LPGA CORNING CLASSIC

May 27, 2001

Carin Koch

CARIN KOCH: No. 2, I hit a -- on No. 2 I hit a 5-wood. It was pin-high. Probably 15 feet. On No. 4, I can't even remember. I hit -- a lot has happened since I hit these shots. (Laughter.) I believe I hit 8-iron. That was to about -- something like that. On 5, I hit 11-wood to about 15 feet again. Then on 8, I hit sand wedge, and that was probably about 7, 8 feet below the pin. On 12, what hole is 12? I hit a sand wedge again to -- I was passed the pin about 10 feet, I think.

CARIN KOCH: That was really an important putt. I left a couple in the beginning I left a little short. I didn't want to start getting too defensive. So to hit that straight in the cup, that felt really good.

CARIN KOCH: (Inaudible.) I think I'd been at that point for a while. Winning in Europe last year, you know, helped me just know I could do that basically on the last day. I think the Solheim Cup, when I played match play and it got down to my match pretty much on the last day, those two events kind of helped me today, knowing that if I stay calm and stay patient, I can do it as well as someone else. I've started since then, you know, believing I could do it. I'm not sure I really truly believed it before.

CARIN KOCH: I thought I would jump a little higher. (Laughter.) It's great. I'm not sure if it's hit me yet. It will take a little while. Like you say, it's really I think more a feeling of relief than I thought it was going to be.

CARIN KOCH: No. I thought there was going to be some birdies made those last few holes. We all kept hitting it pretty close, but we couldn't get the putts to drop. I was lucky that they didn't drop for Mhairi and Maria either. I had a few that could have gone in. I knew with two holes to play, I knew if a couple of those would have dropped, it would have made a huge difference.

CARIN KOCH: I didn't feel secure until I had my 3-footer on the last hole I don't think, or 2-footer, or whatever it was, and two shots to make it. I don't think you can ever be secure because this kind of golf course, you hit a bad shot, a lot can happen. It would have been --. I've been in that situation myself. I've been the one to hit a bad shot and let someone else kind of run away with it. It's nice to not be there today.

CARIN KOCH: It would have only been a shot, exactly.

CARIN KOCH: I felt very good. That would have made all the difference I think. And it would have probably pumped Maria up even more to make birdie on the last, it could have been a whole different outcome. The last hole is a tough hole. You hit it a little bit right or a little bit left, you can be in trouble. To tee off on the last with the two shots, it was nice but I wasn't all, you know, relaxed. Anyway...

CARIN KOCH: Yeah, that was probably about a 12-feet putt. Yeah, it was really good. It was very important. Because I hit a good drive, and neither me nor my husband thought that I could ever get through the fairway there. I'd hit such good drives every day. And we got up there, and then the tree was in my way. I had to hit a draw around the tree, and I caught a fly, hit a perfect shot, but caught a fly, and it got long. Hit a really good chip shot, but that rolled by 10, 12 feet. I felt I hit three good shots really, and felt I deserved to make the putt, so I was really glad that I did.

CARIN KOCH: Yeah, if you can shoot 6-under on the last day. I've had some decent scores on the last day when I've been up there, but someone else has kind of done what I did today. Someone else shot 6-under or done something crazy like that. It feels even better to win with a good score like that than shoot pars the last day.

CARIN KOCH: I only have good memories now from here.

CARIN KOCH: Do I have to? (Laughter.) It was a ruling. I ended up getting disqualified, but not until a couple days after the incident happened. It was a very tight ruling, and it ended up being not to my favor. And I wasn't very happy. I was in the lead for a while in the tournament when it all happened. I had a bad year. It was a bad deal. I'm going to feel much better driving out of here today.

CARIN KOCH: It was basically my ball was stuck in a tree and if fell out. The ball fell out of the tree, and while it was falling out of the tree, my husband was -- he was caddying then too. He was looking for the ball. He was underneath the tree looking up. The question was, if he had caused the ball to fall out or not, which he didn't feel that he had, and there was 30-mile, 20-mile-per-hour winds that day. So everyone pretty much knew that it was a the wind could have done it. But since he was underneath the tree he may have touched branches of the tree, and technically he could have caused it to fall down. It was one of those deals where you kind of knew that didn't happen, but with the rules, if you -- it was those pine trees on 16 to the right. If you try to shake those or do anything to those, you can't get a ball to drop down because they're so big. So that's what happened. It took a lot of looking in the rules books and everything. Finally they decided that it was against me.

CARIN KOCH: I don't remember what round it was. I try to really forget everything about it. For four years I tried to forget it.

CARIN KOCH: Like I say, I think I've done a really good job eliminating it from my head. I can't even remember. I know I was in the lead. I know the cameras were there. You know, I think it might have been the second round. I'm not sure.

CARIN KOCH: Yeah, I think it was really good for me to play in the last group today, I really do. Because I think for me, I need to be there and see what's happening. I've always been a good match player. And I think I do better if I'm up against the people that I need to be.

CARIN KOCH: Whenever Rosie's up there, you can be worried, because she can make every putt she looks at if she starts dropping some. So definitely. We were on the green on 17, and I asked my husband what Rosie was finished at because I wasn't sure. I wanted to make sure she didn't make another few birdies at the end there.

CARIN KOCH: A couple of times, you know, I just tried to tell myself that it might as well be mine as well as anyone else in the group. I guess when Maria missed a few, she made two or three bogeys in a row I think. And she's been there before. She's won before. So I think it was more, you know, more afraid of her making a run at it, because I've been where Mhairi was, we were kind of in the same boat. We hadn't won before and we were trying to do it. So I knew that Maria would maybe be a little more used to the situation. But Mhairi played really -- I played with Mhairi yesterday and today and she's playing great golf. She didn't make many mistakes. You know, she didn't really miss a shot except for on 17 both days. So...

CARIN KOCH: To Toledo a couple years ago, I was leading going into the last hole, and I made a mistake; hit a bad shot. Orlando, I played pretty good the last day, but Se Ri ended up shooting 8-under, 7-under the last day and beat me.

CARIN KOCH: I think so. They cross my mind, but they have for so many times, they just -- they make me want to do it more. I really thought more of the Solheim and when I won last year, and just thought of when I've made it on the last day and done well on the last day.

CARIN KOCH: A little bit. I try to go for the middle of the green. I didn't hit, you know, I hit a club that got up there. I didn't want to be too careful. I wasn't going to go for the pin unless it was in the place I was in. I had a pretty long shot in there so, I knew Maria was going to hit sand wedge or something or wedge in there. I knew she had a good chance to make a birdie, so I couldn't be too careful either.

CARIN KOCH: I hit driver. I didn't hit a real good driver, but I hit it straight, hit it kind of straight up in the air. I just wanted to be in the middle of the fairway.

CARIN KOCH: No, well I saw that on TV, but I'm glad I didn't think about that when I was on the last. I remember that now, yeah.

CARIN KOCH: I'm just going to enjoy it. Just try to keep playing like I'm playing. If you can play well in the Open, that's special too. I'll just try to keep rolling the putts well and keep hitting it good.

CARIN KOCH: I don't know. Nothing I can really think of. It's been a great week. I didn't know what the crowds were going to be like today with the early start and bad weather. But it was a great crowd. I don't know. It was just really fun to have my husband caddie for me. You know, we won together with -- we haven't done that before. So that was really, really special for me. Stefan. He helps me a lot with my game. He's a golf professional himself, so he's learned a lot about my swing and my game. And he's helped me a lot in the last couple months, I guess, he's been outside the ropes looking and seeing the things I've done and the mistakes I've made. And we decided he should be inside the ropes one week so he could help me, and I win. That's feels pretty special.

CARIN KOCH: I think he caddied once last year. And then before then, it was a couple years ago. He caddied the first three years I was out here.

CARIN KOCH: I don't think we want to do it every week, because I think we would drive each other crazy (laughter). Done that before. No, it might work, but if you have weeks like this it's easy when you're playing well. If you have bad weeks, you can get on each other's nerves. I think we might try to do it a little more often. Maybe half the tournaments or less than that. But I definitely want to get him inside the ropes a little more often than he has. He did a great job. He stayed very positive. He was a perfect caddie this week.

CARIN KOCH: No, my regular caddie I promised to caddie next week. So...

CARIN KOCH: I think maybe, I like getting up in the morning, you know, getting out there. If it's 1:00 o'clock, like you said, you have to kind of walk around thinking about it for a little longer. I think it was good today.