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ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 21, 2015Lexi ThompsonCurtis ThompsonNicholas ThompsonAVONDALE, LOUISIANA DOUG MILNE: We'll go ahead and get started. Like to welcome the Thompsons. Thank you guys for joining us for a few minutes, Curtis, Nicholas, Lexi. We appreciate your time. I know it will be an exciting week, Lexi, with your ambassadorship with Zurich and your own esteemed career at such a young age. Nicholas, you've had, I think, six starts here and a couple of top 10 and you're making your second career start on the PGA TOUR, I believe. So with that said, maybe if I could just go down the line and get a couple comments about being here this week, and we'll start, Curtis, with you. CURTIS THOMPSON: Yeah, it's a great honor to be here. I'm really looking forward to the week. It's something, obviously, every golfer wants to be in this position to be able to play in a PGA TOUR event. It's quite the honor playing with my brother in this field, and I can't wait to be out here. NICHOLAS THOMPSON: It's one of the spots all year that I look forward to. Good golf course, great hospitality, and coming to New Orleans is a lot of fun and great food. DOUG MILNE: Okay. Lexi, top that one. LEXI THOMPSON: I don't know how I'm going to top that one, but it is a great honor to be here. Starting my new partnership with Zurich is a huge honor. It's kind of crazy that I'm sitting here with both my brothers, and I'm actually going to San Francisco tomorrow night to play in my own tournament. But it's great to be here today, and I'm quite honored to represent Zurich. Q. Curtis, how about LSU winning the SEC Championship? Was that a big deal for you? CURTIS THOMPSON: Yeah, that was pretty crazy. I watched all day yesterday or two days ago. I was playing with Andrew Loupe at the time and Myles Lewis, we watched the entire day. It was pretty fun to watch it unfold. Q. For Lexi, how important is it for you to make these kind of contributions for what you're doing today in New Orleans? LEXI THOMPSON: Well, it's very important to be here, just to be able to represent Zurich and have the clinic that we're all going to put on for the First Tee of Louisiana. So it's very important to be here. It's a good way to give back and to represent my sponsors that that have always supported me. Q. Lexi, I think you're No. 10 right now in the world rankings. The LPGA doesn't get the attention that the PGA, obviously, does. What do you think can change that? Do you think of someone like yourself sort of taking a Tiger Woods‑type of rise up the board? Does that help draw more viewers in, do you think? LEXI THOMPSON: I think that would definitely help, and it would help just, I mean, obviously we're, gaining on our views on the Golf Channel and our tournaments. We've gained a lot of tournaments over the years, even since I turned professional we have 32 or 33 events right now on our schedule. So we're improving a lot and getting a lot more fans out there to follow us. But as you saw last year with all the Americans winning, it definitely got a lot more fans watching on the LPGA. Q. Do you see more are Americans winning in LPGA tournaments as a trend that's moving forward and growing or is that something that you think is sort of plat towing? LEXI THOMPSON: I'm hoping that it will be a trending situation. There are a lot of Americans that played really well last year. There are amazing players out there. Doesn't really matter where you're from. It matters what game you bring to the table. That's all that matters out there. So hopefully we'll get a few more Americans out there to do well, and we'll see. Q. How much advice do you get from your brothers on golf and about your image out there? I know the Golf Digest cover came out a few weeks ago. What did they have to say about that? Did they give you a lot of advice? LEXI THOMPSON: I don't know. What did you guys think of it? No, they've given me a lot of advice throughout my life. I can always turn to them for advice on me game or what to do off the golf course too that will help me out. But I can go to them for anything, and that's a huge part of life and very important in my family. Q. You guys help her out and talk to her about what she should be doing? CURTIS THOMPSON: I would say it's not really more of an asking thing like what do you think I should do here? It's kind of a circle. If we feel we should give advice on something, we don't need to be asked. It's just kind of input wherever we feel it should be. NICHOLAS THOMPSON: We're just always there for each other. When you need help, no matter what it is, you can always turn to one another. Q. Nick and Curtis, have you all played out here at TPC today or yesterday? What do you think of the course? It got a lot of rain last week, so what is the condition of it, would you say? NICHOLAS THOMPSON: It's good. It's playing extremely long, but for how much rain they had in the past seven days prior to us getting here, I guess it was like ten inches, it's in really good condition. They've been able to get out there and cut the fairways. It's not nearly as wet as it seems like in the fairways. Once you get off the fairways, it's quite wet. Like you hopefully don't hit it in the trees, but if you hit it in the trees, there is a lot of casual water. But the fairways are actually in really good shape, and a lot drier than I ever expected. Q. This question is for all three of you. Tell us a little bit about being in New Orleans. Not only participating in the tournament for the two brothers, but also, Lexi, for your participation today. What do you guys think of New Orleans? NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I think New Orleans is great. A lot of fun. You go stay downtown and you've got so many things to do, so many great places to eat, and the people just treat you really good. CURTIS THOMPSON: I would say the same thing. I went to school at LSU, so I've been here and there quite a bit. The food is amazing, the people are really nice, and you can do whatever you want here. There is nothing you can't get here in New Orleans. LEXI THOMPSON: I've only been in Louisiana once to visit my brother at LSU. But I've heard a lot of great things about here. Obviously, the amazing food that I have to try out in the two days that I'll be here. But I've heard the people are very nice too, so I'm looking forward to these next few days. Q. Lexi, there is a lot of demand on your time right now with your sponsorships, and coming here and then you've got to go to San Francisco. Does it make it tougher for you to practice? How do you think you're playing right now? LEXI THOMPSON: I did a practice round for Swinging Skirts a few months ago when I was come back from Asia and stopped in California. So I got a practice round in. And who knows, it might be better not to stress out the first few days that I'm there at the tournament. So we'll see. But I feel really good about my game right now. I've been practicing a lot, and I'm happy with the few finishes that I've had so far, playing pretty consistent. So we'll see where it goes. Q. How are your games going into the Zurich Classic this week? CURTIS THOMPSON: I think this course plays right into my hand. It's a long course. I don't even know. What is it? It's a 74. I like to hit the ball far. It's pretty wide open. So you go out there, hit as far as you can and work from there. I think it's more of whoever can hit it out there the furthest is going to have the most opportunities for birdies. NICHOLAS THOMPSON: I've played well here in the past, and when it was a little drier, but the golf course is in good shape. I look forward to it. And looking forward to a good week. Q. Lexi, especially in Louisiana there don't seem to be as many girls playing golf as there are obviously guys. What is your advice to a girl who likes to play 11, 12 years old so they can kind of move up and get better? LEXI THOMPSON: I actually think the women's game is growing a lot more. I'm an ambassador for the LPGA USGA Girls Golf, and we're gaining so many little girls into the game. It's very cool to see the amount of little girls and boys out there following us and picking up a club at a young age. It's very cool to see. But I would say the advice I would give them is just to go out and have fun. It's always good to have somebody to practice with and make it even more fun. I have two older brothers that I got to practice with and have that competition. But I think just go out and have fun. It takes, obviously, a lot of practice, but you have to just love it. Q. Is growing up in the Thompson household, what was the competition like? Was there a lot of ribbing? A lot of good natures character building with each other? NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Battle Royale. DOUG MILNE: Talk about that. CURTIS THOMPSON: It hasn't gone anywhere yet. The competition with anything is still there, whether it's golf, ping‑pong, bowling. I mean, my brother and I play Trivia Crack. I mean, it ruins your day if you lose, no matter what it is. The competition is unbelievable. NICHOLAS THOMPSON: All three of us are fierce competitors. It doesn't matter what we do, we don't like to lose. It's literally anything and everything. Losing sucks. LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, we're all super competitive in everything we do. We always say we could make a reality TV show out of us. Even ourselves at home, but on the golf course would make a really good one. But, yeah, we're really competitive, and that's what's gotten us to where we are today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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