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SOLHEIM CUP

September 19, 2015

St. Leon-Rot, Germany

MODERATOR: Good afternoon, actually it's now evening, isn't it? It's been a long day. We welcome in four members of Team USA, Cristie Kerr, Lexi Thompson and also the pairing of Stacy Lewis and Gerina Piller.

Congratulations to the two on the far end for winning their match. Let's start with you both. Quite a day, actually, 2&1 in the Friday foursome, halved your match in the Friday fourball, and 3&2 in Saturday fourball over Azahara Munoz and Carlota Ciganda. 2-0-1 for the week. Let me get your thoughts on the importance of the match this afternoon, start with you, Cristie, given where Team USA was.

CRISTIE KERR: Well, we came out for the resumption of play and it started to pour. And Lexi hit these two beautiful shots up there. And they made the putt on us first and she didn't let it bother her and she just made the most clutch putt I think I've ever seen her make.

And then we got off to a good start this afternoon and was able to really ham-and-egg it well. I made putts when I needed to. She did, as well. That's what you have to do in the fourball.

MODERATOR: Lexi, can you talk about the importance of this afternoon. You knew where you stood going into that. And obviously you both were off first, so you had that opportunity?

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, it was definitely very important. We all knew where we stood going into the afternoon. It didn't really change our mindset. We were out there. We knew we made a good team with the matches that we've played together. We just went out and played aggressive. And we were there for each other. If one hit a bad shot, the other one was right there in it. We made a good team in all our matches. We're looking forward to tomorrow.

MODERATOR: Let's talk specifically about this afternoon. I could say you never looked back. But if you did look back, there really wasn't anybody behind you. You teed off and then there was that little gap as we sorted out the pairings. I was curious if that was a little weird as far out as you guys were. Cristie, any thoughts on that?

CRISTIE KERR: Not really. We actually got timed for three holes. We didn't really have time to look back and see where everybody was.

LEXI THOMPSON: We made the gap bigger.

MODERATOR: Lexi, is that strange at all?

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, well, it's different because we're always used to having a group right on us, on the same hole. So it's different to have a few holes in between each group. But we were timed for three holes, so we were booking it.

MODERATOR: Stacy and Gerina, fantastic morning for you both. And obviously it's continued into the afternoon. And I know your match is suspended due to darkness.

Let's talk about this morning first and the importance of that. First for you, Stacy, 5&4 is really impressive. You probably needed that, yourself.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I really needed it. I just needed to play some good golf, and that's what Gerina and I did. I was glad to see her get her first point.

It's always hard at Solheims. You think you have to do everything different to get your first point. And we just played some really great golf. We were 7-under through 14 holes, and we had three other pretty good chances we didn't make. Really just we read putts well and were confident out there. And I've been wanting to play with Gerina for a while and I finally got the opportunity, so I was pretty excited.

MODERATOR: She was a good partner to have today. Gerina, beating Nordqvist and Hedwall, the first loss for Hedwall. She doesn't know what it's like to not win a match. You played great golf all day today. Your thoughts on the importance of today for you personally.

GERINA PILLER: Yeah, it was huge just starting off this morning to finish off our match this morning. And to make that putt on 16, I think that was the biggest celebration of life. I think it gave Juli Inkster's celebration a run for her money.

To come out after that obviously and come and play with Stacy, I'd never played alternate shot, nor with Stacy. I knew I was playing good. But alternate shot is just a different game. And my confidence has been really high this week. I played well last week and been hitting it really good. So just trying to take that into this afternoon. We were just meshing really well.

Q. Lexi and Cristie, I think you played 21-under in the two fourballs so far. What is it about the dynamic between the two of you that allows you to play so well?
STACY LEWIS: They're both really good.

LEXI THOMPSON: I think we know how to feed off each other. We know each other really well. We're always there pumping each other up. If one hits a bad shot, we're always there for that player. Picking each up if we're down, but always rooting each other on. And we both ball striked it very well and made the putts that we needed to.

Q. I think it's correct that you played in International Crown together?
CRISTIE KERR: We did. That was the first time we had a chance to play together. I don't know, I just felt there was a chemistry there between us. And it was really cool to get to play with her there. It's fun to watch her hit the ball and make all those clutch putts, and she's just playing so great.

LEXI THOMPSON: Fun to watch you walk in your putts.

CRISTIE KERR: We make a great team. And no matter what happened out there, I think the most important thing is we never let ourselves get down in a match, and down on any of the bad shots that we hit. I hit it like 25 yards left with a 6-iron in the water on 12, but she's like, don't worry, I've got you. I mean, that's huge. And just comfort. So we made a great team.

Q. A final point on that, was it Juli that spotted you worked well together or did you say to Juli, we did well at the International Crown and we want to continue it?
CRISTIE KERR: Obviously we played together at Crown and she saw that.

STACY LEWIS: Juli was actually there that week, I think she was doing Golf Channel. She was doing commentary stuff. She saw that.

CRISTIE KERR: We saw that. And we're from South Florida, pretty much 45 minutes away from each other. Have grown up with similar backgrounds and it just worked.

Q. Don't know whether anyone asked this question but what happened on, was it on 6, when Carin asked you a question?
STACY LEWIS: She asked if it was a pitch mark.

Q. What was your answer?
STACY LEWIS: Both of us didn't think it was a pitch mark.

Q. So second to last question, what do you think about the quality of the course and the conditions?
STACY LEWIS: I think given all the rain we've had, it's unbelievable. The greens were rolling so good. Even at the end of the day, they're still rolling really good. And it's been a challenge for us.

The rough is long and it's hard, but their officials have done a good job with setting it up with different distances off tees and giving us an opportunity to score. You're seeing really good golf and the golf course is phenomenal.

Q. This is kind of for all of you, but given what happened this morning and how the momentum has been swinging back and forth, you get out for the afternoon, you've got a pretty heavy deficit to make up. What did Juli say to you and how did you take the mindset into the afternoon?
CRISTIE KERR: She just said, go get 'em. She said put your work hats on and go out there and take care of your match and take care of your shots and do what you can do. You've got a partner, but you don't have to wait for your partner. If you want to try to make a putt, try to make a putt. Try to be aggressive, stay aggressive and try to stay loose out there. Because when we tighten up, we don't play as well as we can. So I think we're starting to do that really well.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, we never were actually together as a team. People were kind of all over the place and stuff. So really just kind of doing our thing. But her message all week has just been to play aggressive, to play loose.

And for myself, I think I finally did that today. I think that was a little bit of the difference.

Gerina was hitting the ball so good. She played well yesterday. To see her make those couple of putts this morning, I was like, let's go, let's get to the first tee right now. I was pumped up, I was excited. We're 4-down, but it doesn't seem like that much.

We've got an opportunity in the morning to really flip this thing in our favor. It's amazing how the team hasn't gotten down.

Angela walked in from her match this morning, and she was cheering us on, and she had a smile on her face, and that's the thing, nobody has gotten down this week, no matter how far behind we've been.

MODERATOR: Your thoughts on the situation?

GERINA PILLER: Juli is all business and that's kind of the way she's kept it. Take care of yourself, hit the good shots, make some birdies and the rest will take care of itself. Focusing on that. And there's things you can control, things that you can't. You can't control what they do, you can control what you do and how you react and the attitude you have. So I feel like she's really focused on that. We're focusing on ourselves and what we can control.

Q. Gerina, you guys were throwing darts with drivers on 13. What was going on there?
STACY LEWIS: She was kind of forced to be aggressive after the --

GERINA PILLER: They were hitting their driver interest good. And it's one of those things where the greens are soft, so you can just grip it and rip it. Actually, the rain has these pretty cool towers, and it's pretty cool to hit them and make the big noise. You can't help go out there and hit those. I was picturing that big tower and I was just going to smash it.

STACY LEWIS: She hit two in a row and she lost off the --

Q. Stacy and Cristie, so much still hangs in the balance tomorrow, and probably an hour and 15 minutes. A lot can happen. What kind of perspective do you take into tomorrow and what that means?
CRISTIE KERR: Well, I think everybody's starting to feel it on our team. We're starting to feel the momentum shift in our direction and I think everybody will go out there, stay positive, stay aggressive and loose tomorrow. Try to hole some putts and just try to take care of our job. We can't really do anything else.

As you saw, Carlota holed out a shot on 17 to square the match yesterday. You can't control any of that stuff, but we can control what we're doing. And take that into the restart tomorrow and Sunday.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think tomorrow morning is obviously really important. Going into singles, you don't want to be in our current deficit.

So tomorrow morning is really important for us. But just showing what happened this morning, I think all of the holes played were won with birdies. We've got to be get out there and be aggressive just like we've been playing today and all week, really. It's important. I think our focus will be there in the morning.

Q. Why did you want to play with Gerina?
STACY LEWIS: You know, I played with Gerina on Tour and everything. And I just think she's an unbelievable ball-striker. And I don't think she quite believes that, herself. And so I just want to play with her and pump her up and ride that confidence with her. She hits the driver so good. I was so far down on a couple of those holes this morning, it was awesome. I just think she's a really good player and she doesn't quite know it. And I was hoping to maybe bring that out in her a little bit.

Q. How do you accomplish going about playing loose when you've been tight the other days?
STACY LEWIS: It's just being aggressive. It's not thinking about where the miss is going to go or if I don't get this to the green or if it goes too far. It's swinging away. It's swinging at pins. When the ball hits these greens, it's not the going anywhere, that means it's spinning back, if anything. But it's not going anywhere from there. You've got to play aggressive and you've got to just get out there, especially in this format this afternoon, birdies were made all over the place. You play tight when you worry about where it's going to go, and you play loose when you just get after it.

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