MODERATOR: Have you had the chance to fish or will you go fishing this week?

Transcription

1 PRE-TOURNAMENT INTERVIEW January 24, 2018 BRITTANY LINCICOME MODERATOR: We would like to welcome in our defending champion here at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic, Brittany Lincicome. You washed that shaving cream off a while ago, but how does it feel to be back at a place you got your last win? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, it's very exciting obviously being one of my sponsors this week to come back to the Bahamas and be our first start to the season. What better place than to be here in the Bahamas, it's just so beautiful. I love fishing so I love staring out at the water and trying to see what I can find out there. Obviously good memories, you know, winning in the playoff against Lexi and getting the shave cream all over me is something that I'll never forget. MODERATOR: Have you had the chance to fish or will you go fishing this week? BRITTANY LINCICOME: I haven't gone fishing yet. If anybody wants to take me, though, I would be more than happy to go. But no, normally this week is just pretty lazy, we just kind of hang out. I'll be home next week. MODERATOR: How's your game heading into the 2018 season? BRITTANY LINCICOME: It feels pretty good. Last year I kind of had the same schedule coming into this week and I've done the same, I've practiced a little bit, I had played the Diamond Resorts Invitational and feeling pretty good. I've been doing I feel like all the things I need to be doing to get ready for this week, so we'll see. The weather here is just what kind of makes this week the deciding factor, I guess, because if it's calm like it was today, I would love to play this golf course every day, but when it blows 20, it obviously gets a little bit more challenging. MODERATOR: Anything new for you, anything in the bag that you've added or taken out or anything like that? BRITTANY LINCICOME: I don't think so. I tend to, if it's not broke, I don't fix it or don't mess with it. I don't think the club sponsors like me very much because I'm playing with clubs that are from like 2014, but I kind of play them until they break and I'm pretty go with the flow. Q. Last year you visited the casino, (inaudible). Do you plan to do that again? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Somebody just asked me that today, they're like, are we going to 1

2 see you at the casino at 3:00 a.m., and I'm like, I don't know, it depends on how my rounds are going. If I need to go to the casino to help me get the win, then I'm going to have to do that. I hope to not. I love sleeping and I like getting my 10 hours, so that night I did not get very many hours of sleep. Q. I know you don't like rain, but how do you mentally prepare for wind? BRITTANY LINCICOME: I don't think you do. I think you just kind of go out and you just kind of fight each shot at a time because it will be right-to-left one hole, left-to-right the other hole, into the wind. I don't really care for a left-to-right wind, that's probably my worst wind. But yeah, I think it's going to blow I think I saw like 18, 19 miles an hour. There's not really a lot you can do with that, you just try to hit your best shot and try to hit it as pure as you can I think is the goal and hopefully the wind doesn't affect it too much. But obviously there's some holes where you're aiming out on the beach and you're hoping the wind's going to blow it back. You kind of take it for what it is and you try not to get too mad and you just try to have fun with it. It is what it is and everybody has to play in it, so just try to keep a smile on your face and not get too frustrated. Q. The Diamond Resorts, was there anything in your game that you worked on specifically afterwards? BRITTANY LINCICOME: No, it was pretty normal. This year I said I was going to be more aggressive and make more birdies, but my first round I didn't play well enough and then my next two rounds I couldn't catch up. So I'm learning each year, I feel like I'm getting -- I'm playing a little bit better. You literally have to, in that format, make birdie on every hole and par doesn't get you enough points to win. It's a different mindset that you have to have for that week, but super fun and I love playing it and just need to be more aggressive, which I like to do anyways. Q. I know you've played all over the world. I just wanted to know how does playing in the Bahamas differ for you? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Well, I love it because I'm from Florida so it's not that far, which is great. And then I love fishing so I love being near the water, being on the water, looking at water. The fish tank at the hotel is pretty spectacular. So I love coming to the Bahamas because it's so beautiful. The water down here is a different color blue than I've ever seen in my life, so I personally love coming to the Bahamas and it's definitely on my schedule every year to come down here, so it's great. Q. Do you also come for vacation as well? BRITTANY LINCICOME: No. What's a vacation? I don't even know that I've ever been on a vacation. Most times vacation unfortunately is just sleeping in my own bed and wanting to be home, so unfortunately I don't go on very many vacations. But I can treat it like a 2

3 vacation, it's like so beautiful to be down here and just enjoying everything. MODERATOR: 26 under was one off the all-time record for tournament score to par. What's it like when you're playing that well? BRITTANY LINCICOME: That's a really good question. I didn't even think I had that many birdies in my game. It obviously showed me a lot last year that when I've seen the leaderboards before and these high 20s are winning the tournaments under par, I never thought that was even possible. I love like the U.S. Opens and the bigger -- the majors because 5-under par wins and I feel like mentally it's easier to kind of shoot those scores. So last year it taught me a lot about my game and gave me the confidence to know that I can shoot 25, 26, 27 under par and compete with everybody else so that was kind of cool. But yeah, it was -- I mean, I played so well all week that it was incredible. MODERATOR: And then getting into a playoff against someone who is your friend and your Solheim Cup teammate and just a fellow competitor like Lexi Thompson, what's it like to do that and then to actually win that tournament against her? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, it's kind of -- the cool thing about our job, on the golf course we're very serious, it's competition, we want to beat each other obviously, but off the golf course we're all buddy buddy again and it's -- you know, we're super close so that's awesome. But on the golf course it was interesting because being a long hitter and Lexi's a long hitter and we're playing a par 5, normally you would say, oh, Lincicome, you have the advantage because somebody's not hitting it as far, they can't get to the green in two. But when you have two long hitters, we were both very equal playing that par 5. So my record in playoff is not very good, either, so it was nice to finally get a win in the playoff and it's just unfortunate that it's always against a friend and it makes me sad. It's like Stacy Lewis a couple years ago as well. MODERATOR: Well, that's tough because everyone's so close out here on Tour it seems like and everyone kind of supports each other off the course as well. You went to several charity events in the offseason and throughout the year as well and you have one coming up, too, which should hope to see a lot of our players there, too. BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah. MODERATOR: That's next week, right? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, Thursday. MODERATOR: Can you tell us a little bit about what that benefits and how long you've been doing that? 3

4 BRITTANY LINCICOME: My charity is for The First Tee of St. Petersburg. I think we've been doing it for about 11 years now. Each year it just gets bigger and better. It's cool to go play in like Morgan Pressel's pro-am or Meg Mallon, Beth Daniels' pro-am just to kind of see what they're doing and how I can kind of make mine better and how we can raise more money for the kids. I just remember being a junior golfer back in the day when I started when I was nine and it's just really expensive to get your kid into golf and golf is very expensive. So we just try to do as much as we can to give back to the community and the kids and get more golfers, especially girls, out there. Q. So last year a major storyline was the (inaudible) of Americans on the board. Do you get tired of being asked about the importance of a leaderboard like that or do you see the merits of it and understand? BRITTANY LINCICOME: I totally understand. I do get asked that question a lot. It's just I always tell people there's just so much talent on the LPGA Tour, like it goes so deep. Years ago it was always Annika was winning or Lorena was winning or that one person all the time. Now literally anybody on our Money List could win at any given time. I think it's really cool to see different players win every week because you obviously learn something new about that player maybe you didn't know before. Yeah, you talk to Americans and they're like, why aren't you guys practicing harder, why aren't you guys playing better? It's not that we're not trying to play better, we're not doing the same things they're doing, they're just so good. The depth of the Tour just keeps getting better and better. I think it's great. Q. And on a similar note, we haven't had an American since Stacy Lewis was Player of the Year a couple years ago of course, but what would it mean to the LPGA to have Lexi rise to No. 1 and do you think she's capable of doing that? BRITTANY LINCICOME: I mean, with what we saw last year I would definitely think it's for sure possible. She's -- she's controlling her game and the way she plays on the golf course now, how she thinks out there, it's really kind of cool to see she's kind of dialing it back a little bit not hitting driver on every hole, really doing better at course management, which is great. But definitely she could be No. 1. It would be good for, since we're an American-based company, to have an American on the top of the Money List. I definitely feel like Lexi can do it, Stacy could do it. Q. Can you do it? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Probably not, too much pressure. I'll just be like maybe fifth, that would be nice, maybe top 10. Q. Is that your number, five? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah. My sponsors probably don't like that, but I don't know. This year for me, I just want to be more consistent. I won the beginning of last year, I thought maybe it will kind of play out through the year and I just went up and down like I 4

5 always am. My 14th year out here, you'd think I could figure it out, but I just don't understand how these girls literally every week they're in the top 10, I don't know how they do it. I need their secret. MODERATOR: Any other goals for 2018? International Crown obviously. BRITTANY LINCICOME: Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I think being more consistent will get me into obviously the majors, the International Crown. Just being more consistent and playing better golf throughout the year will obviously get me into the big things that I want to be in any way. So would love to win the U.S. Open before I retire one of these years, that would be really cool. Yeah, just being more consistent, being around the top 10 every week and not missing a cut, making a cut, you know, high, low, it's too much. So I would like to be more consistent. MODERATOR: Wouldn't we all? BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, exactly. MODERATOR: All right. Well, thank you very much for your time and have a good week. BRITTANY LINCICOME: Thank you. 5