THE SOLHEIM CUP

September 10, 2003

Cristie Kerr

LAURA NEAL: Cristie, thanks for joining us. I appreciate you drying off up on stage with us a little bit. Your second Solheim appearance but first overseas. Can you talk with us a little bit about the course.

CRISTIE KERR: The course is awesome. It was in great shape yesterday. When the rain came, it rained about an inch and a half an hour. I was very, very surprised. The golf course kind of went under water. The greens held their own. They're probably under water now. Maybe if the rain stops it will drain nicely.

LAURA NEAL: Do you have some questions? If you guys could use the mic as well.

Q. This weather, will it suit you for the rest of the week, or would you rather see it go away?

CRISTIE KERR: I think any of us would rather see it go away. If we have to play in it, I think we're prepared. You always, in the back of your mind, you know it can be bad weather in England, Scotland, Ireland, any of the old golf countries. And Sweden is no exception.

Q. In looking at the golf course, it looks like the rough is way down. I don't know whether the last time the players were here with the Compaq --

CRISTIE KERR: I think after the British, a couple of people came over and played the golf course, I think Meg and Beth and Hilary Lunke, I think everybody came over here, three or four people. They say the rough was pretty thick compared to how it is now. I think Meg and Beth said that they had cut it down this week.

Q. Cristie, do you feel a big difference being a rookie last year at this time? Can you just talk about the difference?

CRISTIE KERR: Absolutely. There's a huge difference. Even driving to the golf course last year I felt nervous. Hitting balls on the range I felt nervous. This year nothing. I'm sure come tournament time you're going to have jitters on the first tee. I think I'm able to prepare in a much more normal situation than I did last year. Everything was new. You didn't know what to feel or what to think. And now you know you need to prepare like you would normally prepare. I feel like I've been able to do that a lot better and not really focus on the emotion part of it so much. This year is more just trying to prepare. I'm sure there will be emotions during matches, but everybody is going to have those.

Q. How much input do you have on who you play with?

CRISTIE KERR: How much input do we have? I don't think we have a lot. I think Patty, especially being the captain for the second consecutive year, knows everybody's personalities better and games better. And I think she's going to match us up well.

Q. Can you make suggestions?

CRISTIE KERR: Sure we can make suggestions. I feel like I'd be able to play with anybody. You have to ask the other players what they think about that. I feel like I'm kind of a chameleon. I feel like I can adapt and adjust my game to anybody's.

Q. Do you have members of your family over?

CRISTIE KERR: Do I? No, not this year. My dad is working. He's a school teacher. And my mom is kind of afraid to fly, so it's a little bit far for her to go. And she's recovering from having breast cancer surgery. She's kind of got to stick around and see what she has to do with the radiation. My thoughts and my prayers are with her. And I miss my family, sure. This is such a busy week for us anyways. We do a lot of media things, a lot of public relations things. It's all very well and good, but we don't have a lot of time. I've talked to my fiancee maybe once since I've been here in three days.

Q. He's not coming over?

CRISTIE KERR: He's not here, no. He's in the Marines, not the Army? What was that? Oh, he just dropped in. That was weird? What was that incidentally.

Q. Being that this is your second year and you're a little more of a veteran, what have you been saying to Angela and to Heather to help make them more comfortable and how have they been reacting?

CRISTIE KERR: Just little insights about, "Watch how fast you walk and make sure you breathe right". Just the little things you don't know unless you've been through it. i've just been trying to help them a little bit with sorting out their emotions and giving a little bit of insight into what I went through last year and hopefully it will help. They have to go the road themselves. They won't know -- you know yourself better after you've played through one of these things and as you get older in age as well. You just tend to know yourself a little bit better and try and manage things a little bit better.

Q. What did you learn from it?

CRISTIE KERR: The emotion part for me, I'm an emotional player. I'm getting better at just kind of playing my game and not -- trying to be a little bit more on an even keel. But I've got emotions and I show them. And I think that's a good thing. I think a lot of players don't show emotion, and I think that's what makes it exciting. I think that's what fans come to out to see. You don't want to really see somebody that doesn't pay any attention to you or say hi to a fan or smile at a kid. I'm like that. I show my emotion. I'm just trying to help Angela and Heather to understand it's going to happen. It's normal. Just like you would have butterflies on the first tee and just how to go about managing them and not to do anything differently this week than you would to prepare for say a U.S. Open. And not to try too hard because it's easy to try too hard in this format because you want to -- you're playing in a team situation, and we only do that once every couple of years. I'm just trying to help them understand that all these things are normal and to manage them a little bit better.

Q. How does your clothing compare to last year?

CRISTIE KERR: Clothing? I like it. It was nice last year. Liz is a great sponsor. Liz Golf is a great sponsor. They give us way too much stuff which is nice because we get to keep it all. We probably wear about a third of the things -- they're probably flying low because the ceiling is low. That's what it is. We probably wear about a third of the things that they give us, but we get to keep it all. So it's really nice.

Q. How do you think the design compares to that of the European side?

CRISTIE KERR: It's totally different. We're red, white, and blue through and through. Their colors are I guess yellow and blue and brown. I don't really know. You see what they wear every day, but you don't really pay attention. We love our uniforms. We're all very American. Red, white, and blue, wear it every day. Proud to wear it.

Q. Someone says you have a pool table. Do you play pool?

CRISTIE KERR: I think we have a snooker table. But it's smaller than a pool table. We really wanted a ping pong table. I don't think we got it.

Q. What do you do when you try to relax in the team room?

CRISTIE KERR: We don't really spend that much time in the team room. The first two or three days is the busiest for us in the Solheim. That's another thing that I told Angela and Heather. Just know you're not going to get a lot of sleep this week. It's okay, your body can function on it. If you're used to getting eight hours, six hours is okay, really. We haven't had that much time to be in the team room. It's kind of separated from where we're staying. We can't walk through the European's locker room. It's a big sign, "Europeans only". So we can't walk through there. So we have to walk outside and down to it. We really haven't had a lot of time. We went to dinner in Malmo yesterday, had a nice dinner there. Tonight we're going to the gala. So we haven't really had a whole lot of time to be in the team room as of yet. Maybe if there was a ping pong table, we'd be in there more.

LAURA NEAL: Thanks for coming in. Good luck this week.

End of FastScripts.