	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

OLYMPIC GAMES RIO 2016: GOLF

August 15, 2016

Victoria Lovelady

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Q. How does it feel to be an Olympic golfer?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: To be one of the first golfers after 112 years, it's something that I cannot even express; the honour and gratification of all the work that I've done in these past years.
I think it summarises everything on the night of the Opening Ceremony, when you're welcomed, not only by hundreds of thousands of people in the Maracana, but also you're welcomed by the whole world in the television, as a Brazilian, as a golfer, as Olympic athletes. I think I couldn't have asked for a better time to be living in the history of golf and of the Olympics.

Q. I was in the press conference the other day with Peter Dawson and Ty Votaw, who are with the IGF, and they were talking about the net effect of the course, it's going to be great, and I think it's going to be 20 years, it's going to be used for youth academies, as a golf course to help propagate golf in this country. So how important to you as a golfer, you're talking about how perhaps the net effect of the Olympics, a young woman like yourself, wouldn't have to leave the country but could learn here. What do you think of that?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Yeah, I really pray and I hope that the organisations that are going to be responsible for the course, that they take it really seriously, what they are saying that they are going to do; that they are held up by even, you know, international organisations in order for them to follow through with what they are saying and what they are planning. On paper, it looks great.
The course, I want to just buy an apartment, whenever I get enough money, to buy an apartment right next to the golf course and make it a training base for myself. It's perfect to train. I live in São Paulo and it is a 30‑minute flight from here, but I would live in Rio and practice there every day. With the technology that they are planning on implementing, the gym, everything is perfect to set up a great practice facility and a great training centre.
What we are going to need is teachers that are truly committed to their students. Also, you know, you need to prepare the players here. However, they need to be exposed really early into the international competition, because you can have the perfect training facility, however, if they are not exposed to the best of competition, they are going to suffer in the future, as well.
So it's a great training base. It's a great way to build new golfers. The fact that we have so many buildings and a big residential area around the golf course, I think it's going to just create a lot of curiosity for many people that never have contact with golf to start playing golf. And the fact that the course is going to be public, it's great, because they don't need to be a member; they can just walk in.
I hope, another thing that I hope for, is that the prize, it's accessible for the people. It's not something that they are thinking about profiting, because if they do think about that, I think the project is not going to work. So I really hope that we have good sponsors that can make it accessible for everybody that wants to try.
But also, a very serious programme to train and build golfers and then take them into the international competition, bring them back, train, and I hope me as a professional golfer, that I can be of help to develop this training facility here.

Q. Have you played the course yet?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Yes. In March we had the first test event, and we played once. It was amazing, I was flabbergasted by the future I of the course, the great design of Gil Hanse, the quality of the grass of the greens. It blew my mind. To be honest, it blew my mind in March.
And then when I got back here a few days ago and I started practicing on the course, and the weather changed quite a bit, so now we have a lot of moisture in the air. We have a lot of wind. So the course is playing really differently I think. But it's an amazing golf course and I think it's one of the best golf courses that I've ever played in my life.

Q. In July, you got into the Olympics by way of Netherlands not having its two players come in. So talk about what it meant when you realised that you were going to be playing here in your home country?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Yeah, it has been a battle since, I would say, two years ago when the World Ranking points actually started counting. And I was in one week before the Olympics, but before the Olympic ranking closed. And then Gerina Pillar, she's a friend of mine, she played really well in the U.S. Open, and she brought me down one spot.
Then, you know, I was just waiting to see who was going to be confirmed by the Federations, because the names that were there on the 11th of July when the ranking closed, they weren't official.
So the Federations had to make it official, and I was really surprised that not only Netherlands, but also New Zealand didn't take one of their players. So I was really happy, I'm not going to lie. I don't know what I would be doing with myself at this moment if I wasn't here. I probably would have like bought a ticket and go far, far away, you know, the furthest point from Brazil that I could have been.
So I'm very, very thankful that everything worked out and I'm able to play the Olympics in my country.

Q. Talk about your thoughts of standing on the first tee in your home country as an Olympian, what does that mean to you?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Yeah, I'm going to be filled with joy and gratitude. As I said, you know, it's not many people that have access to this sport. I've been very blessed to be able to have the means to start golf in Brazil; to have the means to go to the United States and start my career there, as well; to have the means to have gotten a scholarship in the United States, and now I've been playing the Ladies European Tour.
It's the summary of my career when it comes to the value that I put in golf. But also, it's a great start, fresh, pretty much, at a course that has never been played by the girls. And also, for the continuation of my career.

Q. Matt Kuchar and Patrick Reed were talking the other day about how much they loved the Olympics growing up when they were kids and they were watching and they would dream of wishing that they could be Olympians, but they were thinking that was unlikely to happen but it happened and golf is now included obviously and hopefully will be for a long time to come. Your thoughts on what it was like; did you always dream of being an Olympian and what it means to now be able to go to your grave saying, I'm an Olympian?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Yeah, no one can take that away from me, either.
Gosh, I've always been into sports. I used to do swimming when I was little. Used to get the medals in the swim meets. I used to play sports in high school and in junior high or just in school in general. Sports has always been a very important part of my life. I've always been really competitive in anything I've done.
Sports for me, it's a way of life, and the fact that now we are among the best athletes in the world and we are considered Olympians, you know, that we reached the maximum of sports events, you know, in the world, it's a great honour and it's really exciting. So I'm very, very, very excited.

Q. Probably the top nation in women's golf is Korea, and all it took was for one Korean woman to have success and then you have little girls around the country who see that success, and next thing you know, little Korea is the powerhouse in women's golf. Is that sort of a dream of yours that perhaps that could happen in Brazil, and you could be the first‑‑ well, not just the first lady of golf in Brazil, but the symbol of all golf in Brazil?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: Well, I don't know if that can be a possibility.
But again, even the fact that we're now Olympians, you know, it's no longer like, oh, I played the Brazil Open or I played the Amateur Open or I played‑‑ like we have golfers now in the Olympics; hey, Brazil, we have golfers now in the Olympics. We had to qualify. That's another point that we have to make it really clear that as golfers, we have to qualify. We didn't have, you know, a wildcard to play here.
So that means a lot for us, and we have not only me, but we have two. So it's me and another player that are representing Brazil in the women's competition. So I hope that both of us, we can set up the new standard for Brazil; that the little girls look up to us and say, hey, I want to be an Olympian one day, and now they can be an Olympian one day.
I really hope that golf continues in the Olympic Programme, and all we can do, you know, is to continue with the passion for the sport that we have, continue with our careers. Come back home often in order to connect to our people. I've been coming back to Brazil for the past two years regularly, and I made Brazil my base, São Paulo, my base.
So it's important that we go, but we also come back, so that people can really have connection with us. So I really hope that we can have that same effect that Korea had; that SeRiPak had in Korea, in our country. We don't know to what magnitude it's going to be, but I bet it's going to be a great impact.

Q. How did you get introduced to the game?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: My great grandfather was one of the founding members of a course here in Rio called Itanhangá. And with him, my dad started playing, and I've always been really close to my dad when it comes to sports.
So everything he did, I wanted to do. Like he took me to tennis, he took me to soccer and he took me to squash. He took me to go‑karting, like I was the son that my dad never had; we are five daughters. I'm like his partner in sports.
And the great thing is that he brought me into golf, and I said, oh, gosh, I want to do this, I want to do this. I fell in love right away. I was 12 years old, and then I started competing right away in Brazil. I was able to win some tournaments, and that fueled me to say, oh, okay, so where can I go now. I want to be able to play my sport and also study. So then I thought about the United States; that you could do that in high school and be part of a team.
So then I just like started going crazy about golf. I was able to go live with my Godmother in California for three years, finish high school there, and I was able to get a scholarship. I was like, wow, golf is opening me so many doors, and I love this. I golf the game. I love to practice.
So it was a matter of having that golf tradition in my family, and that's something that we needed in our generation. Like in my generation, if your parents weren't members at golf courses, it was really hard for you to start golf.
So now, you know, we do have some golf courses that are less expensive to join, and now we're going to have a public course that is the Olympic course. So that's going to change. You don't need to have your dad as a golfer to start playing golf. But I had to have that in my family in order to start.

Q. When you were at USC, did you play under a different name?
VICTORIA LOVELADY: I did. Lovelady is my nickname‑‑ no, it's not. I don't know who would nickname themselves Lovelady, I don't know.
My husband‑‑ well, my maiden name is Victoria Alimonda, and when I got married, I got married to Jacob Lovelady, and there you go. It was all because of love. It was really because we were dating, and we had a conversation about last names. I was like, I'll never change my name. We were like the only Alimondas in Brazil. I'm like, I'm not going to give that up, ever. And then he got really sad. So I was like, baby, I love you enough, and I'll be Lovelady, period.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297