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ANA INSPIRATION

April 4, 2015

Stacy Lewis

RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome to the interview room Stacy Lewis. Really good round today. A couple blips on the back nine, but 68 you have to be pleased with. Conditions obviously were getting a little dried out. Just take us through the round today.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, obviously -- well, the score looks like I started out really good, but I started out actually kind of hitting it all over the place. Made a great par on 1, and then I hit it left on 2, left on 3, so I kind of hit it all over the place, but I scored really good, just kind of got the ball in the hole, and when I did manage to hit a fairway, I made birdie there. I did a good job of staying patient more than anything and just taking what the golf course gave me. You know, coming in there, I didn't make some of the best swings ever. Definitely didn't deserve bogey on 15, so I was pretty happy making bogey there truthfully. 17, just kind of misjudged the wind and hit a wrong club there, and then the green is really bumpy down there by the hole. But all in all, it was a good, solid day. Didn't really have to work too hard, which is good.

Q. Before the round today did you think of a number in your head? There obviously weren't a lot of low numbers. I think 6-under was the lowest so far. You dropped a few on the back. Did you have a number in mind today thinking you could go super low?
STACY LEWIS: No, not at all. I barely even looked at the scoreboard today because I knew nobody was running away. We were all going to kind of stay close and just tried to stay into what I was doing, and fortunately even with those two bogeys I'm still right up there for tomorrow.

Q. You're in a fairly familiar spot. You'll be in one of the last two groups tomorrow. Do you think the fact that you have been there so often, especially recently, will play to your advantage, and how will you approach that in terms of your mindset?
STACY LEWIS: Well, I would hope so. I would hope that the more times you get in those last groups, the better that you do. But I mean, I think just having the experience of being in a major in the final group, kind of knowing when to be aggressive and when not to, there were a couple times today I was in between clubs and didn't try to force anything and gave myself 15 feet instead of trying to squeeze one in there. It's doing little things like that and really just trying to stay patient, and playing smart is the biggest thing.

Q. You've talked about not being too impatient, like you said, and putting too much pressure on yourself. Does this whole tournament always kind of test that, not being too hard on yourself?
STACY LEWIS: Well, that's a struggle for me every week, so I don't know why this place would change that. But it's a major. I think that you know you're going to make a bogey. You know you're going to hit it in the rough, going to probably get a bad lie, and you've got to take your medicine and not compound the mistake and make it worse.

Q. You were one of four former champions who made a move today to move into contention, Karrie Webb being one of the others. How do you explain that? How do you account for that?
STACY LEWIS: It's solely the experience of playing this golf course. When you've played this thing firm and fast -- I've played it when it's harder than the conditions we have now, and when you play a golf course at its absolute hardest, I think anything you do from there is pretty easy. You know, Karrie has seen it at its hardest, I've seen it, Morgan has seen it, so I think that plays in a lot here, just knowing when to be aggressive and when not to.

Q. You had a great battle with Hyo Joo Kim in Phoenix, now Sei Young Kim is up there. Can you speak to the quality of this rookie class and just how good they are?
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, we knew they were coming. Inbee and some of the girls were kind of telling us that there were some young Koreans coming that were pretty good. We didn't really know what to expect, but they've been there. You can tell they've got a lot of experience from playing in Korea, and they know how to win. They know how to putt, which is most important, and I mean, they're impressive, especially Hyo Joo Kim. I threw everything I had at her in Phoenix and she kept responding by making putts and hitting shots. They're not scared, not scared at all.

Q. You might have answered this in the previous question, but you said nobody is really -- you really strongly felt nobody would run away with it. Can you comment on that, the reasons behind that?
STACY LEWIS: Well, I think it's hard -- this golf course is hard enough to shoot a good score on. I think if somebody shoots 5- or 6-under, the odds of them doing it the next day are probably not very good. I just don't see anyone putting up consecutive 66s or doing anything like that. I just think it's playing way too hard for that. So it's just trying to just hang in there. That's what we're all trying to do. We're all just trying to hang in there.

Q. Given that you have a three-stroke lead, how much is three strokes in the scheme of things on Sunday in a major? You're trailing by three strokes.
STACY LEWIS: I'm trailing by three -- I was like, I don't think I have a three-shot lead. I mean, three shots on this golf course is not a lot. I've trailed by more and I've won. You know, I think it's hard -- on a hard golf course when you have a big lead, it's hard, because you start protecting a little bit, then you start making bad swings. You know, maybe if I'm not in that final group I can get out there, post a number and kind of see what happens.

Q. And when you're struggling with left, what's going on off the tee?
STACY LEWIS: Well, they were actually just pulls today. They weren't going left. I was trying to hit little fades off the tee is what I was trying to do, and I was just hitting them straight. So I really don't think it's too far off because I was actually hitting it really solid out there. The first couple days wasn't maybe quite hitting the driver very solid and then started hitting it straight, and then hit it more solid today but started hitting it a little crooked, so maybe we'll find the middle tomorrow. At least I hope it makes sense.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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