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THE SOLHEIM CUPAugust 15, 2013Casey DanielsonNicole MoralesKathy WhitworthPARKER, COLORADO THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. First off I would like to welcome a very special group here with us, and I know all of you in the audience congratulations to you as well. We have the winning U.S. team from the Ping Junior Solheim Cup. Congratulations, ladies and congratulations Kathy. But first off I just want to introduce everyone that's here with me. We have Nicole Morales, one of the members of the team and then to her left Casey Danielson, another member of the winning team, and then LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame member, Kathy Whitworth, and the winning captain of the team. Thanks so much, ladies for joining me here today. Congratulations on the win. First off, just let me ask Kathy, what this experience was like coaching this team and having so much great young talent. CAPTAIN KATHY WHITWORTH: Well, I was just ‑‑ well it was a great experience. There's nothing about it ‑‑ I have not ever been around young people like this. It's probably as close as I'll ever come to motherhood, and fortunately I had a great helper with Kelly from the AJGA and she saw to their needs and wants and whatever. So that made my job a little easier. But I have to say, they are great. I have to applaud, I was so proud of them the last well Tuesday and Wednesday. They fought hard, they were playing against some really, really good players. There's just no doubt about it. A lot of the matches went to the 18th hole. And they could have gone either way. So fortunately it went our way. But I applaud these young ladies because it was just terrific to watch. And to see them keep grinding and keep grinding and never going away, not giving up, which is what I preached to them. I said you never know, if you give up, you might as well not try. And they never gave up and they just kept trying. And consequently they did well. And so I was really proud of them. It's been a great experience. Because the Solheim, you're dealing with people that you've played with, know, and have known for years. And similar age. (Laughter.) But I told them, I said, well, I'm old enough to be their grandmother but I'm not going to go the great grandmother. (Laughter.) But anyway, so it was harder to get to know the girls a little bit better than you might if you were on the Solheim team or the captain. But we came together and they came together as a team and so it made my job a lot easier. So it was a great experience. I wouldn't trade it for the world. THE MODERATOR: Nicole and Casey, just to ask you about the experience of playing in the event. You guys were tied 6‑6 heading into the final days of singles. Pretty tight competition. Take me through what the experience was like playing and what that pressure was like on the final day for you guys having to kind of try to pull out the victory. CASEY DANIELSON: I actually teed off first and I was excited to get out there and hopefully put some points on the board and kind of get the ball rolling. It's really just one match at time and one hole at a time. So you can't really think about everything, you really just have to take it one shot at a time, one hole at a time. So the fact that we‑‑ Nicole won as well and I halved my match and so we got one point on the board and so that kind of got the ball rolling. NICOLE MORALES: We were the first two matches out so after we finished we went out, we went straight out and tried to find somebody to cheer on. You went out and watched Andrea and then I stayed and watched some of the matches coming in on 17 and 18. And what Kathy said, a lot of the matches did go to 17 and 18, so it was huge for us and at one point I can we were at eight and a half points apiece and leading in three matches, all square in three and then down in three. So it really could have gone either way. So when we did start getting points on the board, it was just a huge momentum shift and we were able to rally and get everybody out there and really cheer on the teammates. THE MODERATOR: For how close it was, how impressive was the other team, again too, that you guys played against this week. It's great to win, but it's got to be nice to have that type of great competition too where you guys really had to work hard to get the victory. NICOLE MORALES: Definitely. You guys played so amazing and we had to fight for every single point. And we applaud you as a team because you guys fought to the very end and you guys made us work for it. And you never gave up and that's all that we can ask for as a team is to play against the best from Europe. CASEY DANIELSON: Yeah, it was really amazing. Every match was really close. There wasn't one that someone just dominated it. It was a really even match. So we were lucky to have such great competition. THE MODERATOR: Kathy, was there any sort of advice, with going into a final day of singles tied, was there any pieces of advice that you gave this team that really kind of tried to give from all of your experience over the years? CAPTAIN KATHY WHITWORTH: Oh, I had a lot of advice. (Laughter.) Well, not really. Because you don't want to overload them. And they're good, they have competed pretty much basically half their lives. They have been playing golf and competing in tournaments half their life. So it's not like it's new to them. But I told each one before they teed off that, win or lose‑‑ and I felt good about their chances yesterday, but win or lose, the main thing was that you just‑‑ it didn't matter to me. I was going to love you no matter what. But I just wanted them to go out there and play for themselves and to win for themselves and for the team. But not to be worried about anything else peripheral, myself or anybody else. So and I did, we did have a little team thing about the giving up. And that's the one thing probably that I told them I would not tolerate is anybody giving up on a match or giving up on our team. I said I don't care if you're 9‑8, if you're losing 10 and 9, it doesn't matter. As long as I can see that you're still trying and that you're still not giving up to the match, that's great. But if I see them with their tenth on the ground or giving up on it, then I'm really, then I'm going to be in your face. And whether that resonated with them or not, but I said it. And so they, whether they liked it or not, but it was something that I had to learn as a competitor when I first started and fortunately I learned it at a young part of my career. So the one thing that I never did after that was I never did give up. I didn't always play well, I didn't always win, of course, but I never gave up and I never quit trying. Sometimes it only takes one shot, one hole to turn a match around or turn your round around. But if you give up, you might as well just go in. Because you're not helping yourself, you're not helping your team, and I gave this same pep talk to the 1990 Solheim Cup team. Betsy King said that's the most damned pep talk I ever heard. (Laughter.) And I thought, well, okay, I whatever it is, I just couldn't help it. But that's what they did. Not that they would have anyway, they probably wouldn't have. But I just felt like I had to say that. And consequently, they never gave up. And the girls that had a tough time‑‑ I know that Amy and some of them were very disappointed and I know the European team is disappointed and there's nothing I can say or do that's going to take away that disappointment or that pain that they feel. But it's what competition's all about and you go in there, do the best you can. Someone is going to win, someone's going to lose, but you try to draw from that experience and move on. And inspire you to get on another team competition, maybe later on, and do it all over again. And I'm quite sure that these players, as these players, if you gave them a chance, they would do it again. Because it was a great experience, it was a great time, and anyway, I'm just so proud of these girls. I've been talking about you ever since. I've been telling everybody about you and because I've had a lot of friends and people come up and congratulate me, of course I didn't hit a shot, I didn't miss a shot all day. (Laughter.) So I played well. (Laughter.) And these girls just played great. So I'm really proud of them. It will be fun to watch their careers as they go on. THE MODERATOR: Casey, Nicole, knowing ‑‑ having a captain like Kathy, an 88 time winner on the LPGA tour, has tons of experience, has been through Solheim Cups before. How much of a difference did that make for you guys and whatsoever it like to meet her and talk to her? CASEY DANIELSON: Well Nicole and I and a few other girls, the night before we went out, we had a dinner and we were lucky enough to sit by Kathy. And we were able to ask her questions about golf and competition. And it was just incredible to hear what she had to say. I really took some of her advice to heart. That you just got to keep putting yourself out there and putting yourself in position to win and just have fun and never give up. And on my singles match I was 2‑down with four holes to go and that ‑‑ her advise was just running through my mind, just to have fun and put yourself in position and I was able to come back and tie my match and that‑‑ Kathy and her advice really helped me. So I'm looking forward to applying that in the future and I really think it will help my golf game. NICOLE MORALES: And well the first time I met Kathy I wanted to bow, because she is such a huge inspiration and her record precedes herself. She's just so amazing at everything that she's done and for the game of golf. So again with the dinner we had a chance to sit next to Kathy. It was so amazing getting to pick her brain a little bit and to learn from her experiences and again we took that to heart and it was Ashlan, myself, and then somebody else. Karen. Yeah, Karen was there. The four of us were really trying to absorb everything like a sponge just because it's just such a wealth of information. And Kathy did a great job of keeping us loose out there and always being positive. And I know you said you weren't going to be the cheerleader for us this week, but you were a great masseuse. Let me tell you, you were doing those massages on the first tee, it was great having you. And it was just such an honor to be a part of such an amazing team. THE MODERATOR: Do we have any questions for any of the ladies up here? Q. Kathy, thinking back to 1990, can you offer some perspective, this is a Solheim Cup question, can you offer some perspective on how the Solheim Cup has evolved since you were captain of the first U.S. team? CAPTAIN KATHY WHITWORTH: Oh, gosh, well, it's evolved, I mean, for sure. When we first did the first Solheim Cup, we only had eight players. It was just sort of a thrown together so quickly. They had been talking about it and the Karsten family and they committed to do 20 Solheim Cup, which was a lot. I mean, that's every two years. So that's a lot of commitment there. But we didn't have any kind of criteria or we couldn't say, well, okay, this is the points system for this and da, da, da, because they were just starting. So we had to start somewhere.  So we started with eight. My biggest job was just trying to determine what we were going to wear each day. And I screwed that up. (Laughter.) I always got the wrong uniform on. But it was great fun and I had in my mind the best players in the world. You had Betsy King and Beth Daniel, Nancy Lopez, Pat Bradley, Patty Sheehan. They all went on to be Solheim Cup captains themselves. So it was pretty easy in a way. But the European team was, had some great players as well. But of course no question we had a distinct advantage, because it was just thrown together so quickly. And playing in the UnitedStates and so forth. But it's become such a huge thing now. It is just, there's so many, there's so much going on for these players. And it's worldwide. Gosh, it goes all the way all over the world and we were lucky we got local news back then in Orlando. You can just look around, we have gone from just throwing it together last minute in 1990 and then of course ‑‑ and then the European team, their side really stepped up too, because I think they were just getting started on their tour, I know Mickey Walker played on our tour and I knew Mickey pretty well and she went back to European started to work on their tour over there. And so it's been a cumulation of a lot of things for them that has made their tour what it is today, which is terrific. And some great players. And of course their future looks really bright. I'm going to have to tell American players they're going to have to work harder. (Laughter.) So it's been, it's great for women's golf, it's great for junior golf and, of course, the AJGA has done a great job with these young ladies and the future of the game is in great hands, so you're going to be watching these girls, or some of them anyway, on future Solheim Cups. And that's going to be great fun to watch them. But it's a stepping stone and what they, but it takes a lot of work, takes a lot of people involved and we have got some great sponsors that have seen ‑‑ and this is what's so fun is that they feel that the money they put into this event and the Junior Solheim Cup is well worth their money. I'm not sure how they justify that, but it's, they do it. And so it must mean something, a lot to them. So we have got some great sponsors and so it's going to continue to evolve and it's just going to get better and better. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, getting to be around being part of this event and now being around the Solheim Cup itself, have you gotten to meet the U.S. team? Did they come and speak to you guys and I heard that Meg kind of shouted out at you guys after you won yesterday outside the hotel balcony. I was reading a tweet somewhere about that of the. What's that been like seeing the support from all the U.S. players? CASEY DANIELSON: It's really inspirational. It just kind of makes me want to eventually get to that point. So for me it's just been great to see them and see how they, how well they interact with us. So hopefully one day that will be us. We have been so lucky to have their support. They came up to us the night before we played and we did a little cheer and we were talking with them in the hallway and that was really great that they did that with us. And also Michelle Wie made us a little, brought us a CD with pump up music. So that was really nice of her. And Jessica Korda made us some ribbons and so it's really great to have their support. NICOLE MORALES: Exactly. And we were so fortunate to have them cheering for us. I know that they wanted to be there to watch us. They really wanted to. But unfortunately it didn't work out. But they were there in spirit and they really did pump us up the night before the four‑ball and the alternate shot. And it was so awesome having them around and we got to have a team picture with the Junior Solheim Cup and the Solheim Cup last night at the gala that we went to and it was just so inspirational having them around and it was a dream come true for all of us because I know that we all want to get there at one point and to see them hopefully we can be there in a couple years as well. THE MODERATOR: All right. Any more questions? Well ladies, thank you again for joining us. Congratulations on your win. And I hope you get to enjoy the rest of this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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