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RICOH WOMEN'S BRITISH OPENSeptember 14, 2012Karen StupplesWIRRAL, ENGLAND Q. You were out there this morning and got to experience first off; take us through the conditions this morning? KAREN STUPPLES: At 7.00 this morning, I think all of us in our group was hoping that we were not going to have to go because it was just brutal. The first hole, par 4, under 400 yards, nowhere near reachable and all of us hit it fairly long and fully‑capable, in‑the‑wind players, too. Couldn't get anywhere near it. Brutal. Chipping and putting, very difficult in these conditions, too. Second hole was all the way downwind. You couldn't hold the green. You couldn't land it short and keep it to stay on the green because of the wind, very tough. So again, just ridiculous. On the third, my ball started oscillating and it wouldn't stop. It just sat there and just kept moving and I had to call for an official to come and figure out what the ruling was with that, and she said, hit it. Even if it's oscillating, you can hit it. I'm like, really? It's quite disconcerting, because how do you hit a moving ball? Because it can wobble a little bit, and you catch it not quite where you used to. I don't know, it can affect everything, and it did. I made double‑bogey there. So on the next hole, Angela's ball rolled, and she marked it and off it went. You know, anything can happen, and the trouble is, links golf course, you get a large gust of wind, and the ball rolls, it can roll off the green into a bunker. You know, and then you have to play it from there. So just brutal conditions. And I don't think people realise how windy it was out there for the balls to be moving like that‑‑ because if they are like, oh, you're a bunch of wimps, you should be playing. No. It's not like that at all. It's just impossible to play golf in these conditions. Q. Talking with Michelle in the media centre, she said they had to call a rules official six times; was that a common theme for you, just to have to keep asking? KAREN STUPPLES: Yeah, it really was. I mean, we know the rule, but we needed them to know, this is what's going on. You know, it was going to take forever to play, because the ball kept rolling, and then you had to wait for it, re‑mark it, and go through the process again. And the ball would roll again and you had to remark it. It was an ongoing battle against the golf ball and the wind, and I'm afraid when the wind is like this, it just won. Q. And for them to make the decision to just nullify all the scores this morning, was that you were hoping for just knowing how the conditions were? KAREN STUPPLES: It really was. I mean, none of us had played enough holes for it really to be an issue. And I think for the tournament in general, I think you're going to have a better tournament because of it. It just was not fair on the people that started. And I know it's the British Open and I know you're going to get tough weather breaks and a better flip‑flop of the draw sometimes, however, this was to the max. This was extreme and I really feel that they made the right decision. Q. And I know they said they have not made decisions yet, Sunday or Monday or what might happen; what's the feeling from you guys as players? How strange is it to kind of have an entire day wiped out? KAREN STUPPLES: Well, I actually think the general sense of opinion is that with it being a major, it should be a 72‑hole event. You shouldn't have it being 54. I think for the most part, most of us feel that you could get 36 holes in on Sunday. Start off early, keep the same groups, just keep on going. Two‑tee start, have a packed lunch at the turn, don't stop and sit down for an hour, boom, just turn it around and get on it, just 36 holes, straight hitting. You know, and I think in many respects, that would kind of be fun, not just for‑‑ well, for the spectators, as much as anything, because they will get to see a lot of golf on Sunday. Q. For you guys, when you heard the stoppage of play earlier in the day, was the feeling that you guys probably wouldn't be going back out there? What was that like? KAREN STUPPLES: I think that the officials were fighting a bit of a losing battle. Their heart was in the right place to try and get us out there and I really believe that it was the right thing to do is to try and get us back out there. However, the weather just didn't cooperate. It had to be significantly better because it was just brutal out there. But once you pass the point of no return, which is about 3 o'clock, I think they realized that it was absolutely futile trying to play any later because you couldn't play 18 holes, and make the cut, in time to have any of the third round go on Saturday. So I think that's really what they decided and I think it was the right move, I really do. Today is just unbelievably difficult out there. Q. You said earlier, the conditions were really just unplayable, and you played your fair share of links golf throughout the years and all of the different wind conditions, but was this one of the worst you've ever seen? KAREN STUPPLES: I have grown up on a links golf course and I've seen everything. The only thing that was missing was a whole ton of rain. But if we had stayed out there, we would have got that, too. Yeah, I've never experienced a ball oscillating like that on a green and having to stand over the putt and hit it. I've never experienced that. That was a whole new one on me. I've seen balls roll because of a wind gust but not a continual just blowing constant. That was just brutal. I even played once, we had a hurricane come through, and I played the morning after the hurricane come through. It was windy and I was just a kid and it was fun, it was no big deal. There was nothing riding on it. There was no major championship riding on it. But even now, I don't remember being quite like this. This was extreme. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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