WENDY'S CHAMPIONSHIP FOR CHILDREN

August 11, 2001

Wendy Ward

WENDY WARD: Start on 1, hit a great drive, only had a hundred yards to the pin. But I hit it right in the middle of the divot. Donna Andrews said, "Were you a bad girl last night?" I hit it to about 15 feet.

WENDY WARD: Sand wedge. Kind of had to punch it out of the divot, 15 feet. Par 5, No. 3, hit a good drive there. Had 215 to the front, 225 to the hole. I hit a 5-wood to about ten feet, missed the eagle putt but tapped in for birdie. 6, hit a great drive there, too. Par 5. Only had 155 to the hole. Hit an 8-iron. Actually, the green was really firm. Wait, are we on the right hole?

WENDY WARD: I 2-putted that. It was about a 35-footer. 2-putted for birdie. Kind of scared myself there (laughter). No. 8, 103 to the hole. Hit a sand wedge to about five feet. No. 10, 106, sand wedge to six feet. 11, I got away with -- I pulled a 6-iron from 167. I pulled it. Never should have been left to that pin. It was about eight feet by the pin. Made that, took advantage of it. Actually, all three of us pulled it. We were laughing that none of us were aimed left to the pin. Kind of a tough pin there today. 12, 161 was the yardage. 7-iron to about 12 feet. Then 14, was an 8-iron -- sorry, it was a pitching wedge, 113, kind of back into the wind. Hit a little pitching wedge about 20 feet, made the putt. 16, par 5, 238 to the hole from the rough. Hit a little 3-wood into the left front bunker. Hit a great bunker shot out to about a foot. Then 17, I bruised the back of the cup. Sand wedge from 104 to about 20 feet. Had a little backboard shot there. Hit the back of the hole with some steam (laughter). I think that's it.

WENDY WARD: It is.

WENDY WARD: Yeah. I really felt comfortable over the ball. My husband was actually working on my alignment with me yesterday. I started to line up a little right. Just kind of changed the way I set my feet by looking at the target when I set my feet instead of looking almost down at my feet. Do you want me to show you what I'm talking about? Does that make sense? It helped out, I can tell you that. Sometimes your line can get distorted if you look at it, you know, from above as opposed to looking down at your target. Whatever the case, it helped out tremendously.

WENDY WARD: I had a nice dinner with friends and my husband, just took it easy. Watched a movie last night at home. I like to relax. I enjoy my downtime.

WENDY WARD: You're going to laugh. Tommy Boy.

WENDY WARD: Well, the one I got away with on 11, that was real fortunate. You know, it was close enough to the pin, but it should have never been left of the pin. You know, that's my miss. If I miss it, I usually pull it just a little bit left. But other than that, I don't have too many complaints today.

WENDY WARD: I wouldn't say that. A lot longer putts. Can't call them missed shots (laughter). A very, very consistent round. That's one of the other things I've been working hard on, is to give myself opportunities, you know, simplify the course. I have a tendency to make it too difficult.

WENDY WARD: It's not as easy as maybe what you see the scores are. I mean, Annika shoots 59 at Moon Valley. You know, nobody really considered Moon Valley an easy course. They made a bunch of changes. My hat went off to her for a great round of golf. I would hope the golfing community and world would say, "Those girls are playing great golf this week," instead of focusing on maybe the course being too easy. There's some tough holes out there. I think to see, Mhairi shot 9-under, comes back from even par the first day, that's great golf.

WENDY WARD: I'm going to try and answer that the way I understand it (laughter). Here is an example. Charlotte, my first win, I had a seven-shot lead going into the final round. In a way, having a bigger lead, you can't get carried away with it. You've got to almost maintain even a stronger focus. Tomorrow I feel like it's me and the golf course, and that's kind of the attitude I've taken all year. I used to really watch what people were doing around me. Don't get me wrong, you do have to watch and be aware of, you know, people making runs or having good rounds. But the way I do my job right is to focus on the course, you know, let that be my main battle, my main challenge. I won't approach tomorrow any differently than I have the first two days.

WENDY WARD: You know, I don't even know what I shot in previous rounds here. But it doesn't change the fact that I do like the golf course. I think my lower scores, even just the last two days, are just attributed to my swing coming around and putts dropping. When you see a few putts go in the hole early in the round, your confidence just shoots through the roof.

WENDY WARD: I see the ball. My visualization is very clear out here. Even though there's some holes you can hit it just about anywhere, I see a certain spot or a certain tree that I want to be at, and - I don't know - the targets to me are very defined out here. You can work the ball if you want. You can hit it straight. You can play aggressive on the par 5s. You can lay back. Pretty much every hole out there is a birdie hole. That makes it fun.

WENDY WARD: Absolutely. I think the public needs to see that the girls out here on the LPGA have a tremendous amount of talent. You're seeing by the leaderboard this week, like I said, I give full credit to Annika shooting 59, Karrie and Se Ri have had their fair share of low scores, but there's a lot of great players out here that can go low on any given day. It's fun to see the names up there this week.

WENDY WARD: I'm not an agronomist. The greens are soft. I know they had a little bit of rain before we came in. We had an inch or so the two ProAm days combined. They're soft, they're receptive. It's just our job to take advantage of that.

WENDY WARD: I think I would. I think I have six Top 10s going into this week. That's more Top 10s than I've probably combined in the last few years. My main focus has been to get a win. I feel like I'm closely approaching that. That's been my main goal. The things that I work on with Mike, my coach, the things that Tom and I talk about on the course, it just helps me feel more comfortable when I get into contention.

WENDY WARD: On a par 5 would have been a 3-wood into the green. That would have been in two. And then I had a couple of 5-irons in the par 4s.

WENDY WARD: 13 you can reach. It's not the strategy.

WENDY WARD: Today I did. Yesterday, I didn't. I like having full shots into greens. I don't even choose to go over to that intermediate area.

WENDY WARD: I'm sorry, being comfortable what?

WENDY WARD: I really don't think so. I mean, it's like I said in Charlotte in '97, Rosie was chasing me. I think she shot 65 the last day or something. You know, somebody's going to post low numbers tomorrow, you know, and try and catch me. All I can do is do more of the same of what I've done the last two days. That's my main focus. I've got personal goals of each day, what I want to try and accomplish. That's not going to change because I have, you know, four- or five- or six-shot lead.

WENDY WARD: To me, it's not so much score-oriented as opportunity-oriented. When there's an opportunity out there, I'd like to take advantage of it. On one hole we got a break on our tee shot, and I hit a super recovery shot to like ten feet or something, missed the putt. You know, I come back to Tom. I said, "Gosh, I really wanted to make that putt." He looks right at me and says, "Great par." You try and take advantage of the opportunities, but if they don't happen, they don't happen. But obviously the scores take care of themselves if you just focus on opportunities happening.