43RD USGA WOMEN'S SENIOR AMATEUR
Pasatiempo Golf Club
Santa Cruz, Calif.

An interview with:

CAROLYN CREEKMORE

Q. You never trailed in this match?

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: No.

Q. But it seemed like you couldn't get far enough away from Liz to ever feel comfortable.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: That's the very truth. I was grateful to be ahead, and she would just come back with something good, or I would hit a wall over the green which I did a couple of times today. I was hitting way farther than I have the rest of the week with those irons.

So the two I left short on the back, I just thought, well, okay, I've calmed down and I'm back to normal and I threw that 7-iron over the green on 15. So I never could -- I couldn't break away from her. She would chip it in, she would make a putt and I would hit a bad shot.

Q. Take me to 18. You're 1-up, she tees off first.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Never makes it.

Q. Puts it about six feet below the hole, the only place you can make it and you have a 25-footer. Tell me what you're thinking.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: I thought you don't have to make this. If you make it, that's gravy. And if you don't, just make sure you can make the second putt, because if she makes it, then good for her; and if she doesn't, then you're going to have to make the next putt. That's what I was thinking. I just tried to get the pace right.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: I don't know if I know. I know -- I know I'm exempt for this tournament for ten years, which is good news. I know I'm exempt for a couple other Amateur events next summer.

Gosh, you know, my name is on that trophy forever and ever. I don't know if I know what it means. I admire every champion, USGA Champion I've ever met. I can't -- it just is hard to imagine what it takes to win one of these, but it takes not only playing good, but it takes luck. You have to win the day you shouldn't win, which was my first round, and it's just amazing. Liz, you know, she had two putts hanging on the lip that didn't go in. It could have been the other way around. It just could be the other way around so easily. So, I don't know.

Q. Take me back to how we get here. You go to Arizona State, you don't play college golf, but then you try professional golf for four years. Tell me a little bit about that.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Well, I got married right after college and we moved to Texas and Corpus Cristi. I don't know if you've been to Corpus Cristi, but there's nothing to do there. I'm sure they don't want to hear that, but that was 30 years ago. There were only two restaurants in the whole town. It's a beautiful place, but the only thing to do is play golf and I started playing golf and I got pretty good pretty quick. Then I went to Colorado, and I got anxious to play more and I wanted to play golf. I didn't really know much about Amateur golf. I felt like I would have done that in lieu of turning pro, but at the time I didn't realize all of the tournaments and all that stuff, and I just wanted to play.

So I went on the main tour and I wasn't good enough thanks heavens and I wasn't nearly as good as I am now. I'm not nearly that good yet, but I really wasn't that good then. You know, I was just pretty good.

Q. And now we get from there to here, you get reinstated, you play in Women's Am's, Mid Am's and you get here; doesn't feel like you're 50-something.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: No. I even asked my dad once, when he was -- he still is in his early 70s, I said, "Daddy, I don't feel any older."

He said, "Neither do I." He said, "I feel like I'm 18 and can do whatever I did then, just not quite as often." That's how I feel. I'm as strong. I work out all the time. I raise those horses. So that's a workout dealing with them. I just don't feel -- I don't feel it and I'm grateful for that because I know people who are my age who do feel it and I don't. So I'm just lucky.

Q. What is your life off the golf course now? You talked to me a little bit about raising horses.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Yeah, I do that. They are fun. My boyfriend and I have a ranch about an hour southeast of Dallas and that's where the horses are. We've got about 60 acres and 15 horses and stray dogs that show up for dinner and a couple of cats. It's just a nice, peaceful place out of the city. I go about three or four times a week and we have people who live there and take care of it daily. I go down there and just work or hang out or do whatever needs to be done.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Yes, he is. He's a great athlete. He played for Texas Tech and then was drafted his junior year by the Oilers and the Packers. Then he went with the Packers after he graduated from college and played in the first two Super Bowls. Just was a great athlete. I didn't know him then. I mean, I watched him on TV like everyone else but I didn't know him. I met him 11 and a half years ago. My golf course was closed, and so I went not knowing, just went over to his course because a friend of mine was a pro there and played golf one day; and went through his group and hit this unbelievable sandshot, you know, and I just flipped the ball up, caught it like I do it all the time, like that sandshot and he ran in the pro shop and asked who I was and proceeded to find me. That was 11 and a half years ago, so we've been going out for 11 and a half years. We built our house together a couple of years ago and he plays on the Celebrity Golf Tour now. He's unbelievable, Donnie Anderson.

Q. Donnie Anderson, yeah.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Yeah, he's still quite an athlete. Unbelievable, actually.

Q. How good is your golf game right now compared to where it was?

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: It's as good right now as it has ever been, honest to goodness. I can say that. Mid 90s is when I was winning, you know, not national tournaments but Texas Amateurs which is like a national tournament, but this is -- this is -- I'm as good now if not better than I was then.

Q. Before this one, you won the '97 Women's Texas Amateur. What else?

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: The '95 Texas Amateur. This year, Fitzy and I won the Senior Trans Four-ball and I won the Texas Seniors this year and I won the Texas Seniors last year. I've been until the finals at several team events, team tournaments. I don't think I've won anything else, just stuff around town. Dallas Morning News has a Tournament of Champions. I've won that several times.

Q. Were you nervous today

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Yeah, my heart was beating hard, not the whole time, but on occasion, off and on, yeah. I wasn't nervous like, you know, I wasn't down, so I wasn't nervous like I've got to do something. It's the kind of nervous where I needed to just keep hitting good shots, and when she would hit a good one in there, then my heart would start pounding again.

Q. The 11th, which doesn't seem like much on paper to those reading, but if I look, 311, par 4, but it's all uphill over a barranca to a very tucked back green that rolls severely; yet that hole was your friend all week.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: All week. Except the one qualifying round. I had a 7 there the first day. That was my second hole the first day. I just -- that day I got in a bad lie, but every day my 3-wood was the perfect drive on that hole whether it was where it was today, which was perfect, or a little farther to the right which made it a little bit harder.

But it was still the perfect club, even if I missed, it would be just ten yards short of where it was today. So all I had, the worst I had was a 4-iron and the least I had was the 7-iron. Today I hit a 7-iron, and you know, I was up this there in the perfect place. There wasn't any -- there weren't any divots. There wasn't any mounds. There wasn't any -- you know, it was flat. So, it was a scary shot but it wasn't -- it wasn't the hardest shot I had on the golf course.

Q. Lastly, I think we can wrap up, but I think I heard that even though you played 36 holes two days ago, 36 holes yesterday, you still didn't get enough; that you went out and played a little bit more.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yesterday my second -- my first match, was over after 12 holes, so I went and played the rest of the -- well, putted on the rest of the greens before I played in the afternoon, because I thought, you know, I had not seen even the pins, I need to go do that.

And last night because I yanked that drive on 16 yesterday afternoon, I said, "Come on, Fitzy, we have to go out. I have to go hit a good shot on that hole before it's over." So I played, No. 1, because I had not hit a good drive there. I mean they had not been bad, but they had not been good. Then I went and played 16 and hit some shots to 17. That's why. I just wanted to have a good thought in my mind, not a bad thought. So that was it.

Q. Anything else that you can think of that we didn't cover?

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: No.

Q. Congratulations.

CAROLYN CREEKMORE: Thank you.