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CN CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

August 9, 2006

Lorie Kane

LONDON, ONTARIO

DANA GROSS RHODE: Lorie, thank you so much for coming in. There are six LPGA Tour players from Canada that are in the field from Canada, among others. What does it mean come back and play in London, Canada? You have to be excited. You're a great ambassador for the tournament.

LORIE KANE: Thanks. It's really exciting. London hosted us in 1993 when it was the du Maurier Classic. I had just turned pro and was playing, so it's exciting to be back with a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of really good things that have happened.

Just off a great couple of weeks in Europe, glad to be back here. Obviously CN is great. I played with some of the guys today and they are excited about women's golf. So it's a win win. I'm sure this tournament will continue to grow in the years to could.

Q. From green to see you were surrounded by spectators and treated like royalty, basically. How do you feel about being the face of women's golf in Canada?

LORIE KANE: I'm proud of that. I've worked hard on my game and myself. For people to acknowledge my hard work and follow me, fellow Canadians or not, it's just a real honor to represent them and myself and the country and to try to play the best golf that I can.

Q. You're such a great ambassador for Canadian golf. Do you see that as a responsibility or just something that you're happy to do?

LORIE KANE: Both. My dad always taught me and my mom as well, "Leave whatever you do better than you found it." And that's been my goal to try to do the best that I can for myself, but also I have a responsibility to the game. The game has afforded me a lot of great things in the last 10, 11 years on Tour. I have a responsibility to the Tour, to the LPGA because without the Tour, we would not have anywhere to play and we have a responsibility to our tournament owners and our sponsors, particularly for myself to be here and in Canada and represent a fine company like CN, to represent Bell Canada, Deloite, the companies that I do represent; I have a lot of responsibilities.

But I also have a responsibility to myself, and that is to be best player that I can be and to put the best game I can on the golf course. And some days it's really good and some days it's not so good. I leave the golf course feeling pretty good just being able to play.

Q. How much is it a pleasure this week compared to, say, what you were doing at the Ottawa Club or maybe at the du Maurier or last year when there was no kind of sponsor on the horizon? What is it like just to come and enjoy yourself as a golfer instead of trying to run around and woo people and all that?

LORIE KANE: To go back to the Ottawa experience, I didn't take that very well because I tried too hard to do a whole lot of too many tournaments, and I lost that tournament because of it.

Last year being in Halifax, my game wasn't probably where I would have liked it to be, but we were still trying to find somebody to take over. Lo and behold, in came the train with some people who are really excited about golf and here we are.

And you're right, I'm having fun, I'm glad to be in London. They are not only taking really good care of myself and my fellow players, but just outside this media tent is a place called the Caddieshack, and one of the first meetings I had with Stan (ph) CN after we got the deal together, we sat at a table and I talked and he said, what do we need to do. And I said, you need to take care of your people like we take care of our people, the guys carrying the heavy bags in the hot sun. It's a fun week, I've been here since Monday night. A lot of good memories about the golf course from '93 and also from my time here in May.

You know, I walked the golf covers today with Hunter Harrison and Jim Foote, and entertained some of their clients. So we had really a fun day. I think, or I'm hoping, with your help, we can get a lot of people out here to watch, and then that fulfills my responsibility to get people to come see us.

Q. Morgan Pressel was in here yesterday and she said that more younger players are coming into professional golf because they focus on golf at a younger age. I know and you most of the other players of your generation were great athletes growing up and gradually identified golf as a sport you wanted to focus on. Which approach would you recommend to young players?

LORIE KANE: That's a good question but I always recommend the approach that works for the person that seems to be trying to do it. I know from myself that I couldn't do what the kids are doing today. I love golf, and I love but I loved everything else that I was involved with, too. My parents are both very athletic people for playing other sports and learning a balance. And gymnastics is probably the best sport you could put a young child into because they learn body awareness. I was a gymnast. I also was a synchronized swimmer. I loved playing field hockey and basketball. But again, that was my choice and that was the path that I took. And again I was living on PEI. I couldn't play 12 months of the year. I still think I go through spouts where, you know, okay, we play six months and then we have a break and then we play another six months. And if you look at my career, I think I play good for six months and then I take a little breather and then I go again.

So Morgan and the kids that are out here, the young ladies that are playing the game, I have a huge amount of respect for them in taking on what it is to be a professional athlete at that age.

Q. Where your game is at now, what's going well and how do you size things up?

LORIE KANE: All things are great. Things have been good for quite a while. I started the year off probably not playing the way I would have liked to, but I was hitting the ball great, struggling a little bit with the putter. But then we kind of got that straightened out and this right here was getting in the way. I spent just prior to the U.S. Open, I made that call and I finally picked up the phone and called Dr. Bob Rotella and I spent some time with Bob. It was so exciting to be there with him.

I should go back just a little bit because prior to seeing Dr. Rotella, I spent two days with David Feherty, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson at the Legends of Golf on PEI. And you know, I had planned to go to see Dr. Rotella before the Legends came kind of came about, but what I learned from those three gentlemen on PEI were things that I'll never forget. And Feherty, "You have two ways to look at it, you're either going to make it, or you're not." (Speaking in accent). (Laughter) So it's that simple.

I think when I learned from Dr. Rotella is that I need to have more fun and I need to be not worried about what expectations other people have of me. So just go out and play the game and enjoy it.

And it is a game. Like I said earlier, something that has afforded me some wonderful pleasures in life, and I try too hard sometimes. But overall, the last couple of months have been great. You know, I played some really good golf in France at the Evian Masters the weekend probably wasn't what I would have liked. The British Open, that's an unbelievable test of golf. You stand up and basically hit the shot and hope that it hits the middle of the fairway and didn't role into some bunker that it just bounces wherever it wants to go.

Q. Is it more difficult to come out now as a player?

LORIE KANE: I took some advice from Donna Jones (ph) several years ago and that is to just have fun with the experience. Now that we're here, now that we are under strong support with this tournament, now I can just go play. When you know there's a purse at $1.7 million in a great country that we always play great golf courses, I don't need to work very hard anymore to get players to come. And now I just go out and play the game and have fun and take what comes.

You know, I know that every fan out there wants a Canadian to win and I want it to be me. But all I can do on Thursday is put the peg in the ground and hit the first tee shot and then continue to chase it around for four more days.

Q. I know we've touched on this in the past, would you talk a little about your fitness and how you've changed yourself over a few years? You're looking great, I just wonder how much of that is because you wanted to do it and how much because you felt you needed to do it.

LORIE KANE: I started training probably six or seven years ago. But I was training with some extra weight and I was probably this time last year I was in as good of shape as I am now. But I'm about 35, 40 pounds lighter now. So I guess what you look like in your own perception is a strange thing. I really haven't changed anything. I really thought for a long time that I was very happy in the former body I had.

But I got thinking middle of the season last year that you know, I played 27 tournaments, 28 tournaments a year, and if I'm going to try to continue to do this, I'm not getting any younger and something needed to change. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't do the same thing twice. And so that's when it started.

I said October of last year, I found myself at Titleist testing some clubs and I was in Carlsbad by myself and I said, okay, the first thing we have to work on is I drink way too many diet sodas. So I cut back on that and then I just started cutting back on other things. I was fortunate to go home for the month of December and lose weight over the holidays instead of gaining weight like we normally do.

I trained with three different people on Prince Edward Island this year. I had a girl I did a spin class with every morning, I did Pilates and I lifted, but I was really watching what I was putting into my body and making sure I was making good choices. And it wasn't a diet because I know for myself that diet is a bad word. If I say I'm on a diet, I'll put ten pounds on.

So to answer your question, nothing has really changed other than I just made a commitment to a healthier me, and a healthier me meant I needed to lose some weight.

Q. Natalie was just in and said the rough was the hardest part for this week's course, and just what kind of score is it to take it to win the tournament this week?

LORIE KANE: Well, Natalie is right. The rough is very penalizing but what's great about the Hunt Club is the course is firm and fast so you've got some huge greens. They are holding but there's quite a bit of release. I don't like to predict the score, I won't even try, I just know the person with the most birdies will win.

Q. When you came out on Tour and certainly after your first couple of years, it used to be Team Canada, six, seven, eight of you guys, Lisa Walters and Gail had won. Now with there's not that same kind of group effect. Do you think that's going to change, or do you think it's going to be a little bit lonely out here for a while?

LORIE KANE: That is a good question. That talks about where and if we are developing young Canadians to play on the LPGA Tour and I think we are. I know that there seems to be an awful lot of kids playing college golf, and where we're going with or where they are going with that, I don't know if it's coming out here.

I do know it's getting tougher to get out here. And the game, Annika rose the bar a few years ago and the bar is continuing to be risk what's the word I'm looking for raised, every week. Every week it's getting tougher and tougher. So you know, I know we have great talent. Helena Sharp, Jessica Shipley I've played with before, those kids can play. Helena hits it a mile.

But it takes a little time to learn how to play out here, and you know, she's going through Helena is going through her bumps but she's going to be a great player. I think she's got all kind of game. You know, I guess it is a time of change. You know, Donna is cutting back some. Gail is off and on, myself, AJ. I think if AJ can get her wrist straightened out over the off season, she's going nowhere. She's got all kind of game.

But when we play on firm ground like here and the British, with a bad wrist is not good. But I hope, you know, I guess when we talk about my responsibility, the RCGA and the Canadian ladies side of the RCGA need to continue to support the kids and encourage them that if they want to go to the professional ranks like they do in Sweden, that they just don't stop at the Amateur; that they keep progressing and that the game continues to grow.

Q. I know as a professional golfer, every time you tee it up in every tournament, your goal is to win. But this is the Canadian Women's Open. How much more important would it be for you to win one of these tournaments in Canada, or more than one?

LORIE KANE: Well, I think if you asked any of us as Canadians, this is our Open Championship and I would love nothing better than to carry that trophy on Sunday over my head.

But there's a lot of things that have to go on between now and that point. I really try, once Thursday starts, it is another golf tournament. And you can't place any more expectations on yourself than what it is. It is what it is. I want to do as best I can and at the end of it, if I've played my best, win or lose, I'm going to give it all I've got.

DANA GROSS RHODE: Thank you, Lorie. Good luck.

End of FastScripts.

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