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THE EVIAN CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 6, 2018

Anna Nordqvist

Q. Looking back to last year's Evian Championship victory, what are some of those things that stick out in your mind?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I think looking back at it, I think what's so special about it, because I worked so hard to get my second major for so long, and I think I've always been kind of a player that never gave up and always kept fighting. I mean, just to do it under those conditions and the playoff, I think that -- I always stayed positive. To be able to win, it was obviously very emotional when I won, but that just says a lot how long and how hard I worked for that victory, so that's always going to be a feeling that I'll remember about the championship last year.

Q. This season you have six top 10s. Four of those have come in your last eight starts. How would you assess your 2018 season up to this point?
ANNA NORDQVIST: Yes, the 2018 season has been a little bit disappointing. I had a rough spring, was working on some changes in my swing but didn't really work well at all, so I made some changes back after the U.S. Open, and I felt like I've been hitting it much better since and been kind of finding my game again and finding a lot more consistency like I'm used to. It's continuing to improve and getting better, but overall the season hasn't been as consistent as I've been in the past, but I feel like it's coming along better and better.

I finished eighth in Canada a few weeks back, and I'm hoping that a lot of good memories and a lot comfort from last year's Evian Championship are going to pay off and make me have a good week next week. But I have Asia coming up and I have quite a good stretch coming up, so I'm excited about the season-ending tournaments, so hopefully I will have a great fall and finish the year off on that note.

Q. Anna, you won last year in a sleet storm; what do you think about the date change, and how do you think that's going to affect the championship going forward?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I mean, growing up playing golf in Europe, like I know what the conditions can be like. We played Solheim Cup in September, and we've had a little bit of every kind of weather. Last year was very unfortunate that -- it was hailing and blowing and everything was really hard, and I don't think anyone enjoys those conditions. We've been pretty unlucky with the weather. I know it can be great in September, but I know it can be very sketchy, too, and I feel like with Evian being at the date it is now, having to be a few 54-hole tournaments over the last couple years, I think we'll all welcome a change in the date.

It's a great venue, and it's a very well-run event and major championship. It's too bad when they have to battle the elements of the weather.

I'm excited it's moving to the summer next year, and before it became a major, we always played it in July, and we always had a blast and we always had great conditions. I only think it's going to be great, and I think the golf course is going to be much better given the better weather conditions in July than September.

Q. The playoff hole was so unusual with that weather. Can you kind of just take us back through it, what the weather was actually like, what you were thinking, and the challenge of that?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I mean, the 18th hole, when they did the changes to the Evian course, it used to be a par-5 and now they made it a really hard par-4, and with the weather being a little bit cold and the tee all the way back for Sunday, I don't think there was many girls that could actually reach it in two, and if you did, you had either a hybrid or a 3-wood. It's playing really tough, and then especially when the wind picked up even in regulation, I missed the fairway. I mean, you have to hit the fairway there to be able to even reach it in two on a par-4, which sounds pretty silly, but that's just the challenge of the hole. The fairway slopes quite a bit left to right, so you want to kind of hit down the left, but hitting the fairway, it's a tough tee shot.

But coming out in the playoff, we'd been sitting around for a good 30, 45 minutes, and the range is so far away, so going to the range to kind of keep warm was never an option. I was inside trying to stay warm. I didn't have my waterproof rain gear, so I was soaked before I even teed it up.

We both hit pretty good drives. The wind was coming hard, and the wind, I'm sure it only went 200 yards, 220 max, and the rough was pretty thick, especially with all that water. So we both tried to lay up to a decent number, but I hit a 7-iron that just came out dead and went nowhere and left me with 137 yards in, I think, and then Brittany, she had a wood in, which she hit just short left of the green. So it was playing hard. I mean, it was hailing when I was waiting to hit my third shot, and my caddie was just kind of standing around with the umbrella going, I don't think we're going to play. I had to kind of push him to get my yardage because we were obviously playing.

I think I added maybe another three clubs. It usually would have been a 9-iron, but I hit a little 6-iron to make sure I cleared the water and everything with those conditions. It was blowing really hard off the left, and it was raining -- nothing was -- everything was soaked. I just tried to put myself in good position.

The pin was on the back tier there, and there was a bunker left and a bunker right. I thought I hit a decent shot, but there was no way to control it, so my ball ended up just right of the green. I think I was lucky to end up where I did. It was in the grass in between the bunkers. The bunkers would have been fine, too, because I was hitting my shot into the wind. But I mean, the green was under water, and they were going with the sponges as we were walking up to the green.

She actually hit a decent chip shot, but it's just so wet, so her shot couldn't get uphill, and mine was kind of thin a little bit and it was like on mud, but I hit a fantastic chip shot up to four or five feet, and it was just -- at that point I was just trying to stay warm. There wasn't many emotions going through my head. I was just so cold, and everything was wet. She made a good come-backer for double and I made my bogey.

To win a major championship with a bogey is maybe not what you think, but under those conditions, that probably was one of the better bogeys I've had in my life. I don't know how either one of us would have handled another playoff hole in those conditions and with everything being wet. But it was definitely a challenge but one that I look back to and am hoping for a little bit better weather this year for sure.

Q. When did you notice that it turned to hail or sleet? Where were you on the course and that hole at that time?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I mean, it was raining pretty hard when we were heading back to the 18th tee for the playoff, and I think since we were walking to the fairway, it started raining even more, then once I was kind of standing around and waiting to hit my third shot, that's when it started to hail. We were all kind of shaking our heads. But at the same time, it just never even hits you that they might stop play. You're in the middle of it and you just try to deal with it because you're both facing the same challenge, which I think is fair. It's different if everyone is having different conditions, but it wouldn't have been fair for her to hit her third shot and then stop play or something like that. So I think it was the right call. We were both playing under the same conditions.

Fortunately for me, I was one stroke better, and I hit a great chip shot at the right time. It could have been either one of us, but I've played in a lot of conditions, but that was probably about as bad as it can get.

Q. Were you looking around wondering if they were going to call it, or did you ever -- you said you didn't really think about should I even hit? Did it cross your mind that maybe you should stop or anything?
ANNA NORDQVIST: No, because I mean, my caddie thought we were going to stop, so he didn't even give me a yardage for the third shot, and I kind of had to tell him I need a yardage because we were playing. She's obviously getting ready to hit. It just never even crossed my mind. I was just trying -- I was so absorbed in the moment and trying to do my best and trying to win the tournament, obviously. I mean, knowing that we were both in the same situation and it probably wasn't going to get better for another couple hours, I think we were just so focused on the task ahead. That actually never even crossed my mind.

Q. I know you dealt with so much with your health last year. I was curious how you've been feeling this year, and do you feel like you're back to 100 percent?
ANNA NORDQVIST: Yeah, I mean, last year I was always struggling with it. I think I ended up playing 20 events, and last year I was schedule to play probably 25, 26 events. I was feeling better over the winter, and I was working out quite well, but then as soon as the travel season started and the travel kicked in, I started to travel or I started to struggle a little bit, and I found myself in not that great of shape in April. I think traveling a lot like overseas and the West Coast Swing, playing in Hawai'i, so there was a lot of travel and a lot of hard intensity, and I feel like it was a little bit too much for me to handle, so I had to pace myself a little bit better.

But this summer I felt like I really started to feel better. It's been a bit of a process, but it's slowly continued to get better, so I'm excited about that.

Q. Earlier you talked about a lot of the changes that you made earlier this year. I was just wondering kind of why you wanted to make those changes, and was that something that you were still working with Cameron McCormick on, or is that someone else?
ANNA NORDQVIST: Yeah, I mean, I worked with the same coach for three and a half years, Jorge Parada, and we split in the spring of -- it was 2017. Yeah, it was last year. And then I didn't have a coach for a couple months. I was trying to figure out what to do because I'm always thinking of trying to get better and always like to have something to work on.

So I started working with Cameron in July last year at the U.S. Open, and I met him a few times last year, and I worked with him a little bit more during the winter, and I made quite a few trips to Dallas to work with him. I just felt like the things that we were working on made me miss the ball just both right and left, and the consistency and especially my ball-striking wasn't quite there. So I just found myself in a different place on the golf course, just not really sure where the ball was going.

But it was always -- I really liked Cameron and the way he works, but the things that we were working on, I didn't feel was really helping me, and I didn't see results in my ball-striking, and especially knowing I've always been very consistent, and I felt like I missed a few putts this year. But I went back to basics after the U.S. Open when I told myself that I needed to trust myself a little bit more and go back to the things that I feel like worked in my swing.

It was always a question of trying to get better and trying to improve on things, but it didn't quite work out the way I was hoping for, so just made the decision to trust myself a little bit more, and I'm going without a swing coach. I have a few people around me that I seek advice from, but this is my 10th year as a pro, and I feel like I've come to a point where it's so easy to seek help from everyone else when really you do have a lot of answers within yourself. I feel like I recognize myself again a little bit more in my ball-striking and the way I play the game.

It's been a little bit of a learning lesson this year and a bit of a process, but there's definitely been a lot of highlights this summer and a lot of good tournaments as of late. So I feel like it's coming along, and hopefully the results will follow, as well.

Q. I just kind of wanted to follow up on that for a second. When you said you went back to basics and feel a little bit more like yourself, can you just give us a little bit of detail on what the Anna Nordqvist natural swing feels like and what you're trying specifically to get back to?
ANNA NORDQVIST: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've always been very consistent because I haven't had a lot of movement in my swing, and I've always swung pretty -- like pretty compact. So there's been a lot of -- the first thing I went back to was the fundamentals. I felt like my posture had gotten bad, and I didn't really like the way I was set up, didn't feel very athletic over the ball, so that was one of the first things that I worked on. Just a few tweaks. Actually my old -- one of the coaches I had growing up, (indiscernible), he helped me a lot with getting my setup back to where I was. A lot of the faults that I was seeing in the swing was due to poor setup. I think changing my posture has been very instrumental, and I feel very much more athletic over the ball right now, and also just trying to be a little bit more compact and not feel like there's a lot of moving parts in my swing, working with a towel under my arm and just trying to feel like the whole body is moving instead of just hitting it with hands. I'm never going to be one of the longer players in the game, but I feel like I have plenty of distance, and I've increased distance over the years. There's nothing bad I feel like I need to keep chasing. Just being consistent, and I mean, I feel like that's always been my part.

But I'm missing a lot of greens this year and a lot of mis-clubs because I've been a little bit inconsistent as the ball takes off and it's not off the club face, so I'm just trying to be a little more consistent and go back to being a little bit more solid and hitting greens. But that's been a big difference this year, hitting a few less fairways and definitely hitting less greens because I'm not in position off the tee.

Q. What would you say is the biggest key to having success at Evian, on that golf course?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I mean, Evian is a tough golf course because it's so on the side slopes. You're going to have a lot of shots off the slopes. The greens can be quite tricky, so I feel like it's kind of like placing yourself in the right sides of the flags and missing in the right spots. There's some really crazy ones there with undulations. But if you can being steady tee to green, you usually always hold up for a good week. But then there's going to be some putts and harder shots, so you definitely want to be in position where you have a shot.

Q. Speaking of the golf course, it has been somewhat controversial over the years, and some players have been very vocal about not liking it. What do you think of the golf course, and in a generic sense, how do you prepare to play a golf course that you don't particularly like?
ANNA NORDQVIST: Yeah, I mean, the golf course has changed a lot since they redid it. I feel like the old golf course was great. I can see why they did some changes and made it a little bit tougher. But I think the challenge you face at Evian is the golf course is on the side of a mountain pretty much, and it's hard to define a golf course with that much undulation when kind of like the landscape of the place or the location is already a lot of ups and downs. I know going into last year, there was a few greens that are really done, such as 12 and the 2nd green, and I think they'll come up with a few of those changes just to make it a little bit more playable.

I mean, it's definitely crazy. Either you love it or you don't. It's just the challenge we face that week, and if you can embrace it, I feel like it will be good. I'm not sure if a lot of us would design a golf course that way on the side of a slope, but I feel like there's a lot of good holes out there, and you need to hit quality shots, and there's a lot of shots you can't get away with if you just miss it a little bit, which I think is great for a major championship.

Q. What do you remember about playing there in July? Other than dry weather, how does it change the way the course plays? Do balls roll out more? Is it faster?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I feel like when we played it in July, obviously the weather was better. The ball was flying a little bit further. But I think it was the old design, and I feel like the newer greens are a little bit firmer than we experienced in the past, and they can make them a little bit quicker than we had back in July. But I think just the atmosphere and the weather just made for such a great tournament when it was in July. We've been pretty lucky, a few days in a few years since it moved to September, but it's just always -- you never know what you're going to get.

Q. I have a question about the length of majors. Do you think all majors should be played over 72 holes no matter what, or do you approve of leaving some wiggle room to cap them at 54 holes if bad weather intervenes?
ANNA NORDQVIST: I mean, I think major championships should be 72 holes, and unless there's certain circumstances where if the golf is unplayable or -- but I definitely think it should be crowned over four rounds, and I feel like that would be the best for everyone. But just given the circumstances last year, there just wasn't much we could do. But a lot of times, Monday finishes are options. It doesn't seem like we have applied them a lot on the LPGA Tour in my years on Tour, but given that there are Mondays, I feel like we should keep going if we can, if it's possible.

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