U.S. WOMEN'S AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 3, 2001

Emily Bastel

EMILY BASTEL: I played fairly well today. I feel like there were only a couple places where I gave her one. She made a lot of great putts for birdie, you know, to beat me on holes, and she's a great player and I expected that from her and just didn't get the job done.

EMILY BASTEL: Obviously, the first one that comes to mind is the putt on 11, it was about, I want to say 5-footer but probably not even that, I don't know what -- just missed it to right, and that would have been a good one there to get to back to 1-up, maybe, or even-- I am not sure what that may have been. That one and then the next hole, it was back-to-back there that she won holes, or tied, I guess, 11 and 1 on 12. Other than that I played pretty solid.

EMILY BASTEL: Yeah, on consecutive shots on the par 3 on 10, I blocked that one out to the right. That was not meant to be that far right, and the same thing with that one on 11, I have a tendency to turn the ball over and I think in pressure situations I like -- I am trying not to do that as much-- to control that and I just left it out there. That was obviously not the plan to aim at the pin there.

EMILY BASTEL: I have probably been all week. I haven't -- I have gotten better with my ball-striking but it wasn't as good as it has been at the beginning of the week and I have a tendency, I am pretty deliberate over the ball. Working on that with my pre-shot routine. I don't think -- it might be a little nerves, I don't know, if I want to call it that, though, just -- some shots feeling uncomfortable over the ball, whether it was club or wind or pin.

EMILY BASTEL: Similar. Very similar to the way I played the rest of the week. Meredith just didn't make any mistakes. She's the type of player that you have to be with birdies and she's not going to -- she didn't today.

EMILY BASTEL: Definitely, you know, a lot of confidence. They are great players. This is a premier tournament for women's amateurs and just a lot of, you know, good experiences, very nice experiences, and good memories, met a lot of nice people and just -- it was an overall great experience.

EMILY BASTEL: Yes, we did.

EMILY BASTEL: Yes, we are.

EMILY BASTEL: We will get home by then. Not today. I will get to see it tomorrow.

EMILY BASTEL: I have played with her before and I would consider us pretty good friends. We talked a lot about college golf, what tournaments we are playing in, our schools, we talked about what we are doing after school a little bit. We talked about just the goes on around us, you know, the crowd and things like that, the heat.

EMILY BASTEL: That's a habit. I guess I do it in case there's anything on the face of my putter. It is more to touch the face of my putter, make sure there's nothing there. But, yeah, that's part of my pre-shot putting routine.

EMILY BASTEL: I played pretty solid overall. There were a couple of places I can think of where I didn't -- I didn't do anything real exciting, I guess, today I didn't hit it close. I can't think of any times where I just hit it close or did anything, you know, real exciting like that. It was just pretty consistent which is what has worked for me all week, just, you know, when you are playing against a player like Meredith, it's probably not good enough.

EMILY BASTEL: Yeah, I guess that's golf for you. One day you are good enough to be here but you are in a playoff to get in. Next day you are in the semis. That's the way it goes. I had a great time and this will definitely change my expectations for years to come and for the things that I think that I can accomplish, you know, outside this tournament. It will give me confidence for those things, I am sure, and you know, I am proud of myself the way I played this week. That's about it.

EMILY BASTEL: I think that each time you put yourself in a situation like this under pressure, and playing in these types of circumstances it makes you a better player. You get -- obviously Meredith has some good experiences in being in Match Play situations in the finals and things, and I am almost certain that that helped her for today and for all her matches this week. So I think that I learned from today and that that will help me in future golf tournaments.

EMILY BASTEL: Yes.

EMILY BASTEL: I had heard that in the practice round, obviously that was a key putt. I backed away. I heard it. And I would have felt pretty bad had I just said, oh, just go ahead and hit it and -- I wanted to give myself the best shot possible to make that putt. So, yes, I was distracted and backed off of that one.

EMILY BASTEL: We called back last night and there was definitely some excitement in my town and at the golf course. I know that the KSC league that plays on Thursday nights did not tee off until after ESPN coverage was over. And so, yeah, there's some proud people back home.

EMILY BASTEL: No, I don't think --

EMILY BASTEL: That's a good one. I don't think that gives me exempt status from that. I will go back --

EMILY BASTEL: It's working. I don't know, I don't know what we will did. Maybe stop, maybe take a stop. I don't know if we will drive all night, whatever, see how we feel. I bet we will be tired, but we will go as far as we can.