Scorecard
Hole 3, 433-yard par 4: birdie – missed the fairway, 8-iron to one foot
Hole 4, 404-yard par 4: bogey – 7-iron over the green, chip to four feet, missed putt
Hole 5, 538-yard par 5: birdie – 3-wood right of the green, chip to four feet
Hole 6, 159-yard par 3: birdie – 6-iron, hit the pin, drop and roll to five feet
Hole 7, 383-yard par 4: bogey – 6-iron to front bunker, plugged, chip to 20 feet, missed putt
Hole 9, 547-yard par 5: birdie – gap wedge to six feet
Hole 10, 417-yard par 4: birdie – lob wedge to one foot
Hole 12, 512-yard par 5: birdie – short of the green in two, chip to four feet
Hole 14, 383-yard par 4: birdie – missed the drive to the right, wedge to 10 feet
Hole 15, 110-yard par 3: birdie – over the green, pitching wedge to 10 feet
Hole 17, 330-yard par 4: birdie – lob wedge to five feet
DANA GROSS‑RHODE: Welcome to the interview room here at the CN Canadian Women’s Open. You’re in the clubhouse as the leader 7‑under par 64. It’s a career low, and it also matches a season‑low on Tour for a par 71. Everything seemed to be flowing for you out there. Can you just talk about that?
ANNA RAWSON: It felt great. I was hitting the ball well last week and just wasn’t scoring or putting well. Yeah, I just felt great. I think I missed one green, and just ‑‑ I had a really good feel for the course in the practice round. It went well.
DANA GROSS‑RHODE: Now, you’re from Australia, the last time the LPGA played on this course, another Australian, Karrie Webb won. Does that give you any confidence going into tomorrow?
ANNA RAWSON: And last year Katherine Hull won. I was actually thinking about that coming down the last hole today, ‘It would be great to keep having Australians win.’ Yeah that would be good.
Q. We think you’ve set a course record.
ANNA RAWSON: Oh, really?
Q. Did it feel like a course record?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, I felt like I had a good chance on 18, too. I was just in between yardages and I left it short putter, the putt short.
You know, I really tried today to just stay in the moment. I’m so good at getting ahead of myself and saying, ‘oh, if I get to three, if I get to four, if I get to 5‑under.’ So I just didn’t even think about it. I was like, ‘One shot at a time,’ and I’m not surprised of the score.
Q. Does it feel good, I imagine, to get a good round in?
ANNA RAWSON: Oh, yeah, it’s a big relief because I feel like I’ve hit the ball well in so many rounds this year and I just haven’t got anything going.
Q. Dana mentioned 64 is your lowest LPGA round, do you recall having shot that somewhere else?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, I shot that this year at the State Farm Classic in Springfield, so, yeah, that was fun.
Q. You need a big finish to the season, obviously you’d like to have a big finish to the season. Have you done anything in the last little while to tune up your game a little bit more, or is it just not getting ahead of yourself?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, I think this year has just been terrible mentally. Like I’ve just had the worst head that you could ever imagine. I don’t even want to tell you what’s been going through my head; it’s that bad. I thought about everything that I shouldn’t. I really haven’t hit the ball that bad. I just haven’t been here. I haven’t been enjoying it, I haven’t been out here.
So I started working with a sports psychologist about a month ago, and you know, just really working on trust and not getting ahead. You know, all of the things that I’ve worked on before but I’ve maybe forgotten. I think that’s helping.
Q. What was the best part of your round today?
ANNA RAWSON: The best part? My iron play was really good. I think that’s what I’ve struggled with a little bit, as well this, year. I’ve hit lots of close shots and made all of the putts. So that’s good.
Q. Four birdies, two bogeys on the front, and the back nine, 5‑under on the hillier parts of the course; that’s encouraging.
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, it was fun. Again, I had no idea; like I was just hitting the best shot I could and let’s hit the best putt I could, and the score was kind of adding up. Maybe in the front I was being a little bit like, oh, I’m under par here.
I finally said, “I’ve got to stay in the moment.” So I really didn’t even notice. I couldn’t even tell you what I thought on those holes.
Q. Did you find club selection a challenge here with a little more altitude than you played even last week in Portland?
ANNA RAWSON: My caddie and I did a grit job of working it out. We played Tuesday and we played yesterday, and we did a really good job on the course. We totally looked at everything. Normally I don’t play two practice rounds, but we heard the greens were tricky and so we came out and we knew, like you’ve got to be here. And when you’re in the right spot, you really only have a 10‑foot.
So no, we didn’t have any problems today. I over‑shot one green and that was ‑‑ I hit a perfect shot. I was just in the rough.
Q. Can you just tell us about the two bogeys you did make?
ANNA RAWSON: Okay. The first one I remember was when I hit it over the green. I hit my drive in the rough on the right, and then the pin was way at the back and it was a downhill sloping to the right, and I hit it and just ran over the back. I chipped it to like the slope and missed the putt.
And I don’t remember the other bogey.
Q. Seven.
ANNA RAWSON: I was plugged until the front bunker, so I didn’t really have a chance to get up‑and‑down. I was in between yardages and hit a 6‑iron and didn’t quite get all of it and plugged.
Q. Every golfer can identify with the mental struggles of the game. Can you elaborate maybe on what you went through and how you got there and how you’re coming out of it now?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, I guess I’m just worried about the future. I just felt like I was going on great at the start of the year and some things kind of set me back and I thought, you know, what if I don’t play well and I started to think ahead of myself; you know, maybe golf isn’t what I should be doing.
I have my expectations of myself and I want to be really successful. I thought, well, if I can’t be successful at golf, I can be successful at some else. I was on the course thinking, “What am I going to do with my life? What am I going to do with my life?” Which is not what you want to be doing.
I sat down with the sports psychologist and he said, “You’re in your year. You can’t be thinking about next year. You have to make the most of this year.” And I really have just been thinking so far ahead that it’s terrible. It’s the same in my golf game, when I get to 1‑ or 2‑under, I could shoot like 3‑ or 4‑under. It’s this pattern in my life and my golf; it’s terrible. I shouldn’t even admit that I don’t think.
I think I lied to my sports psychologist for like the first month, too. “Yeah, I’m good.” Then I finally told him, “I’m having doubts about golf.”
Q. You’re a model, correct?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, part‑time.
Q. So you have something to lean back on.
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, that’s exactly ‑‑ like I have that part of my life. I’m also university‑educated, I studied communication at University of Southern California, and I was going to go into a consultancy; that’s what I was going to do, and then we won the National Championship and I went into golf. I was never what I was going to do.
So I’ve spent the last five years doing it and I’ve kept improving and I’ve kept succeeding, but I guess I was like, oh, I don’t know. Maybe I should go pursue the other interests; maybe I could be more successful at that.
Q. The fashion industry, would they not turn their nose up a little bit at golf?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, they don’t really – no, we don’t get much traction in the fashion industry, yet. But we’ve got great fashionistas on Tour. So it’s only a matter of time until they find out about us.
Q. As far as your connection to Australia with Karrie Webb, do you have a mentor?
ANNA RAWSON: Not specifically with Australians. I think my sponsor, GoDaddy, their CEO, Bob Parsons, has been amazing to me. I have played golf with him a couple of times and he just is so encouraging. He’s such a successful businessman, and I think if he can see talent in me, then I must have it.
So I’ve had a couple of conversations with him and just different people that have really said, you can do this, you can win, just keep going.
Q. And the course here, does it play like an Australian course? Are there courses down under that are like this?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, the greens are bent. They are really good. I can’t really think of a course it’s like. I guess it works well for me because there’s a lot of short putter holes, I get a lot of wedges. And the par 3s are really difficult, so I think whoever is hitting their irons best will win.
Q. You mentioned that you like success. I’m wondering what would constitute success in golf, is it winning a tournament like this one or winning a lot of tournaments? What do you look for for success?
ANNA RAWSON: Yeah, obviously winning is the peak of success. Once you’ve won, you’ve really achieved a lot. That’s the best you can do.
But I mean, just surviving, like making money. I know it sounds weird but just being able to live the lifestyle that I feel is what I want to live I think is being successful to me. Even the girls out here that are 90th on the Money List, they are really successful. They are top one percent in the world at what they do.
I look at it maybe not so harshly as the media does. They are more like, you have to win and you’re successful. I think just being out here, playing on Tour, keeping your card and playing out here, I think you’re a really successful woman.
Q. Your score today might be the best, obviously it is the best you’ve shot this year; perhaps it’s a good omen for the next three days.
ANNA RAWSON: I feel great on this golf course. Sometimes you get to a golf course and you look and you think, oh, there’s two or three holes that just bother you, and you think, how am I going to get through these. There isn’t really a whole lot here that I’m like, “Oohh.” That’s really good for me because normally I have one or two, I just want to get through those. I really like all the holes. I feel like you can birdie every one, depending where they put the pins. But I think I’ve just got a good grasp for it in the practice rounds.
On Tuesday, I traveled to Alabama, so I could work with one of my coaches, Ron Stockton. I played 9 holes with him and worked on chipping bunkers and shot-making on the course. I was extremely happy with how I was hitting it!
Last week I had the pleasure of flying to Charlotte, North Carolina to meet up with fellow Go Daddy sponsored NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski. And what a nice guy he was! We spent half the day on the golf course, were I managed to get him to hit one ball straight and about 200 yards down the fairway…the rest were…ummm… let’s just say not so straight. haha
