MCDONALD'S LPGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 22, 2000

Betsy King

BETSY KING: Yeah, I started off on the front side. I birdied the 1st hole; hit a 7-iron about 15 feet and made that for birdie. And then I birdied -- I 3-putted No. 3 for bogey from about 35 feet. Birdied No. 5. I hit a 4-iron about six feet and made that for birdie. Got up-and-down on 8. That played into the wind fairly strong. The wind was going pretty strongly when we were there. I tried to grip a 5-wood, and I hit it just over the green in the fringe and left the first chip about 10 feet short and made the putt for par. And then birdied 9. Hit my second shot in the left rough. Then hit sand wedge about 12 feet and made that for birdie. Bogeyed 10. I pulled -- I hit my drive just in the first cut on the left, and pulled a 9-iron just left of the green and. I was near a pine tree. I wasn't quite under it, but it impeded my backswing a little bit. Just had a sand wedge, kind of chip with the green running away, and I just couldn't quite back it back far enough; and I actually had it just on the green. I had about a 20-footer for par, and I 2-putted for bogey. Then birdied 11, hit a sand wedge about 15 feet and made that. Actually got up-and-down on 12 for par. I hit my drive through the fairway. Had to punch it under the trees, and it was just in the rough stuff by the fringe and left that about 15 feet short and made that far par. Birdied 15. Hit a 7-iron about eight feet and made that. Got up-and-down on 17. I hit a fat 6-iron off the tee, and I chipped, gimmee. And parred 18. It was a good round. Obviously, I putted very well. But I hit a lot of good shots; so I'm very happy with the start.

BETSY KING: I don't know. It's only the first day. I don't know. Obviously, when you've played it a lot, you kind of remember the breaks and where to hit the ball. With the rain last night, the greens held a lot more than when they were holding yesterday. So you could pretty much hit everything at the flag; so I think that helped a little bit. But at the same time, the course probably played a little bit longer because you were not getting a lot of run in the fairway. And it still was breezy at times; so I think that probably kept the scores up a little bit.

BETSY KING: For me, I drove it well enough that -- I've been -- my stats all year, it's been my driver. And today, I drove it well enough that it didn't, you know, cost me any shots. You know you're not going to hit 18 greens, but I think I hit 13 or 14, and I putted well. It was a good round. It was a fun playing. I played with Beth and Patty, and by the time they got through announcing, as we walked off the first tee, Beth goes, "We won 100 tournaments among the three of us." I think we might have won the category of the day as a group. It was a lot of fun playing with them. I think we probably all wanted to play pretty well; so that was nice.

BETSY KING: Well, as I said, I think with the rain -- although, it used to rain a lot when we played then, too. I don't think it's playing as long as it did when we used to play in May. It would be a mud hole or 50 degrees, 40 degrees. So, it's definitely in better shape now that they have moved it back to June. But with the rain last night, it helped the greens to hold more. It's sort of in between, I think. I remember playing here a couple times when it played really fast. You know, like 16 used to be a reachable par 5, and now it's playing dead into the wind and you can't -- you can't really get there. I'm sure there's a few people that can. But I can't now. I used to be able to go for that pretty regularly, but actually on Tuesday I knocked it on the green in two. But it played a little differently today.

BETSY KING: You know, I worked at it hard, I guess. I tried to get on a workout program a little bit. That's been kind of fun; although, it's a tough to do in season. But I've done it pretty faithfully. Went back, actually started working a little bit with someone I went to college with who played on Tour for several years and teaches now. Went to the sports psychologist at the start of the year and said, okay, I'm going to really work hard this year and not really think about retirement until the end of the year. Just evaluate how the year has gone to that point. I think last year or the year before, if I had a bad week, I'd think I shouldn't play; or I'd have a good week, just keep playing. It was just too hard for me to play well. So just by doing that and getting on a program and giving it my best shot, and just revaluating at the end of the year. I'll probably do that every year from now on. I think that's the way to approach it at my age. You know. If I can stay competitive, I'll keep playing. But, you know if I played poorly for a while, I'll evaluate. But not to put the pressure -- can you imagine going to your job, if I don't have a good week on the job this week, I'm quitting. It just puts too much pressure on yourself to think like that. That's helped a lot, just putting things in better perspective and having a good game plan.

BETSY KING: No. I've had good and bad weeks putting, but, both weeks that I won, I putted very well. I just started out making a putt on the 1st hole, and I did. You can hit a lot of good putts and not make them, but the day that you read it correctly, that's when they go in, and I did that quite a bit today. I 3-putted once early on, but I hit a lot of good putts and made a lot of good reads on the putts. Made them in the center most of the time. So that was -- you know, you have days like that.

BETSY KING: I thought they rolled very well, very smoothly. Even the fact that they are soft and holding, they still rolled very well, you know, there's not any poa annua on the greens the way there used to be; so I think it makes them roll a little smoother.

BETSY KING: Well, just more putting -- he has me keep stats. Well, my caddy keeps them and e-mails them in faithfully every Monday morning. Then I periodically talk to him and look at when I'm doing in the different areas, putting, chipping, drives in the fairway, greens in regulation and that kind of thing, and then you evaluate how you're practicing by that. And it's been pretty apparent. It's been -- my weakest are the drives in the fairway and the pitching. My chipping -- not that my chipping is pretty suspect, but it's gotten better, but the pitching, which I didn't hit one pitch today. So just talking about things a little bit. As we say, trying to wait until the end of the year to evaluate, trying to set up a schedule for the year in terms of playing. And I have a tendency to play too much, or when I take an off week, I have so many other things going on, that I don't get much of an off-week or don't give myself, you know, three or four days of rest and three days of practice. It's like I'm doing things for four days, and I have to practice the last couple and I don't get any rest, so we like to address that, somewhat. It worked out. I didn't go to France last week. I was supposed to go and the flights got messed up; so I decided not to go. And that was an unscheduled week off, which was good because I had not scheduled things into it. So, I really did get a week off where I had three or four days just to do things around the house and then go practice from there; so that was good.

BETSY KING: I was. We had a charter flight from Rochester to Kennedy, and it got out so late that we all missed our flights at Kennedy, got there at 11:30 at night. So I spent the night at a hotel near Kennedy and decided Monday morning not to go because the flight delay would have been on -- I would have had to buy new tickets and I would not get there until Tuesday afternoon, and the tournament started on Wednesday. And I didn't think it was worth flying over there without a practice round to tee it up. So I just made the decision not to go.

BETSY KING: Yeah, that's added to my weeks. Like next week, I was going to take that off, originally, if I went to France and I had myself doing a Pro-Am on Monday, near Pittsburgh and I have to drive back to Allentown and speak at a breakfast Tuesday morning; have charity give-outs Tuesday afternoon; I was planning to go to FCA camp Tuesday night; and driving down to Atlantic City Wednesday night and teeing it up in the Pro-Am. So I get myself doing a lot of things. I enjoy doing it. But you have to allow yourself a little chance to recover, too.

BETSY KING: I did. I was home by one o'clock Monday afternoon, and I drove over to Baltusrol one day to get a lesson through Cindy Perowitz (phonetic). But other than that, I was in Reading.

BETSY KING: Dr. Rick Jensen. He wouldn't tell you if I didn't tell you. He's pretty -- he doesn't really throw names around like some of the guys do.

BETSY KING: It's been what they call it golf-specific exercising. I started it, it's down in a place in Jupiter, Florida. And Nicklaus is going there, and some of the other guys and some other women, but it's basically they have you do some -- there's actually swinging with resistance and doing some balance thing. My balance isn't very good. They test you beforehand. They test your flexibility and strength and parts of your body that you need for your golf swing. So it's been fun because you have to think more. So when you go to home you work out for an hour. The first half is with the golf-specific kind of things, and the second half hour is weight lifting, and then you do your cardio on top of that. So if I could do that year-round, I think I could finally get the weight off a little bit. But when you get out on Tour, it's hard. I worked out three days last week, and I worked out Monday this week, but I have not worked out since Monday.