Q. You have been out here every day year since '92 is it?
DENISE KILLEEN: Most of every year. I have two children so I had a couple of years where I spent a little bit time at home.
Q. Without breaking through with a tournament win were you discouraged at all?
DENISE KILLEEN: No, because when you have kids, you kind of lose focus of that. You know it's like I think earlier before I had my children I had all of these expectations and things that I wanted to accomplish and I think I was getting frustrated. Then I got pregnant and had a kid, and once I had my son I didn't take golf home with me anymore. I enjoyed it more and play better. I have played much better since I had my children than before I did.
Now, I think, you know, sure I have those goals. Everybody I think out here has goals and wants to win. Am I frustrated? Probably not. I have my family. I enjoy being out here. My husband works out here, too. So all of us are together every week.
Q. What does he do?
DENISE KILLEEN: He caddies for Pat Hurst. And the kids travel around with us. It's just an adventure every week.
Q. So are your goals to make enough to continue to do this year after year, is that it?
DENISE KILLEEN: My son goes to kindergarten this fall. Our lives are going to change here a little bit, but my goal is to make enough money to be able to play next year but to be able to play on my own terms and win when I want to play and if I want to stay home a few weeks with him I want to be able to do that.
Q. You had no thought of home schooling?
DENISE KILLEEN: I don't have the patience for that. Nor the energy. It's hard being out here and just having the energy to play and deal with kids much less trying to --
Q. Is that a fairly popular trend out here?
DENISE KILLEEN: Home schooling?
Q. Taking the kids on the road with you?
DENISE KILLEEN: Just about everybody who has kids takes them on the road until they get to a certain age then you have to make that decision. There are a lot of kids. There are probably 15 in school this week here. We have a nice little setup.
Q. There is usually on-site day care?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, it's a great setup for us. It allows us to be able to come out here and do this. We couldn't do it without that. I know I couldn't.
Q. On a more technical note, do you recall approximately the distance from the tee at 3 to that left fairway bunker?
DENISE KILLEEN: That's the one with the big hill in front of it, is that correct?
Q. Yes.
DENISE KILLEEN: To carry that fairway bunker it's like 245 to carry that fairway bunker.
Q. You probably practice less now and play better?
DENISE KILLEEN: I do actually. My time out here has to be well spent. I don't like leaving my kids in day care for 8 or 10 hours. Fortunately my husband is out here so we can mix and match it. But it's hard to have the energy to do everything out here. I had a week in Las Vegas where we left our kids at home and I had all of this time and I didn't know what to do. With all of this time to practice you feel like you should be out there practicing all day, and that's what I remembered before I had children, that's the feeling I had because I had to practice all the time because I had to get better and that's probably why I didn't get better because I spent too much time doing things that I didn't need to be doing and wasting a lot of energy.
Q. It's been 11 years since I have seen an LPGA tournament, the last one was down the road in Chesapeake?
DENISE KILLEEN: In Virginia Beach.
Q. How much difference is the TOUR now and this course compared to what you normally see in 2000?
DENISE KILLEEN: The TOUR now is very different. This course is a very, very good golf course. We came from one in Atlanta that was a very good golf course. It was kind of nice to have the build up. The TOUR is very different. Back then it was not so much a sorority. Not that it wasn't competitive. It just wasn't as competitive as it is now. You have to play well every week now to make money. Back then 3 or 4 over, you know would make the cut all the time. Well, even par, 1-over, 1-under now, so it's a whole different ball game.
Q. And you attribute that to what factors would you say?
DENISE KILLEEN: Probably we have a lot of good players out here now. We play a lot of great golf courses now which we are very fortunate there. We have a lot of European players that have come over here and raised the level of play over here because they have played so well.
Q. I was going to say might the level of junior girls programs and getting girls involved in the game more?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, the kids coming out of college now are much better. It used to be when a girl came out of college it took her three of four years before she got her feet wet and she could play. Now they come out and they expect to win right off the bat and most of them do. It's a different ball game. College golf is better. Junior golf is better.
Q. You didn't come out with that kind of confidence?
DENISE KILLEEN: It's took me a little longer than that to get out here. I had to play in Europe and Asia a while before I got out here.
Q. Lucky you.
DENISE KILLEEN: Europe was fun. I'm not so sure about Asia. I actually played well in those arenas before I got out here. I had the expectations of coming out here and playing well right off the bat and then you get in your own way and you don't do that you get frustrated and you lose your confidence and things don't go the way you want them to go.
Q. Does this course setup well for your game?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, I like this golf course. I like golf courses where you have to work it. I like golf courses that are more challenging that you can't run the ball up in front of them all. You have to hit good golf shots here. I really like this golf course. I enjoy this course.
Q. So did you meet your husband out here?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, I did. I did. One of the first years I came out here. He was actually dating a friend of mine at the time.
Q. Was he caddying at the time?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, he was caddying for Patty Sheehan, he caddied for her a while.
Q. She was a friend of yours at the time or she is a friend now?
DENISE KILLEEN: No, then and now.
NEAL REID: His name is John Killeen.
Q. Denise, you said a little bit earlier that coming off Atlanta, heading here that you wanted to maintain your momentum, sustain your confidence, to what extent is it easier to do that coming to a course that you have not seen before that you don't have any bad history and bad memories?
DENISE KILLEEN: For me it probably is a lot easier. I can't remember -- obviously, because I can't remember 15, and very many of the holes so I don't have expectations of what I'm going to do every hole. I kind of stay more in the moment of where I am on that hole. I don't have a very good memory. So when I get up to a hole I'm like what does this hole do? I don't even remember from the day before. So for me it's probably a good thing because I don't have the bad memories of wherever I hit it before. Not always bad memories but in 12 years I have hit some bad shots. I think it was a good thing for me to come to a totally different golf course where I had no expectations and I kind of go out there and play the golf course.
Q. So do you ask more from your caddy perhaps than many players because of that?
DENISE KILLEEN: Probably. Because for some reason I just can't never recollect a golf course and a hole. He knows that I pretty much ask him where I need to hit it on pretty much every hole. Especially a new golf course like this. Especially off the tee. I think off the tee -- some of these places, the rough cuts in, you can't see where it cuts in off the tee. So it's pretty important to have an idea where you want to go here.
Q. Have you played a lot of ryegrass recently, was it Atlanta?
DENISE KILLEEN: I don't know. He is getting technical.
Q. The golf course is traditionally played on (inaudible) because it's in October and people have said because it's so early it's mostly rye, Bermuda too?
DENISE KILLEEN: There is a lot of poa annua on the greens, I know that.
Q. (Inaudible)?
DENISE KILLEEN: At times.
Q. I missed maybe the first part of Jim's question, do you discuss a golf course with your husband?
DENISE KILLEEN: Oh, gosh, no. I try to avoid that.
Q. It would seem the perfect situation because he is caddying for somebody and he knows your game too.
DENISE KILLEEN: That's the problem. My husband and I tried to work together before.
Q. He is not caddying for you?
DENISE KILLEEN: No, I know, but he thinks he is. I try to leave the golf course and leave the golf at the golf course. And I played with him actually on Sunday of last week and Pat was in my group and I was pretty impressed that we got done, and he only made one comment about the day and I was pretty happy about that. So if I have a question about a hole, I'll ask him what he thinks. But I mean Pat plays such a different game that than me. She is so much stronger than I. What he sees and what he does with her will be so different from what I do. But he will offer opinions if I ask.
Q. It would be a good strategic way to do things, he has seen the golf course, and he knows your game?
DENISE KILLEEN: It would seem.
Q. You can ask him about 15?
DENISE KILLEEN: I have to get him to refresh my memory.
Q. How long did the experiment last with him on your bag?
DENISE KILLEEN: We did it before we got married maybe half a year. We did it actually one tournament in Hawaii, and I think only because it was in Hawaii that we survived. When you are playing well it's easy to caddy for anybody. But he got in the second round and he got pouty and I was not hitting it exactly where he wanted me to. And I said that ain't going to work. It's hard. It's hard to spend that much time together. I commend anybody who could do that out here. There are a lot of people who do that out here. I couldn't do it.
Q. You wind up playing for your caddy instead of yourself?
DENISE KILLEEN: Yes, at times, yes.
NEAL REID: Anything else? Thank you very much.
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