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HONDA LPGA THAILAND

February 24, 2016

Chonburi, Thailand

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome in two of our top players here on the LPGA Tour, Inbee Park and So Yeon Ryu, very good friends. Thank you both for coming in. Obviously a very big event here for everybody here in Thailand. Inbee, let's start off with you, a winner here in 2013, a very impressive list of winners here. What do you remember most about that win? What do you think is basically the key to winning here?

INBEE PARK: I remember that was a very special year for me. I won three majors in a row starting off with Thailand, which is my first tournament of the year, so that's how to start the year, I think. And obviously the really good memories over the last eight, nine years that I've come to Thailand, people are just so friendly, and I love coming here and meeting new people and having good food and getting foot massage done, and yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's especially interesting being the 10th anniversary. I have been in most of those historical years. It feels very special, and yeah, happy to be coming back here and playing again.

THE MODERATOR: How are you feeling? I know you took some time off injury-wise. How was your time off and how are you feeling coming into this week?

INBEE PARK: Yeah, I shouldn't say I'm perfect right now. I mean, it has been a pretty stressful couple months for me. Gi Hyeob's dad passed away last month, and just I had an injury, and it has been a pretty tough time the past couple months, but I'm still working on it, getting over it, and obviously time is going to be important. Not that I'm in a rush for anything. You realize a lot of things in life when those big things kind of happen. Golf is just not everything in my life, you know. I've learned a lot of things, going through the sad moments and tough moments, and everything happens for a reason. That's what I think.

Yeah, just trying to get -- break through.

THE MODERATOR: Do you think coming back and playing will help get your mind off of things?

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, it was so nice to see a lot of people, and so many people really cared about both me and Gi Hyeob. And as for the back injury, I feel really ready to play again. It just happens a couple times in a month, and it just happened to be the very first tournament. Yeah, just realized how important it is to be healthy. It's such an important thing, and obviously that's going to be really my main key for this year, just not getting any injuries and just playing healthy and being healthy minded and healthy body.

THE MODERATOR: How much time did you take off? Did you rest a lot?

LEXI THOMPSON: I did. Three weeks ago -- my original plan was to practice a lot, and obviously rehab. But a lot of things happened, and Vegas was cold, and I didn't really get to practice that much, just a couple times I'd say, but just got to get ready to play tomorrow and to get my best start in this tournament. Yeah, like I said, I'm really not too much worried about the results, just the most important thing is just getting through the moments, and yeah, just trying to be happy.

SO YEON RYU: She's still playing good, though.

THE MODERATOR: I was going to say, dust off all that rust. So Yeon, let's go on to you. I heard going into a coaching change; tell us about that, how that all came about, and give us the details and what you guys are working on now.

SO YEON RYU: Yeah, very recently I changed my coach. I started working with him the very beginning of the year, so I've only been working with him like two months, and I've seen him like three or four times. But he's changed my backswing. I used to open my club face too much, so it was a really big help to have really powerful impact, so right now I'm trying to find a really great club face angle, the backswing, and I want to keep giving myself a few more weeks to get used to it. To me it's such a big change, but the only thing I can do is just practice hard and just keep looking at what I can do.

It's tough to change your swing, but the really good thing is like, okay, I still have room to improve, let's do this. It feels like I just started to golf again and every day is different, every day is so exciting, sometimes stressful. But yeah, I already can see I improved a lot, so I'm really happy to be working with him.

He has plenty of experience with Jordan Spieth, so I'm able to talk with him a lot, especially with like psychology things, as well. I'm really happy to work with him.

THE MODERATOR: What is his name?

SO YEON RYU: His name is Cameron McCormick, and he's in Dallas.

THE MODERATOR: And how did you guys get set up? Did someone introduce you?

SO YEON RYU: Actually I've been working with my caddie since I started on the Tour. His name is Tom Watson, and as you know, he's a golf nerd and he knows everything about golf. I decided to ask him to find a coach, and Cameron was Tom's first call, so I decided to meet him in Dallas the first week of January, then I just really liked working with him just right away, so yeah, that's how it works.

THE MODERATOR: Now, I saw on Instagram, I feel like we saw a Rory McIlroy post. Where was this? How did that interaction go down, and I love that -- I don't think I realized you guys were both U.S. Open winners the same year.

SO YEON RYU: Actually that day was like super, super cool day because it was on Sunday, I went to church, and I met K.J. Choi. I haven't met K.J. Choi in person, and when I met him in church, I was like so excited. I had like a two-hour conversation with him in church with my pastor, so here it made my day. So I was starting to practice around 2:00 p.m. but I had a long conversation with K.J. Choi, so like I arrived at the golf course like 4:00 p.m., so I was just going to do short practice. I practice at Los Angeles, and my head pro came to me and said, hey, do you want to meet Rory, and I said, of course. I didn't know Rory was there, but he said, Rory is here for Nike filming, and I want to take a picture of both of you because you guys were 2011 U.S. Open and U.S. Open champions. It was so special to take a picture with him, so I was so excited. I was like a little girl right there. I had to wait like 30 minutes, 40 minutes, but I was still happy to wait. So we finally took a picture together and then we had a little conversation, and he was like a super, super nice guy.

Yeah, it was a really special day for me.

THE MODERATOR: What did Rory have to say, just small talk?

SO YEON RYU: Yeah, it was really great to see like Rory knows about how I play, so we just talked a little golf --

THE MODERATOR: He knew how you played?

SO YEON RYU: Yeah, and just talked about all the schedules, and it looks like he's working out a lot. I'm like, okay, I'm learning something, as well. Yeah, it was really fun.

THE MODERATOR: I want to ask you both about obviously a very big story line, you guys will continue to probably get asked, but Crown and Olympics. I know here a lot of eyes are on Thai players for Crown and Olympics, as well. I just saw Amy Yang in here and the competition amongst you guys for team Korea is just crazy. Every week are you looking at the rankings? Have you thought about that? Obviously you guys are in the mix to make those teams. How tough is this going to be all season long to make both of those teams?

INBEE PARK: Yeah, I think it's going to be tough to get in any of them, International Crown or the Olympics. But we have to play our own game and see what happens. That's all we can do, really.

Like I think I told you last year, I think the Korean players are playing crazy this year. Taking everything on the line, and they are bringing a lot of motivation into their games. So yeah, it's going to be a very competitive year, and we've just got to keep working on our games and not to worry so much about the rankings or if we're going to get in, if we're not going to get in. It's hard to watch things around because it changes every week. But that's all we can do. There's nothing we really can control.

THE MODERATOR: You already called it, you see Ha Na winning, Hyo Joo winning already in the first three events, it started quick, the first three players. You guys are the ones at the top, more established, but these young guns, can you slow them down? What's the answer?

INBEE PARK: You know, all of a sudden it's impressive to see how good they are. They're really great. The good thing is as you can see, Korean women's golf is still improving and they're still coming. We are not just like last generation of Korean golfers, and it's really great to see. But it's just that the rookies and the all the new players are playing really well, and a lot of people started to talk to me, like you know, new players play really well, you should keep it up. To be honest, those kind of things are really stressful because I'm playing golf because I'm happy. I'm playing golf for me, but I never play golf because I want to compete with them. So I just want to improve my golf. I just want to really focus on my golf rather than competing with somebody.

But yeah, I think if I keep working on my thing, I'm pretty sure I'm able to compete with every player, not only four Korean players. Then if I can have good results, it will be playing Olympic Games and International Crown, and playing Olympics and playing International Crown is such a big honor representing your country. It's like a really, really big thing. For sure I want to really work hard for playing Olympics and International Crown.

THE MODERATOR: Looking back on Crown, you talked about how big that was the first year and now second year it's going to be bigger and bigger. What's your outlook on that event and how -- I know it's going to Korea the next time around. How big is that for you guys to be representing Korea in that event?

INBEE PARK: Well, you know, like representing Korea is really, really tough because so many great Korean players out there, so then only four players can represent our own country, then it's kind of so much pressure on us, and this is not only for our game, this is for our country, this is for Korean women's golf, and those kind of things are really tough. But one thing I really enjoyed about the International Crown in 2014 was we are always competing each other, no matter what country one is from. When you're playing golf as a game you actually can open up your mind, open up your heart and you really can share it.

Golf is really stressful sport. This is like totally a mental sport. But sometimes it's really hard to share something because, like, if somebody is not a professional golfer, somebody that's never really in contention, they never really understand how it feels. But all the Korean team understand each other, like Inbee, Na Yeon, I.K., they have the experience to play in really great tournaments, so we had so many great conversations that it always feels like I have this amazing colleagues on the Tour. So I'm not alone. For sure I have very great friends to take a long journey. It made my golf even happier.

International Crown is definitely on for me at the moment.

THE MODERATOR: Inbee, I want to talk about keys to this week, keys to this course. Obviously it's a course that really good players win on. What are some keys to success here? You've had plenty of success.

INBEE PARK: I think the golf course is in really great shape. I think it's (inaudible) itself over the years, and really true greens. They hold really true, and just around the greens is a little bit tough when you miss the greens. I think you've just got to work on hitting a lot of greens and the fairway bunkers have high lips, so you've got to avoid the bunkers.

I think really the main thing is every golf course is the same, you've got to hit it straight and you've got to -- yeah, it's that easy, but you just can't do that easy things. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do, and obviously it's great to see this golf course in that great shape, and yeah, I think greens are going to get firmer once the week goes on. Greens are quite soft right now, so we can be pretty aggressive here. Yeah, the iron shots, I think we're going to see some good iron shots.

THE MODERATOR: This is the 10th anniversary of this event. How have you seen it grow and how much of an impact do you think having this event to bring it all of the best players in the world has helped grow golf in Thailand? There's so many more Thai players on the Tour. There's been great success amongst them. How much do you think this event has to do with that?

INBEE PARK: Yeah, when I was on the Tour since 2007, I haven't seen that many Thai players, but this is probably one of the oldest events, international events with the LPGA, and Honda and Thailand has been a really great partner for the LPGA, and obviously they grow the game, as well, and they grow a lot of great players. Now some Thai players can be in the Olympics, as well. It's great to see that golfing history is going in a good way in Thailand and obviously over in Asia.

I think it's great to see a lot of other countries picking up golf, and golf is getting more popular and getting more exposure for a lot of people. Yeah, happy birthday to the LPGA Thailand.

THE MODERATOR: Has Inbee convinced you to move to Vegas yet? I heard this was in the making. Have you made a decision?

SO YEON RYU: Well, actually my younger sister applied to school at USC, so I just want to see how it goes because where I live now is only like 20 minutes away from USC, and when you have a chance to live near your family, you cannot say no. Yeah, if she's able to live with me in LA, I might just stay in LA, but if she cannot go to USC, I might just move to the place where my big sister is. We're just going to have great fun. I already looked around at some houses, and their house is beautiful and I love their place.

As long as Inbee is in Las Vegas, for sure I really think about that.

THE MODERATOR: We'll be checking the admissions letters on your sister.

SO YEON RYU: Yes, please, and fingers crossed for her.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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