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MCDONALD'S LPGA CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLA

June 11, 2006

Karrie Webb

HAVRE DE GRACE, MARYLAND

PAM WARNER: Karrie, thanks for joining us in the interview room. Your second Major of the year. Do you want to talk about the playoff and what happened.

KARRIE WEBB: Well, I hit a great drive in the playoff and Se Ri hit 3 wood and missed it. So I think I had about 70 yards on her. I thought I had the upper hand. But then she just hit an unbelievable shot and it's just really hard to come up with the goods after by the time I took the drop and everything, you know, she was able to walk up to the green and it's hard to get focused and hit a really good shot and give yourself a chance of making birdie.

PAM WARNER: We'll take questions.

Q. Was there a little bit of Deja Vu watching Se Ri's shot from your shot earlier?

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, I thought I was getting some of my own medicine back. I was waiting for it to drop in the hole.

Q. Was it tough after the putts you missed on 17 and 18 and just describe to us the emotion after Se Ri 3 putted 18.

KARRIE WEBB: Well, I think that probably leaves me a little more disappointed than losing to her making birdie on 18. But 16 and 17 and 18 I had reasonable birdie chances. 17 for sure.

But I could sit here and dwell on that and Se Ri could have 3 putted 18 and I wouldn't have even gotten to the playoff. So I played today was the best I felt on the golf course all week. I had a tough middle stretch there, but I really hit some really good iron shots the last few holes and that felt good to be able to do that under the pressure and not feeling 100 percent with my swing. So I'm glad I gave myself a chance.

Q. As disappointed as it is to have it end that way, is there a part of you that feels good for Se Ri or maybe later that you can appreciate having gone through what she's gone through with the injuries and whatnot?

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, I'm really happy for Se Ri. Actually, I played with Sherrie Steinhauer today. I played with a Se Ri yesterday and it was really good to see her play. She played really well yesterday. Really solid and didn't really make any mistakes and I said, you watch, she will be back playing really good in the near future. And obviously here she is today.

So I wish I could call it like that all the time.

No, it's great to see her win. Actually, after I won Kraft, she came up to me whenever it was the next time I saw her and gave me a big hug and said, you know, she said good to see you back playing well and now it is my turn. I'll win the next one. And there she went and did it.

Q. She's pissing you off, isn't she? Does this mean Nancy Lopez wins the U.S. Open next week?

KARRIE WEBB: If the USGA slips her a late invitation, maybe.

Q. Is this a continued affirmation of what's gone on this year and even though you lost, you still take away really good feelings from the way you have been playing and continue to play?

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, definitely. Obviously right now I'm pretty disappointed, but you know, the overall things, if I look at it, I'm really happy to just give myself a chance.

Last week's tournament even at the beginning of the day I had a chance, but that was probably the only tournament that I didn't have that feeling that I really had a chance to win since Kraft. So I had a chance to win five out of six tournaments.

So that's what I work hard for, that's what I want to do, I want to have those opportunities and I know I'm not going to win every time I have an opportunity, but it doesn't make it feel any better when you don't come up with the goods.

Q. For the record, what did you have left into the playoff hole and what did you hit?

KARRIE WEBB: I had 132. I was in a sprinkler or a drain there and where I had to drop it, I had to put it up on the slope and I hit 9 iron, but which I probably could have got there, but after all that went on, I probably maybe should have gone back to another one and just hit a little eight in there to make sure that I got it up on top and had a better chance at birdie.

Q. Can you just talk a little bit about Se Ri's impact on the Tour?

KARRIE WEBB: Oh, right now or since she's been here?

Q. Just overall, yeah.

KARRIE WEBB: Well, in 1988 there was one Korean and now there are how many?

PAM WARNER: 32.

KARRIE WEBB: 32. And that's because of her. I don't think if she hadn't had the success that she had when she first came out here, you wouldn't have seen as many Koreans come over here, I don't think. And I think she is Korean golf. She's the face of Korean golf. And I think that all the young Koreans out here, if they don't already know, they should know now how much she's done for them.

Q. How much stronger is the LPGA Tour now with three, with three Hall of Famers, you, Annika and Se Ri will be, at this level again?

KARRIE WEBB: Well, you know, it's obviously great. And Juli also, Juli Inkster won earlier in the year too. So I think it's great to see us older players mixing it up with the younger players, because there's a lot of young talent coming out here and I think it's good to have a mix.

I don't think you want to see too many of the young players or just the young players or just the older players. I think that it's really good mix right now and it keeps a good TV.

PAM WARNER: Go over your scorecard.

KARRIE WEBB: Let's see, the third hole, I hit a 9 iron in there and holed about a 45 foot putt.

PAM WARNER: Birdie at 5.

KARRIE WEBB: 5? Oh, yeah, I hit my 19 degree rescue in there to about 18 feet.

PAM WARNER: Birdie on 6.

KARRIE WEBB: 6, I hit a 9 iron in there to 20 feet.

7, I hit a 6 iron to about six, seven feet.

11, I missed the fairway left. Then I missed the fairway right. Then I missed the fairway left. And then I hit it on the green to about 40 feet and 2 putted for bogey.

15. I hit 3 wood just short of the green and chipped up to about eight feet.

Q. Par save on nine?

KARRIE WEBB: Oh, yeah, that was a good one.

Q. That was rather spectacular.

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah. Definitely kept the momentum going there. I hit a great pitch shot, probably one of the best from that distance I've ever hit in a tournament.

Exactly, hit it exactly the way I pictured it. So it was definitely a good par there.

Q. How far out were you?

KARRIE WEBB: For the pitch shot? I can't remember. 45 yards, I think.

Q. I don't have a question but I'm trying to think of it though, but I'm just wondering if you could just kind of generally comment. I mean, it does seem kind of interesting that two people who were winning Majors left and right, you and Se Ri both, to us anyway it seemed as though you went away, and here you are winning the first two Majors of the year. Can you make something out of that?

KARRIE WEBB: No.

Q. Out of that question?

KARRIE WEBB: I don't know. It just goes to show that even if you're not in the mix for awhile, that obviously that Se Ri and I, I don't think we have to prove anything to anyone that we're both good players and that it's just not that far away. I mean I think Se Ri's sort of on the same path as me. I think she's had one Top 10 this year. Or she had a good finish in Orlando, I think.

And but it's so close that it's such a fine line and she probably felt too that she wasn't really that far away.

Q. When you got into the when you got your points for the Hall of Fame, I think you won the British the next year and were still going well. I just wonder if you could speak, did you find it difficult at all to readjust, reset, to play with the same intensity when you have achieved something so early? Because her last win was the one that got her in.

KARRIE WEBB: That got her in. Yeah. I think that we both had the same case of that, just wondering what was left to achieve.

You're working really hard, but with no real purpose, I think, is what and I know it happened to me. And from watching from afar from Se Ri, I think maybe it happened to her. But she also struggled with a few injuries as well.

Q. Are you at the point now where you define your success by how well you play in the Majors? Is that what you're focusing on now?

KARRIE WEBB: I guess a little bit, but just the consistency is what I really like to see, the fact that since Kraft I've played consistently well and been up there most weeks.

Q. Would you mind just real quick just looking ahead to two weeks, A, are you playing between now and then?

KARRIE WEBB: Yeah, I'm playing Rochester.

Q. And B, how do you distinguish there might be a C to this too, by the way, but how do you distinguish between the preparations or mindset or how you play in the next one as you have the first two? How does the U.S. Open stand out other than these two U.S. Majors?

KARRIE WEBB: Well, to me, that's the biggest tournament of the year. It is my favorite tournament and the one that you get the most excited about, I think, just because you're going to a different course. But the crowds this week really amazed me how many people we had out here. But the U.S. Open, it's double, triple that amount.

I don't know, there's just something different about the U.S. Open that makes that just that much more important to just about anyone that plays it, I think. And I think that it's going to be a really tough challenge and you prepare I'm preparing now for that to be a really long tiring week and telling myself now to already be patient.

Q. We have had one Major end with a hole out and then an eagle and then a seven foot birdie putt. This we just saw. How do you top this at the Women's Open?

KARRIE WEBB: I don't know. I don't know what the last hole is there.

Q. It's near water.

PAM WARNER: Thank you, Karrie.

KARRIE WEBB: All right. Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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