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THE SOLHEIM CUP


September 25, 2011


Laura Davies

Caroline Hedwall

Catriona Matthew

Azahara Munoz

Alison Nicholas

Suzann Pettersen

Melissa Reid


DUNSANY, IRELAND

BETHAN CUTLER: Please welcome the winning Solheim Cup captain, Alison Nicholas, and her assistant captain, Joanne Morley. Catriona Matthew will join us shortly along with the other European team members.
Alison, congratulations. Perhaps you could just start by saying how sweet it feels to have this cup back again?
ALISON NICHOLAS: Well, it's unbelievable. I have no words to describe it. I mean, the team were phenomenal today. Their passion, they never gave up, and it was so close. Gosh, my emotions were up-and-down all day. It was an amazing display of golf. The drama and atmosphere here was just incredible.

Q. With about half hour, 40 minutes to go, it didn't look like there was much hope, and then things just kicked in and it all kicked in with really great play.
ALISON NICHOLAS: Oh, it was amazing. I need some water. I'm a bit dry, as you might understand.
Anyway, yeah. It did look like that. I've lost the question. It's completely gone out of my mind. Yeah, they did, and they turned it around. I mean, Tutu's finish was unbelievable. 16, 17, 18, class.
The rest of them just hung in there. They all played well. They had passion. I believed in them, and they believed in themselves and they were just sensational. I hand this cup to them, totally.

Q. Could you tell us about the Seve poster that you had?
ALISON NICHOLAS: It was in the locker room on the wall. You know Seve's an inspiration to all of us. What he did for the game and his passion and his charisma and everyone -- it just gives you a lift to see him and that passion. You want to be -- I don't know. It just brought it all together, and he's just sensational.
He also gave me -- he did a message from his house last year to the team in Chicago, and we played that again. I grew up just watching Seve and was inspired by him and so were most of the team. Some of them are a bit younger than that, but...
Amazing. I just can't give enough credit to my two vice captains and this team. Awesome.

Q. Could I ask you about putting Catriona up first, and what she brought to the team in giving you such a great lead?
ALISON NICHOLAS: Well, she only won 6 and 5. What a great leader. She's a great player. She finished before the rain started.
PLAYERS: She didn't want to get her hair messed up.
CATRIONA MATTHEW: Didn't want to get my hair messed up.
ALISON NICHOLAS: She's a great leader and a great player and an inspiration to us as a team.

Q. What's it mean for women's golf and European golf to win this cup back?
ALISON NICHOLAS: A huge amount. We haven't won it for a long time. And hopefully the European Tour will grow and grow, and it just says what a great bunch of quality players that we have in Europe.

Q. Can you talk about the last couple holes in particularly everything that went through your head on the 18th green when you realized what was going on? How much did you know what was going on?
CAROLINE HEDWALL: Well, I didn't know anything when I hit my second shot. I just wanted to try to get my half point. Then when I got up on the green, I saw that Aza went 1 up in her match. I realized if I make the putt, that's going to give us the win. But I put pressure on her hitting a good second shot, and it was just amazing.

Q. Suzann, can I ask you two questions. Number one, 16, 17, 18, where did they come from? You had three birdies in a row.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I don't know. I found them on eBay this morning. I don't know. This is all about the team. You don't give up until the very end. So like some of you said, with an hour and something left, it looked like we were coming short, but who cares. It's not done before all the points are handed out.
I think we went back out on the cart, Aza, Hedwall and myself, decided let's at least get the three points that are sitting on this cart, and we did. So that's fantastic work from all of us fighting until the very end.

Q. Can I ask you about the Irish experience, and if you inspired somebody that was here today ten years from now is going to do what you guys did, what would that mean to you people?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: It would be great. What else can we say? This is the best feel -- I think this is even better than Barsebäck to win here and come back where the challenge was so big. And we proved them wrong. We can win singles.
ALISON NICHOLAS: Yes.

Q. Alison, you've probably got the deepest European team you've ever had in this competition. How much did that affect the way that you were able to fuel players during the week and your strategy?
ALISON NICHOLAS: Yeah, because it's a long golf course, and we decided to rest some players before the singles because in the past we played players five times, and it seems to have hurt us in the singles matches. So I was going to stick to that whatever, and it paid off.

Q. Can I just ask you, you're still playing your match and everything all seems bedlam going on 18. What was it like to watch all of that going? We were in the middle of it, and you're down there still having to play?
AZAHARA MUNOZ: I know, I didn't want to finish.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: She said all week she wanted a pep talk. We thought that was a good enough pep talk.
AZAHARA MUNOZ: Right before I hit my driver, I saw Marty going like that, and I didn't know what it was. But I kind of knew maybe Caroline won 18 and we have that half point. Then when Angela hit her driver, they all went crazy, so I wanted to go and celebrate with them.

Q. Aza, what was the club and the yardage for the shot into 17?
ALISON NICHOLAS: She can't remember.
MEL REID: Doesn't matter, it went to 2 up, so who cares.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: It was a golf club.
AZAHARA MUNOZ: It was -- I don't remember. It was 123.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Did you hit a 5-iron?
ALISON NICHOLAS: Is that a 5-iron (laughing)?

Q. Alison, with the two disruptions, did that impact -- were you able to do like a half-time team talk in a sort of football sense?
ALISON NICHOLAS: I think we had a few songs, yes, sung by a few players. But on the whole, these girls know how to deal with every situation that they have to face. We talked about that a lot all along, and that's what you do. They went back out and stuck to the task. They're phenomenal. The whole team, it was just a huge team effort.
I just can't -- I just thank them for everything this week. It was phenomenal.

Q. Catriona, when you saw that you were playing Paula Creamer unbeaten, what went through your mind out on the course, such a comprehensive victory?
CATRIONA MATTHEW: (Indiscernible) obviously, I saw I was playing Paula, and I knew it was going to be a tough game. Obviously, she's unbeaten.
I was going out there and trying to get up early on her, and trying not to give her any hope to get back into the game. She's the type of player, if you give her any chance, she's going to come right back in. So I just won the first few and kept on going from there.

Q. Laura, did you put some money on?
LAURA DAVIES: I didn't, but we were 2 to 1 at the start of the week. That's all I'll say.

Q. Laura, you've been a part of every Solheim Cup match. Can you just talk about how this one compares to all the rest in terms of quality of play at the end and atmosphere?
LAURA DAVIES: It's the first time we looked like we were dead and buried and we've come back and actually won it. The other ones have been won not easily, but this one really, I think, we had three matches left on the course, and we needed a result from all of them.
Normally the Americans are in that position, and they come back and do it. So this was the most exciting win by far. We've had four wins, but this one tops all the others.

Q. Suzann, 16, on the green on 16 when you watched the leaderboard and you had to putt, what did you think? It was a tough moment, you were 1 down, and you had to putt at that moment. After that it was like a dream. Could you please tell me what you think before you putt?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I had to make it. There was only one execution and it was to hole the putt to even have a chance to get my full point. I've seemed to have some luck on that green yesterday and today. Yesterday we ran short, today it was enough.
Just got to take every moment with you, because the moments you go through during the Solheim Cup is just phenomenal. I guess we'll all remember this for the rest of our lives. It's just fantastic.
BETHAN CUTLER: Thanks for joining us, and congratulations.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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