PAGENET CHAMPIONSHIP

November 9, 1999

Karrie Webb

KARRIE WEBB: Well, obviously, definitely is going to come down to this week. I have had a great year so far, so hopefully I can finish it off this week. I feel like I am playing pretty well. I can't really think about it too much, although it is always going to probably be on the back of my mind. But I can only help how I play and I can't really help our Juli plays. More than likely, the way Juli has played this year, she is going to play well. So I just have to try and -- I mean, I have played well here every year I have been here. So fortunately I have a lot of good feelings about this golf course and this is probably one of my favorite weeks of the year, this tournament, just being in Vegas and I don't know, it is probably -- even with the amount of pressure that you have on you, I think in other ways it can be one of the most relaxing weeks after the year as well.

KARRIE WEBB: It is playing pretty much the same as it has the last few years. The fairways are a little wet and probably not in quite as good condition as they have been. A couple of bad patches. I don't know if they have had any rain or not any rain at all - just looks like it has died off there a little bit on the edges of some of the fairways. Other than that, greens are in good shape. It is always hard to have greens -- it is a public golf course, it is really hard to have greens pure without any ball marks. The greens are as good as I have seen them.

KARRIE WEBB: No, not really, actually because I had made a couple changes. I went to cross-handed putting and I went away from having my caddie line me up when I was putting and just made a couple of little changes in my swing which really wasn't going to be a factor. But really just -- I was excited at the start of the year to see how those changes improved or didn't improve my game. Right from the word go, they did, and just gave me a lot of confidence. I don't think anyone thinks that they are going to you know, win six tournaments in a year. I definitely didn't think that, but I felt good about myself at the start of the year and I won -- well, actually, I won three real early before the end of March. I just played great all year; really giving myself a lot of chances to win. With the cross-handed putting I have just -- I mean, it has just made my game so much more solid, I think because I have putted so well and putting is always going to be a thing that comes and goes even with the best putters in the world, they don't putt good all the time. I just had one of those years where I have putted really well and it takes a lot of pressure off the rest of your game.

KARRIE WEBB: No.

KARRIE WEBB: No, I had never really even thought about it. I say that this tournament last year I played with Juli in the first round, first nine holes I think I hit it (inaudible) every time. She was 3- or 4-under and I was even or 1-over or something. I was like -- I was standing on the 9th green thinking: Maybe I should putt cross-handed, but it still felt really bad, like I stood on the 9th green and seriously putted cross-handed, I said that feels so bad, I could never putt cross-handed. But at the end of the tournament on Monday I went to Carlsbad to Titleist and worked with Scotty for half a day and in the middle of the test, I just started putting cross-handed without him knowing. He goes: That is better, what did you do then? I said: I putted cross-handed. After all the tests we figured out that putting cross-handed was not necessarily a bad thing; it could only help me. So I thought I would give it a shot.

KARRIE WEBB: I haven't actually even looked at, you know, what it would take to win or lose even Player-of-the-Year. I don't really want to know because I don't know, that is -- that is too much pressure out there because if Juli looks like she is going to win and I have to like finish in a certain position, I'd just rather not know and play like I have to win the golf tournament. But Vare Trophy, obviously I want to have a good week just so I can set a low as a scoring average as I possibly can.

KARRIE WEBB: Right. It could be a record that, say, in a few years, it could get broken next year. But it could be a scoring average for me that I might never touch again. I might -- though I might break my own record. But I definitely want to try and play well just to -- obviously set a good record and see how long it lasts.

KARRIE WEBB: Yes and no. Player-of-the-Year is definitely the most prestigious award and the money title actually, there is no trophy or award for that, but as far as the public view, they look at who finished No. 1 on the money list. But to me, that isn't, you know, obviously as important as winning Player-of-the-Year or Vare Trophy and Vare Trophy is an award that I think -- I mean, you know, Juli and I are head-to-head for Player-of-the-Year honors and Juli has had a great year, but our scoring averages I think are about a half a shot different in over -- that is quite a bit over a period of a year. To me, that just shows who has actually played the most consistently. Who has shot the lowest rounds and come up with the best scoring average. Pretty much every year the person who wins Player-of-the-Year if they -- sorry, Vare Trophy, if they don't win Player-of-the-Year they are pretty close.

KARRIE WEBB: No, my coach does. Cal does, but I don't. I have a look at the end of the day or the end of the week to see how many greens I hit and how many up-and-downs and how many putts, but never -- when I was home in Australia a couple of weeks ago, I put a new driver in my bag in the middle of the year. I just wanted to see as far as my accuracy off the tee, if it had improved because I felt that it had and I just -- that was the only time I really look at the percentages and stuff like that.

KARRIE WEBB: I definitely think I have enjoyed it. Obviously it is the best golf I have played in my whole life in a period of one year. But as the year goes on, I mean, it is such a busy year and it is probably the only time that you really sit back and reflect on it is when you actually finish for the year and you take a few weeks off. But I definitely have enjoyed it. I can't say that, you know - there is no way you can't enjoy it; that is what I am out here to do is to put myself into contention. I have done that, you know, numerous amount of times this year which is always a good feeling. That is the feeling I love the most is to have a chance to win and to hit the shots that I need to hit and if I don't pull them off, it is just not meant to be. I will still work as hard as I did this -- if I win next week, I will still work hard and if I don't pull it off the next week, then it just wasn't meant to be and I will work just as hard the next week.

KARRIE WEBB: I think it was a bit of a surprise win, but once I got myself into contention, that is where I wanted to be and I always feel more comfortable being in contention than trying to put myself there. Especially in the majors, even though I try to go in there and treat it as another tournament, you know, you see some people getting, you know, three, four, five shots ahead of you, you are trying to make up shots in a major and it is pretty hard. But after Friday, I have said I didn't -- I was just trying to have a good weekend because my mom was there and I just wanted to -- I let her see me play a couple of decent rounds and I threw in a 66 on Sunday -- Saturday. Then all of a sudden I am in contention, I am only five shots out of the lead and in the second last group. So right there, that just put me in a more -- just a more positive frame of mind because I had just knew I had a shot to win. I still had to play great golf, but I knew I had a chance and, you know, just went out and did it. It was a good feeling.

KARRIE WEBB: It wasn't really a big burden. I think the more and more I had to talk about it, the more it bugged me that people were, I feel, being too hard on me because really I am ending my fourth year and at Dinah Shore this year, I just won in Phoenix the week before, so I had won three times already and they were like: This must be the best you felt going into a major; what do you think your chances are and you haven't won a major and wouldn't this be great to win your first major here. And I was like, well, I have only played 12 majors; this is my 13th major I have ever played. Now I have played 16 majors. So it is not like I have had a lot of opportunities. I think I would have felt more pressure if I had been on Tour, you know, since 1996 and I am heading into my -- I am 30 years old, been out there for, you know, eight, nine years and haven't won a major and have won as many other tournaments then maybe I would be starting to feel like the media is right, you know, why can't do I this. But, to me, it definitely still is a learning process, because I just have to get used to the fact that there is more bogeys in majors and to just be a little bit more patient and not so hard on myself.

KARRIE WEBB: I think just the same as it is every week. Trying to get my game into good shape. When you have three weeks off sometimes you are a little rusty and I practiced with my coach in Australia when I was home a week after the Tournament of Champions. Then I had a week off and I came back. Then last week I practiced in just a whole lot of wind down in Florida and was looking forward to today when there was no wind because yesterday I practiced out here and it was windy as well. All I really needed was to have a day where there wasn't any wind and I feel pretty good about my game.

KARRIE WEBB: I don't know. I have to buy a new boat after Hurricane Irene my boat sank, so it sort -- I am going to upgrade my boat anyway because that is probably the treat I am going to treat myself. But, the purchase was probably going to come early next year if things had gone a little bit better, but it is probably going to be a little quicker because I don't have a boat right now.

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, I got some water on my wood floors which I have to replace.

KARRIE WEBB: On the main intercoastal down there.

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, moved in just over a year ago.

KARRIE WEBB: I was at the Tournament of Champions. Then I had to go to Australia -- well, I didn't have to, but scheduled to go to Australia and everyone is like: It is fine, you don't have to come back, we will handle it. It is still like it happened yesterday, nothing really has been done, but insurance takes so long to make claims and stuff.

KARRIE WEBB: I have a lift right off my sea wall. I have had so much trouble with the boat anyway because I think I have used it probably, I don't know, six times for the whole year. Every time I come home it is broken.

KARRIE WEBB: Oh, I just had the worst luck with it. I was sort of happy that it sank. But it was like -- it wouldn't go away because it flew off my lift because I had the plugs out of it so that the rain would have drained through, and it sank straightaway. I think the waves were actually coming up underneath it and rocking it, then a big gust of wind blew it off. And it sank, we assumed it sank because it was found floating up in the intercoastal tied to someone's dock and I was like there is no way it could float because the plugs are out of it. What had happened, it is really shallow where I am at low tide, so it sank and at low tide, it was low enough that the water drained out of the plugs and the sand clogged the hole and it floated again. So not only did it sink, then it like banged into everyone's dock all the way up the intercoastal. It is all banged up.

KARRIE WEBB: It was a Sea-Do, just one of those jet boats, Sea-Do jet boats. But I am going to purchase a fishing boat.

KARRIE WEBB: No, didn't have a name.

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