U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 3, 2004

Meg Mallon

CRAIG SMITH: Meg Mallon with a 67 today, 4-under for the championship.

RHONDA GLENN: What went right for you today? It looked like you were hitting a lot of fairways and greens, the putter was working.

MEG MALLON: Yeah, that's the key right there is that I found my putter on the backside a little bit. Yesterday I hit -- I only chipped one, so I hit 17 greens yesterday. And so I hit 13 today, but when I hit them I hit it pretty close and I took advantage of the opportunities.

RHONDA GLENN: You won in 1991 but you've also contended in 1995 and in Chicago a few years back. This is your type of championship.

MEG MALLON: It's my kind of setup. I like it when 1-under wins a golf tournament. I like the difficult conditions and I like how you have to work the ball around the golf course and use your short game and use all facets of your game. That's why the U.S. Open is my favorite event.

Q. You look embarrassed at 16.

MEG MALLON: It was funny because I played -- yesterday I hit it to about 10 feet and I played a 6, 7 foot break and I missed it by four feet. So I thought, well, I'm just going to throw it out a little farther today and it went in. And that's just -- you know it's your day, and it's fun.

Q. How long was that?

MEG MALLON: Probably about 18 feet I'd call it.

Q. Talk about being a former champion, what it takes to win it. You've been around a lot, you know what I mean. (Laughter)

MEG MALLON: I'll skip the last part, but it's a lot of factors. Things have to go your way. The conditions are difficult and you have to get some good bounces.

I mean, today I definitely got good bounces, but I hit good golf shots. That's why I like this golf course, because you actually get rewarded for good golf shots, it's not so tricked up that you feel you have to get lucky on every shot. When you hit a good solid golf shot you get rewarded out here.

Q. What about when you don't get a good bounce?

MEG MALLON: That happens. It happened early on today, but -- and frankly my first round was probably my best round of the week, because I only hit 8 greens and 6 fairways, and just got myself around in 2-over and just worked really hard. And that's the kind of way you have to play in an Open.

Q. When you come back here do people treat you as if you've been here forever?

MEG MALLON: They're fantastic, they know I'm a Celtics and Red Socks fan. My brothers and sisters were raised in New England and they're taking a memory lane back this week.

Q. Do any of them have family around here anymore?

MEG MALLON: No, not that live here anymore. My grandmother was the last.

Q. 11 months old?

MEG MALLON: Ten months, Timmy was 16, that tells you how much older she is than me.

RHONDA GLENN: Coming into this week, did you have any feeling that this might be your week?

MEG MALLON: I don't know, I've had a lot of frustration with the putter this week. I can say no, my mindset wasn't that great. I knew I was playing well and hitting it well, it was just a matter of finding my stroke again. It was just really fun. It's been a frustrating year with the putter, it was fun to watch putts go in again, it's been a while.

Q. (Inaudible).

MEG MALLON: I missed about a two and a half footer on No. 3 for birdie. And those are the kind of things I've been doing every day. I probably missed a good two of those every day. But I get bonus points with the one on 16 and so it balances out. As long as I'm seeing it balance out then I'm happy about it and that's what happened today.

Q. Can you talk about the last hole, the finishing hole and making the par there?

MEG MALLON: Yeah, speaking of veterans, that wasn't the smartest thing to go behind the hole there, but I just probably made my best shot of the day back there, my third shot, to even get that close to the hole.

But coming up 18 was pretty cool, the galleries out here are unbelievable.

Q. Talk about the way the leaderboard is shaping up, there's a little bit of everything. Can you talk about that?

MEG MALLON: Gives you guys a lot to write about, that's good. It's the state of our game, which I'm heartened by. I love the junior game, the 16 amateurs we had, the 16 teenagers we had.

So it's a great mix. You have the veterans, you have the No. 1 player in the world, and you have the players that want to come out and be a professional golfer some day. It's going to be a fun day tomorrow.

Q. The first round where you basically had a really good day just to shoot what you shot.

MEG MALLON: Right.

Q. Talk about the first nine holes. It looks like, statistically, you didn't hit a fairway --

MEG MALLON: Until 10, I know. It was tough. I started out all week hitting the ball great. And the first round I couldn't hit a fairway until the 10th hole.

I had to go out and work really hard. But that got me settled down a little bit because it wasn't coming easy and I had to work really hard for it. And that might be the kind of day I have tomorrow and hopefully I'll be prepared for that.

Q. Did you make some kind of adjustment?

MEG MALLON: Well, just mentally. I just kept saying this is a U.S. Open and bogey is not going to hurt you. That's what I kept saying to myself. And you don't win it on the first day. So just keeping it at 2 over par was big for the first day.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about the three finishing holes here and the fact that this is apparently going to be a fairly tightly packed field tomorrow.

MEG MALLON: It's going to be a great finish. You can even go to 15, too, a good driving hole, there.

16 played a little downwind today so I had a little less club in there. But yesterday I had to pump a 4-wood in there. That could be a very pivotal hole.

18 is no bargain. I think 18 is equally as difficult as 16 is. So it's going to be an interesting finish.

Q. (Inaudible).

MEG MALLON: Had an 11-wood. It's my MVP.

Q. (Inaudible).

MEG MALLON: Everybody was birdieing it behind me, it seemed. But we also had three groups on the tee, so obviously some folks were having trouble with it. It's just a good golf hole.

Q. When you looked over at Kelly there on 18 fairway --

MEG MALLON: Yeah, yeah, it's good to see Kelly up there, too. We've been good friends for a long time and she had such a great Open last year, and I'm sure she has high expectations for this year.

End of FastScripts.