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THE SOLHEIM CUP

September 9, 2005

Rosie Jones

Meg Mallon

CARMEL, INDIANA

Q. Rosie and Meg, thanks for coming in today. Great playing out there. Rosie, you started on fire out 3 or 4 birdies. First start with you and talk about your round.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, sure we

MEG MALLON: I'll get the pom poms out.

ROSIE JONES: Sometimes the momentum starts with one player and hands off to the other, and sometimes you just kind of feed off each other, but today I started off, and I was swinging good, felt good. I had perfect yardage.

You kept saying you were in between clubs. That's the way it is. I had perfect yardage and just good visuals on and off the green, and it just opened up for me perfect. I hit a great shot into 1, and I was thinking to myself, you know, this is the first putt I was thinking, this is the last first putt I'm going to have at Solheim Cup, and I nailed it.

I nailed it, and I was you know, it was every putt I hit on the Front 9 was exactly where I wanted it, and it was good.

MEG MALLON: It was magic. It was fun to watch. I was a spectator up close and personal, and it was dead center every putt.

Q. Questions? For both of you, is it any accident that the more veteran golfers, let's just say, had the best days out there, the players would have been in the Solheim Cup before?

MEG MALLON: Well, we had to. You know, we didn't know how the morning finished up. Our round had already started. Actually when we got started, things were going really good in the morning. We were kind of pumped up about our team's performance.

ROSIE JONES: I thought we were up in three matches and down one. Ends up we lose two and halved two.

MEG MALLON: We said, oh, well, we have to take care of ourselves.

ROSIE JONES: At that point, you can't play attention. You have to stay in the moment. As much as you are in the team, you have got to get down to what's your business and that's our match at the moment.

Q. Why is it so difficult with first time players? Why is it easier for the veteran players?

MEG MALLON: I don't think it's easy. I don't think it's ever easy. We just know what to expect. You know, we're both as nervous on the first tee as anybody else. I think we probably settle our nerves down a lot quicker than first timers do. I gave this whole speech last night to the team about how you're going to hit it a half club further, and here I go on the first hole and blow it over the green. It's amazing adrenaline that we don't have ever in our careers.

ROSIE JONES: I was going to say, hey, slow down bam bam, but it was one of those pins that we have been playing in practice rounds too several times, and it's just kind of a sucker pin to that right behind it, but it's hard to judge what your body is feeling at that moment, but, you know, I'm hitting the ball further we're finally playing on a golf course that we're getting run on.

My ball is finally going over the hills instead of hitting the hills and stopping. I think we're all hitting it a little bit further because of the adrenaline, and when you've played in a lot of Solheims before, you know how the adrenaline situation is affecting you and how to use it to your advantage and how to use the momentum that you get and how to turn around momentum from the other side, and I think the veterans have a little bit better idea to be a little bit more patient with the match than the younger players might, because if you get impatient, you start playing shots that you might normally not play.

You might go for pins that you might not usually go for, and just like when we're playing today, Meg played great, I just put the putt in in front of you on the first five or six holes. It wasn't like she wasn't there. She was there. I just

MEG MALLON: I was the par partner today for Rosie.

ROSIE JONES: When I was in good shape and she had a chip or something, sometimes you try a little harder or you try a shot that you normally wouldn't play if you're, you know, playing by yourself, but since your partner is in good shape, you go for a little riskier shot, and sometimes it's not rewarding.

You know, you played a lot better than it looked from the sides, but, you know, it was

MEG MALLON: I had a little glitch in the middle.

ROSIE JONES: I missed that part.

Q. We've heard that Europe has an advantage off the tee; they hit it a little longer. Does that shine through and help them more on the back than the front?

MEG MALLON: That's a good question, because those last few holes were pretty good. Rosie and I lost both the par 5s, 9 and 15. We knew those guys were longer than us, but we still had a chance to halve on those holes.

The way it golf course is, even though you're a long hitter, there is Pete Dye has put some nice little bunkers and mounding areas where it doesn't necessarily prove to be an advantage, I think. I mean, look at Rosie Jones, she went out and birdied six out of the first ten holes and might be the shortest hitter in the field. It's all about getting the ball in the hole. She was superhuman today.

Q. While she didn't have a bad day, what do you tell a rookie like Paula Creamer tonight who might not be real happy?

MEG MALLON: I've already talked to her. She went out and tried her hardest, and she said, "You know, it just didn't happen. I hate to lose and don't like the feeling of it," and that's good. She's a true competitor, and now she's got her feet wet, and I think now she knows what it's all about, and I have a feeling she's a quick learner.

Q. A couple of matches got away in the morning, but it's 5 and 3 now. This seems like this is where you always are.

MEG MALLON: We're better.

ROSIE JONES: Sometimes we're a lot a lot worse. I feel really pretty good where we're at. You know, and given our matches early this morning, we could have been we could be 5 and 5 real easy, and, you know, we just need to finish up our matches, and when we're up, we can't let up.

Q. To both of you, were either one of you surprised that you didn't get the call to play this morning, and then what was it like to sit in that opening session and watch?

MEG MALLON: Actually, I think

ROSIE JONES: We both knew the strategy of our Captain.

MEG MALLON: We knew.

ROSIE JONES: It wasn't a big surprise to us.

Q. Was it tough to sit there and watch it?

MEG MALLON: For me this week it was nice to sleep in. I needed it. It was weird for me, though, because I've never not played a first match. I said, "What do we do? When am I supposed to be there?"

I was out of sorts because I didn't know, do I come in the uniform in the morning? Do I have breakfast at home? I had no idea. So I had to find out what was going on.

ROSIE JONES: We had to make a plan for this one. You're doing this and doing that and come back and get in your routine.

MEG MALLON: It was good for me. I was happy to start out first going out in the afternoon, especially with Rosie, and things turned out great.

ROSIE JONES: I rolled over in my bed and saw the clock was 6:15 and I was like, oh my God they are already on the bus. You know, I didn't have to get up either, but from then on I couldn't wait until 8:00 to turn on the TV, and from the hotel room to the bus, we were like hurry up, get there to turn it on, and from there, running back in the locker room, turning it on.

As soon as we saw it on TV and went out and watched them make the turn, you know, it's hard, but it's exciting. We know that everybody is great players. We want to support them, and you don't have time to be disappointed or surprised or unhappy that you're not playing.

You've got to go out there and support your team and get ready to play your match.

MEG MALLON: We did it and got our point for them. It was a good strategy.

Q. It sort of looks like it's going to be 12 against 10 the first couple of days here, and they're going to have four players who are going to go the whole five matches. Do you think that's going to take a toll come Sunday afternoon?

ROSIE JONES: It's pretty typical.

MEG MALLON: We're used to that. In '92 I was a victim of a young player by the name of Catrin Nilsmark who didn't play until the singles and shot 60 nothing on me. It works both ways. I was like, "I'm sorry, what's your name?" And I knew her name by the end of the round. Sometimes it works, and it depends on the player. It might fire them up.

ROSIE JONES: I don't think Laura Davies has ever sat down a match. They have players that are just not going to sit down. It's the way they like to play, and, you know, I don't know. I guess that's the way they like to do it.

Q. Well put. Thanks, Meg and Rosie.

End of FastScripts.

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