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MANULIFE LPGA CLASSIC

August 31, 2016

Stacy Lewis

Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

Q. Talk about playing in a sponsor event, one of your sponsors is the title sponsor.
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, from the get-go I came to the first media day and was impressed with what I saw, and then every year the tournament has been huge. I mean, I think everybody is a little bit surprised by what they've done here. Usually when you fly into a big airport and drive pretty far to the venue, you think you're out there in the middle of nowhere and you're not going to get great crowds, but this place is not the norm. We get tremendous crowds out here, and from the get-go this tournament has been a huge success.

Q. You've played well in this event the first three years. Do you like playing around here, just the environment?
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think my record shows I like Grey Silo a little bit better than this golf course, but it is what it is. This is definitely a better venue for us as far as the facilities and the ability to host a lot of people. I mean, this is the type of venue we needed. I'm hoping the second year here we have a little bit better run, a little bit better luck on the golf course, just knowing it a little bit better, and it's in way better shape this year as far as consistency and knowing what kind of bounce you're going to get. I think it's playing a little tougher being a little bit softer, so it's playing longer, and then the rough is up, as well.

I think scores shouldn't be quite as low this year.

Q. Do you feel a little bit more comfortable this year, just having seen it?
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, a little bit. Unfortunately it seems like I come to this tournament every year and I'm exhausted, and that's unfortunately the case again this year. I did my best to learn the golf course, and I've been playing well the last couple months, so don't feel like I need to do a whole lot of prep to get ready for the week.

Q. How does this course set up for your game? I think there's a little wider fairways. I don't know how wide it is this year, but does that suit your driving game a little bit better?
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't require quite the precision that I would like. I like a little bit tighter golf course because I think it narrows the field a little bit. I think this golf course the greens are huge, the fairways are huge, so it doesn't really favor one person or the other. It ultimately probably comes down to who has the hottest putter.

Q. Let's talk about your Olympic experience. You had a really good tournament. I think you were leading at one point, maybe was it the second round?
STACY LEWIS: Uh-huh.

Q. First of all, how did you feel you played at that course?
STACY LEWIS: I played well other than one day. I played three really good days and one really bad day.

Q. Was that the third round?
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, which ultimately kind of cost me the chance of getting a medal, but came back well on the last day. I enjoyed the experience totally. I mean, it's an experience of a lifetime to get to go be an Olympian and to be at the Olympics. The closing ceremonies was probably the best part of the week, just walking with all the athletes. I thought I would get there and it would just feel like a normal golf tournament, but it wasn't. It felt completely different. It was such a cool week.

Q. How did it feel different, because I was wondering, you're not playing for money, but then again, when you were in college or an amateur you weren't playing for money, either, so that probably wasn't what the difference was.
STACY LEWIS: I think I got there the first day and got to see the guys finish, and then you see them go up on the podium and get the medals, and it's like, wow, that is really cool. You go watch all these events throughout the week, and it's the same ceremony, the same thing is happening. They do their race and they get their medals, they do this and they get their medals, and it's kind of like, whoa, at the end of four days we get to get medals, too. It was just a different feel, and it felt like we were part of that, we were part of the Olympics, we were part of it with the swimmers, with the divers. Yeah, you wanted to win and everybody wants a gold medal, but you were definitely thinking about and looking at the top three instead of just that one.

Q. I'm assuming you stayed in the athletes' village with the other American athletes; that must have been an interesting experience.
STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I stayed in a condo, but my caddie stayed in the village, and we had some rooms over there, so we went and visited a few days. It's crazy. The things, the facilities they have set up for the athletes that you don't see behind the scenes, all the practice fields and the dining, I mean, the biggest dining hall I've ever seen. The funniest part is they had a McDonald's on there, and all the food was free at McDonald's, and so the line -- it was just lined up for hours. It was crazy. But yeah, just seeing all the ins and outs. With an athlete pass, you could go anywhere. We could go to the warmup track and watch the athletes warm up. We could go to the warmup pool. We could go anywhere we wanted there, and it was crazy. It was so cool.

Q. Amongst the American athletes, there's some that are well-known to Americans and other people like Michael Phelps obviously, but what about yourself? Did anyone -- you're a little bit well-known because you're a professional athlete and you've been successful in your sport. Did anyone come up to you and say, I'm happy to meet you?
STACY LEWIS: No. I saw some people -- I met Megan Rapinoe before and saw her there. We met Katie Ledecky, which was pretty cool, at the USA house. My caddie got to know some of the table tennis players a little bit. Kind of just you meet these random athletes, badminton. It's just cool to hear what they do because it's really pretty similar, but they actually texted my caddie looking for an agent and looking for sponsors. So it's really similar what we do, but theirs is obviously on a little bit smaller scale.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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