	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

U.S. SENIOR WOMEN'S OPEN

May 16, 2019

Donna Andrews

Southern Pines, North Carolina

DONNA ANDREWS: Anyway, I just said I'm going to go out there and do what I've been doing every day.

I stand up there and hit tee shots all the time in front of people, so it was okay. I gave one of these after I did it and went walking off. We had a great time.

Q. That's great. Did you go up for any of the pre-tournament stuff, the raising of the flag, or were you busy warming up?
DONNA ANDREWS: Oh, no, I was there for all of it. I was there for all of it. It was great. I knew the Bell family was going to be there doing that. I feel like I'm part of that family now, so I was there for all of that stuff this morning and have been there for all the media and press interviews and everything like that.

Yesterday I had a busy day. I didn't actually play yesterday. Did media interviews and all sorts -- I did a clinic with Betsy King across the street and was gone from my house for about 13, 14 hours yesterday. Got home and went, Okay, the good news is I'm exhausted; I should sleep well.

Q. When was the last competitive round you played?
DONNA ANDREWS: The LPGA Championship last year at French Lick, Indiana.

Q. You play this event and that one and that's about it now?
DONNA ANDREWS: That's about it. They keep me busy teaching here. I love that. I love the teaching side of things. That's what I do best now.

Q. How different is the golf course now than what you see on a normal Tuesday afternoon?
DONNA ANDREWS: They've gotten the fairways very hard and very fast. The course played so much shorter today than it played in either of the practice rounds.

Of course the greens are harder and faster. I think that was the hard thing. Being local, you know, everybody things you have an advantage on the greens. But when they're two to three feet faster rolling than they normally are, it makes it harder to read the putts.

Q. What was your following like when you were playing?
DONNA ANDREWS: I thought we had a pretty good crowd. Wasn't all my family, but I had a lot of family and students out there. There were nice crowds out there.

Q. The local knowledge help you anywhere around the course today?
DONNA ANDREWS: Oh, I think so. I played lots of smart shots out there to the middle of the green; didn't try to get too aggressive. I did get too aggressive on 10 and hit it where I know you don't want to on 10. That was my double bogey today. That was just getting a little bit too aggressive with the wedge.

But I played smart golf and going to go work on my putting a little bit today and hopefully go low tomorrow.

Q. What was your preparation like leading up to this not having played as much lately? How did you prepare for this tournament?
DONNA ANDREWS: Well, they didn't give me a lot of the time to prepare because I was working. We had about 100 women in for the golf schools the last two weeks. I was on the lesson tee from about 9:00 to 5:00 ever day. I would sneak in a few holes before we started at 9:00 and a few holes at lunch and that was about it.

Q. You walked off 18 here I'm sure a lot of times. What was different about today?
DONNA ANDREWS: I think it was just great because my family was here. Having my family here was special. My husband and my two kids and mom and dad, they were all out there watching all day today.

That made it very special.

Q. Kids got to stay out of school today?
DONNA ANDREWS: They played hooky from school today. Sorry teachers. They probably will part of the day tomorrow, too.

Q. You're at work, but a normal day at work here for you is teaching. How do you shift gears or make the contrast to go game face instead of teacher?
DONNA ANDREWS: I worked very I hard with Annette Thompson, who is one of our other instructors here, on really getting into my pre-shot routine and not thinking too much about the mechanics and stuff. I did a great job of that today. I really stayed in my process out there.

It was funny, because we said no teaching this week, and of course yesterday when I did the clinic with Betsy my teaching mode clicked in. Just comes natural for mw.

But it was funny. I played Monday with Patty Moore who's come for a lesson, and it was hard for me not to tell her what I was seeing in her swing.

Sometimes turning off that teacher side of my brain is hard, but I did a good job of just staying in the moment today and shaking off the bad stuff and just kept plugging.

Q. Do you know what Patty withdrew for?
DONNA ANDREWS: No, no.

Q. Oh, okay. Do you get any conversation with Dave Fruchtee tonight?
DONNA ANDREWS: Probably not, but they've done a fabulous job with the golf course. Probably talked with Shannon from the USGA about the golf course more than anything. I think she had heard lots of complaints about how long it was playing. It certainly did not play long today. They firmed up the fairways, firmed up the greens. The greens are just beautiful.

I can't blame my bad putting on the greens. They're beautiful. I just didn't have very good speed control today, and I'm going to go work on that and hopefully it'll be better tomorrow.

Q. How is your daughter's finger?
DONNA ANDREWS: It's great. Thank you. She actually went and played baseball and it popped the blood blister that was underneath her nail. She slammed her finger in the door on Monday to start my week off.

It really just brought everything down to reality and realized what's really important in life: faith, family, and friends.

Q. Is it go to have so many people following you? Confidence, make you feel good, or is it a distraction?
DONNA ANDREWS: I think it is. No, you know, I've always been a social person, so being able to be out there and when you get a break being able to talk to somebody, I think that sort of keeps me at ease more than anything.

Q. Love to see you give Nancy the high five when you both made up and down on 16. Things like that, that's very cool.
DONNA ANDREWS: It was great. Nancy played beautiful today. It was fun to watch. She and I played on tour together, as did Maggie, so it was sort of like old home week for all of us out there playing.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297