing.
Were you tired today when you came out to the course?
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah. I only got to bed almost at 2:00 this morning. I just couldn't sleep. This whole thing has been so amazing. I've been so blown away about how many supporters, and friends and my family and everybody is just going crazy over everything.
I honestly couldn't sleep very well. But, you know, I got to bed almost 2:00 and woke up at 4:30. I wanted to play. I really did. I couldn't wait to come back out here. But it was -- I'm definitely going home for a nap.
THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll start taking questions.

Q. I'm curious, I know Ernie sent the message yesterday. Did you ever hear from him? Did he ever try and get in touch with you yesterday?
KELLI SHEAN: Um, well, every now and again I get an e-mail -- like Hannes Van Niekerk is the main guy with the Ernie Els Fancourt Foundation. I keep in touch with him a lot. Every now and again the message gets through to Ernie and Ernie comes back and stuff like that.

Q. You did not hear from him?
KELLI SHEAN: I heard from him yesterday, but I haven't heard from him today. It's not a normal thing to get -- to speak to Ernie every day. (Smiling.)
Q. In regards to the excitement and everything, did your dad try to shield you from all the Facebook and texts and just said, you know, Get some rest, go out tomorrow, and then maybe catch up on this?
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah, the first thing everybody said to me last night was that I needed to go home and get some rest and go to sleep. I couldn't. I was too excited about this whole thing. You know, my Facebook was overloaded last night. I had over 60 friend requests, and a whole bunch -- so many messages.
I couldn't have replied to any of them, to be honest. It was too many. So I was just blown away by all that. It doesn't happen very often. It's great to know so many people support me.

Q. Did you respond to any of them? Was there one in particular that jumped out?
KELLI SHEAN: I'm sorry?
THE MODERATOR: Did you respond to any of them?
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah, I accepted most of the friend requests. I responded to all my family and my friends, you know, people I know. I haven't spoken to them in a long time. I had a couple of high school friends speak to me on Facebook. I haven't spoken to them in forever, so it was good.

Q. What did you do till 2:00 a.m.? Were you just lying there? Couldn't get your eyes closed?
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah, Facebook. Pretty much I just laid there. I had Facebook and spoke to my mom and my brother. My mom just keeps sending me text messages all the time. She doesn't care what time it is in the morning, as long as I get it.
So I mean, I was just taking in the whole thing. It was great.
THE MODERATOR: What's your outlook now going forward? You had all of the excitement. Is it like, Okay, time to get down to business, or...
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah, time to have some fun. You know, playing tomorrow I'm still gonna stick to the game plan. I honestly believe I have a very good one, and I'm just gonna enjoy it.
I mean, I'm an amateur. It's not like I can take any money home or anything like that, so I'm just gonna go out there and take all the experience and the memories as the prize of making it this weekend.
THE MODERATOR: How did the spectators respond to you today?
KELLI SHEAN: It was great. I met a couple of deaf people, and they were all great. Everyone was shouting, you know, Great swing, and I had a lot of compliments. Just kind of high natural blush over that, but it was great. It was awesome.

Q. As far as the conditions versus yesterday, a little less hot but more windy, does it make more of a difference to you? If it did, what was kind of the difference of the conditions?
KELLI SHEAN: No, not really. I mean, I play in the wind a lot coming from South Africa. I come from one of the windiest places ever.
You know, I was playing the game that I planned out to play the whole time. I think sometimes just things don't go your way. I had a bad bounce on No. 1, unlucky putt on No. 2, bad bounce on No. 3.
You know, I had a few bad bounces, but you just have to accept them and make the best of it. So my goal was just to keep calm and not let anything go on.
THE MODERATOR: Bad bounce on No. 1, what was that?
KELLI SHEAN: I hit my tee ball on the left side and outside of the bunker. My ball was about a couple of inches in front of it, on the edge, on the lip. These lips over here are a few feet high. There was no way I could get to the green, so I kind of had to flop that one out, go from there.
And then the second hole, my putt hit the marker and scooted off ling when I'm pretty sure it would have gone in.
THE MODERATOR: And No. 3 you had a bad bounce.
KELLI SHEAN: I mean, I drove the ball into the first cut, and I ended up in the bunker again. It was a couple of feet from the bunker. So Being uphill on all that, you couldn't get there either. I had to play very defensive golf for the first few holes. It was a little frustrating.

Q. We hear so much about how mentally tough it is to play Oakmont. Could you speak to that? What makes it so tough mentally out there to play this kind of course?
KELLI SHEAN: Yeah, I think that's what it is, is that you can hit a perfect shot out here and it might bounce, have a bad bounce, and land somewhere else.
The first thing -- everything that you want to do is get mad and frustrated over it. But the thing is, a bad bounce could happen on your next shot. There's never a shot out there that's guaranteed to be easy and perfect.
The approach shots to the greens, you know, you can hit them in the middle of the green and they're probably going to go run over the back or they're gonna run to the left or anywhere but at the hole sometimes.
And so you just have to grind your teeth and get through that. I mean, I got pretty frustrated in the beginning of my round today, but that's what Chandler was there for. He got me back and helped me get my mind calm.

Q. Is that exhausting?
KELLI SHEAN: It can be, especially when the round is, you know, six hours long, five-and-a-half, six hours long. It can be. I mean, I don't know many people who can focus that long.
THE MODERATOR: Was it as slow today or was it a little faster today?
KELLI SHEAN: We had a couple of waits on the back nine, but since we were the first off on the front nine, it was nice. We had nobody in front of us.
Once we hit the back nine there was a couple of waits, but it wasn't that bad.

Q. You keep talking about a game plan. What specifically is your game plan going into the tournament?
KELLI SHEAN: Well, it's just -- you know, I hit a lot of 3-woods off the tee on this course instead of drivers. It's pretty long, but, you know, the approach shot, the greens are really tricky. You can't really fly the ball at the hole on a lot of the holes.
And so just hitting them to the front edge of the green and letting it run down. Um, there's a lot of holes out there. You just gotta be heads up about that.
There are some holes that I don't even try and hit the green with my approach shot. I try and land it completely short and let it run down. It usually works.

End of FastScripts

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