U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 30, 1998

Rosie Jones

ROSIE JONES: Well, I did. (laughs).

ROSIE JONES: Must be my new Callaway X12 irons, I am sure. Actually I opened up this year pretty good, had a good tournament in Phoenix, pretty good tournament Dinah Shore, backed up a little bit on Saturday there. But got some new irons right before, during Corning,. And Corning was my triple or double defender tournament and went in there and finished 10th place with those new clubs and then came right out at Rochester and won it. So then I have had another top-10, so that is three or four top-tens in a row with my new clubs. I have to give them some credit and I have just, you know, this year I am just playing better. I am putting better and not letting some big scores get away from me.

ROSIE JONES: I think I have been taking a better mental perception over the putter. I am not putting so much pressure on being so perfect with the putter because I am a real feel player. I get up over the ball. It looks different. It feels different everyday. I just have to go with that and trust that my athleticism is going to carry me and trust that it is right for me that day. For the last couple of years I have been a little bit too aware of myself over the ball and I am trying to get more into my line and the green and it makes me a little less nervous over the putter. I have been a little nervous over the putter last couple of years and now I am starting to get my feel back for it.

ROSIE JONES: I am probably the first person in here that doesn't have an opinion about it because I am travelling with my 90-pound yellow Lab and it takes me a little bit longer to get from one place to the next and taking care of him, so yesterday I kind of just took it easy once I got here which was about 2 in the afternoon and I kind of drove up through the parking lot and realized how hard it was to get in. So I went back out and saw that the golf course -- just looks really nice just driving in. I can't tell. I have talked to a few people and they say it is playing kind of long. Much tougher than Seaview that we played last week, much harder than Pumpkin Ridge so I am looking for a good test of golf this week.

ROSIE JONES: Judd. Judd has already been pretty famous this year. He has travelled with me a little bit and fortunately I have been playing well with him on the road so I am going to keep him on the road for a little bit this summer.

ROSIE JONES: A little bit. I drove from Atlantic City to Pittsburgh. Then I flew from there. Judd flew with me. We will pick up the car on the way down to Toledo again. We had someone else drive the car further on to Toledo. It is like a juggling act. You have got to be ahead of the game especially when you have got kids or dogs or vehicles, you have them dropped off or something like that.

ROSIE JONES: You would be amazed how many girls do have dogs out here. Dottie Pepper travels with her dog almost all the time. I mean a, lot more than I do. And Donna Andrews sometimes has her dogs out. She has two really beautiful dogs. There is actually about seven or eight other girls that I can count that have smaller dogs and have, you know, the five to eight pound travelling dog which is more appropriate for this type of job.

But then there is a couple like me that just bring out there --

ROSIE JONES: Yeah.

ROSIE JONES: We normally play golf course at 6,300 yards out on the LPGA. I understand this is a par 71 at 6,400, so I imagine there is some long par 4s and apparently someone was telling me last night that I don't think anybody is going to reach the par 5s. So unless depending on how the wind is blowing and of course that is always makes a big difference by the time we get into Saturday and Sunday on some of those holes, whether or not people are going to reach those. But knowing the USGA, they probably have some pretty long par 3s and a couple of long par 4s, going to test our long irons this week, I think.

ROSIE JONES: Well, the Open -- I am a real -- the Open always moves. The USGA always moves and so you are right, we are not real familiar and even if we are familiar it is usually ten to twelve years before we ever get back to another U.S. Open golf course. As far as being, you know, more familiar than anybody else, everybody -- you are right everybody comes in and we have got two or three days to get to know it. I am not sure how many people might have come in here weeks in advance just to get a peek or to play it on their way to another tournament or something. But I am real meticulous about the greens. Once I get to know how to approach a green, which side of the green to be on as far as certain pins go, you know, then I get a couple days to look at it and, you know, usually feel like I can go. Sometimes it is better that way, you don't know where all the trouble is. So you just kind of learn as you go. After a round in a U.S. Open I am still making notes to myself to remind myself tomorrow about a certain green or a certain lay-up or whatever. So a lot of times we have to use the first couple of rounds in learning the golf course still.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, you do. I will be taking a lot of notes. My caddie and I will be taking a lot -- getting a lot of yardages as far as 2 and over, certain traps, I will be getting to know the greens, you know, certain pin positions, what the greens look like, carrying to those pin positions. We do a lot a lot of homework actually the first two days on a golf course. Like my practice rounds are harder days than my actual playing rounds because I am having to work double time not only on hitting the golf ball and chasing it and seeing how it plays physically, but mentally getting, you know, the paper work done as well.

ROSIE JONES: Roughs and green, yeah, about equal measure. They always -- they like really hard pavement-like greens and hopefully I like the rough being really tall because it brings the longer hitters back into the field a little bit. If they are going to be hitting an 8-iron into or 9-iron into the green, you know, from out of the rough it is going to be a little tougher than, you know, if I am hitting a 6-iron out of the fairway. So they are known for that. That is just the way they build up the golf courses.

ROSIE JONES: Well, actually I rented a house this week, so I am doing a lot of grocery shopping and cooking and we really don't have, you know, really don't have a whole lot of extra time when you have a dog and you are cooking. So I will be taking him out to a couple of parks that I saw. He needs to run and swim, that kind of is like my hobby. He is my, you know, companion in a way that I spend my time with him, kind of like family and that is it.

ROSIE JONES: It is kind of, you know, takes a village to raise your kid type of thing. You are kind of -- bring in some help a little bit. I met one of the neighbors that offered to come over on a long day. Judd does okay certain amount of hours. I have three other roommates, one is my caddie, but two other girls that are staying at the house there hopefully our schedules are going to be kind of off in way that they are going to be home earlier than I am or leaving later than I am that day and we can juggle that that way. But, Judd, even though he is 90 pounds, really kind of is like a lap dog and he likes to be inside. He does real well for several hours by himself.

ROSIE JONES: They were going to be golfers that didn't qualify, so I have got a couple other caddies in there, women caddies.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, I do. I do go back there a few times and feel like I learned a lot from coming down the stretch, not really knowing that I was co-leading the U.S. Open and made probably a couple mistakes that I probably wouldn't have made, you know, with 16 years or 15 years under the belt, but it was a great experience. It was probably good that I didn't win that early in my career because I definitely don't think I was ready for a win. I would have put a lot more pressure than I like that early in my career.

ROSIE JONES: Actually, I think I might have beat her because I ended up bogeying -- the ball went down; missed the pin. It was on that really slope that went all the way down the front of the green and ended up making the bogey to lose by one. So it was pretty dramatic. I have that big picture of the result or whatever. It was really cool.

ROSIE JONES: Right.

ROSIE JONES: I was playing Big Bertha Callaways. I am on the Callaway staff. I had been playing the Big Bertha irons for the last two years and, I don't know, they are just a better iron. I just -- they are a great golf club and my swing has been pretty good all year. I have had a couple ups and downs. I was just coming out of one of those little valleys and hit some golf tournaments and golf courses that I really enjoy playing and love the towns that we were in, so real easy to get some momentum going and the clubs just made it real easy for me to do that.

ROSIE JONES: I think if I was to pick a year that I had a chance, I would say definitely this was one of those years. Not being on the golf course, it is a little bit early to say that, but last week last two weeks, I really haven't been hitting it -- the ball to my potential and I think this week, couple more days of tuneup is going to -- I think I should be hitting it the way I want to. I am starting to come around. I think if I can get a straight driver, I have got a good chance.

ROSIE JONES: I think I would say I have had a great career. I have been a hard worker. I was the type of kid coming out of college just that, you know, there was no question whether or not I was going to be able to be a Tour player or if I was going to go out and win. I felt like I could play and if I couldn't find some success in my playing then I would find something else to do. Each year I feel like I am just getting better and better and older. And I think I am on, you know, kind of like the peak part of my career where I am going to start thinking about, as I come down off that peak, what is next for me as far as a Tour player or a golfer at all. But I just think I have been a hard worker and I am very, very consistent on the golf course and with my results in the last 16 years, just it is all on paper.

ROSIE JONES: I probably would be either an international thief or an F.B.I. agent - one of those two (laughs). I like a little bit of excitement, I guess. I don't know, I am always reading stories about that. I don't know. I just -- I am kind of creative and adventuresome, very domestic and think I can do anything with my house. I walk around with a hammer and nail most of the time on my weeks off, but don't really accomplish a lot in just one week.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, I think when I first moved into my neighborhood I was into my yard so much working, digging, and planting and stuff like that that people thought I was hired help and didn't know I was a professional golfer. But a couple of neighbors are catching on. I am not really out there with my --

ROSIE JONES: A little bit. I have got a net upstairs in my loft that I use in the winter when it is a little bit cold. Yeah, I live a little bit of a non-golfing life in Atlanta as far as that goes.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, it is a hard life. It is not easy. A lot of people think it is real glamorous. But just think of how glamorous it is at 6 P.M. in the morning you are standing on line outside, you have all done this before outside baggage claim, and you have got four people in front of you complaining about this and that you haven't even gotten inside the building yet and you have still got to go about eight more hours all the way up cross-country and about eight more lines and, you know, the hard part is the travelling, I think, and just the anxiety and the stress that you go from one week to the other. Not only that, but you are doing -- while you are doing that, you are kind of maintaining a business and a life running a home on the road. That becomes high anxiety at times when everything builds up. You have got water mains bursting at your house; your yard people haven't showed up in three weeks and your pool has turned green. You are trying to deal with that before you get home or while you are on the road and people out there see you on TV, they just think, oh, that is great, she has got a limo that drops her off, she gets back home, food is waiting on the table. It is not like that. It is very unlike that. There is hardly enough time in the day really to take care of yourself, it seems like sometimes. Taking my dog is kind of a gift to have with me, but also an obligation because I feel like if I leave him at home all year long he doesn't really -- what kind of life is that? He is with strangers. It is good to leave him at home because he is at home. He is in his own environment. It is not no so great to leave him in a hotel all day. So I try to provide like a house or get volunteers to let me use their backyards and let him stay there during the day while I am playing golf. So there is a lot more than just, you know, wanting to have my dog with me. It is kind of an obligation and a choice that I made when I got the dog.

ROSIE JONES: This one just happened upon us two years ago. He is five years old that we know. We guess. He is full yellow Lab and he was astray. We put ads in the paper, everything. We couldn't find his owners. He just ended up living with us.

ROSIE JONES: Well, when I was early in my career I was sitting down with several players and when you first get out here and you are overwhelmed with the number of teachers and people and resources that you have to help you do what you need to do, there was Sandra Spuzich, an old veteran, doesn't play anymore, she looked at me, said, " Rosie, nobody knows you and your game like you do, so always trust those instincts, there have been several times and I think Sandra -- because you have several teachers in your lifetime, you have several people that are your support system and that help you and guide you through your career and through good times and bad, including sports psychologists, something like that, but when it really comes down to what works and what makes you tick, you have to find that out for yourself from yourself. She is just saying that to me one night over a beer at a party or something like that, gave me a lot of confidence to just trust myself because I am a very instinctual feeling type of gut reaction person that will play upon my instincts almost all the time, if I am doing what I should be doing.

ROSIE JONES: There has been lots of players that come out here and rookies and they just -- they are like fish out of water flapping all over the place. I remind them that when I came out I was nobody. I was just out of college. I really hadn't won any important college or amateur events or anything like that. I played well my senior year and my final amateur year, but when I came out onto the Tour I missed 6 out of my first 7 cuts. I just was overwhelmed and then for the next 20 cuts, I made them. And I made -- I was down to like the last $1,500 with my sponsors and I made my first cut and then I made the next one and next one and ended up in the top 30 on the money list with like 60-something thousand dollars and that is a million years ago when you do that. Now you can't even be in the top 90 with that. It is kind of like my own little success story my rookie year and from there it gave me the confidence to just go on further and I share that with a couple of rookies every now and then just to kind of hopefully, hey, don't give up, just stick with what you know and you can do it. You can turn it around. You can turn your life around.

ROSIE JONES: Well, it is hard when you are -- I am a real streaky putter myself. I have been known on the Tour to be a really great putter. I think there was a time when I started paying attention to those people. I said: Wow, what makes me so great. I started to kind of dissect my putting, what made me so great. Then I was not so great. I became very ungreat. I had to kind of redissect it and find out what were the things that were really working for me and go back to that. Not only a physical thing, but a more mental approach to my putting and that is kind of what I have been working pretty hard on this year and it has been working for me as far as being more mentally prepared for putting.

ROSIE JONES: Yeah, you kind of get a snowball effect of putting but, you know, putting is such a comfort-zone thing. I don't feel like you stand up to the putter each day the same way and you -- you just -- you can turn it around any minute; all of a sudden they are going to start falling. At times you get on the golf course, you are not reading these greens right, you can't see the breaks on the greens and then some days you walk up you go, God, it is like staring -- there is no way I can miss this, this looks great, oh, my God, look at that one, they are just coming to you. Other days you are just not connecting at all. It is not a physical bad stroke type of thing. It is just a mental perception and what you have to do is change that image from that bad perception into a good perception and try to start making them.