Morgan Pressel Diary - Friday, June 30

Morgan Pressel is a rookie on the LPGA Tour this year. She is coming off an excellent amateur career, capping it with a victory at the 2005 U.S. Women’s Amateur. Last year she finished tied for second in the Women’s Open at Cherry Hills Golf Club.  This week Pressel will share her thoughts with www.uswomensopen.com:

There’s not much more to say about my first round. Basically I putted poorly.

I got on the putting green this morning and the greens were really fast.  But when I got on the course I think the greens were real inconsistent and extremely bumpy, which happens when it’s wet, but I was surprised how inconsistent they were from green to green.

I think some of the putts went past the hole and some of them were short.  I left my putt on the eight hole 4 feet short for birdie.

Then on the ninth hole, which I double-bogeyed, it wasn’t bad speed. It was carelessness missing a 2-footer; it seemed like I hit a bump on every green.

I felt good starting the round, birdieing the first two holes, and I played pretty well even after the ninth hole, but things just got away from me.

My ball striking was OK, my driver got me in trouble on a couple of holes, but I was hitting the ball OK, just a long way from the hole.

When it started going wrong, it just keeps going, you try and stop it. I tried to pull myself together. 

I shot even par on the front nine. It was a good score no matter what happened at the ninth hole, which is what I was telling myself on the 10th tee. Even par is still right in the tournament -- not that I’m out of it -- but I need a lot of good scores going forward to dig myself out of this hole I’m in.

We still have a long way to go, but I need to play my best.

Hopefully the greens won’t be quite as bumpy tomorrow and a lot less wind. It got very windy out there in the afternoon. Hopefully it’s not windy in the morning.