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ANA INSPIRATIONMarch 28, 2018Inbee ParkRancho Mirage, California THE MODERATOR: Welcome back. I'm here with World No. 9, Inbee Park of course the Olympic gold medalist, winner of the 2018 Bank of Hope Founders Cup two weeks ago for one of her 20 LPGA wins. Welcome back, Inbee, it's great to have you here. I know you still play later this afternoon, but after your practice rounds earlier this week, how is the course looking out there? INBEE PARK: Yeah, the course is, I think, it's in great shape. It is the best one out of maybe six, seven years I have played here. So, yeah, the course is in great shape. The greens are hard and fast, and the rough are up. The rough is not up like 2013 when I won. But I think it is going to get longer and longer as the week goes on. Yeah, I think this is the way this golf course is supposed to be played. But some years to where we had a little bit softer greens and a little slower greens and the rough was not up. So, yeah, I think this year is going to be a great major type of golf course setting. So whether I played good or not, I think it's just going to be a great test for a lot of the girls out here. I think it's just going to be a lot of fun. Q. We certainly do want a major challenge this week. You mentioned you did take the win here and made the jump into Poppie's Pond in 2013. This is your 12th time here. You've never missed the cut here. So this golf course seems to suit you very well. How does your game translate here to the course here at Mission Hills? INBEE PARK: Well, I think this golf course really suits me, I think. When the greens are hard and fast and the fairways are narrow and the rough is up. So it needs good drives off the tee. That's really the most important thing on this golf course with these roughs at the moment. So, yeah, you have to be very accurate with the driver, and you have to be, I think, the iron shots. You have to land in the right spots to make it stop. In some holes it's almost impossible to get to some pins, especially with this wind. It's going to be very challenging. I don't know how much the wind is going to get up to over the weekend, but the last couple days I've played on this golf course, it was very windy, so it was very difficult. Yeah, I hope we get a couple days of wind, and a couple of days of calm days so we can mix it up. Yeah, in 2013 I remember the golf course was playing very tough, and I was able to play really good in those conditions, so I think hopefully that gives me some kind of confidence that I can still play and post some good scores even with the hard conditions. So, yeah. I feel good, especially after a win two weeks ago that gave me some confidence. I feel like now I'm really used to the Tour, and I feel like I'm now back out here. Yeah, I know what I need to work on, and I know what is a good strength of my game at the moment. Q. I would think a strength of your game has to be that putter. Has to be that putter. We saw it in Phoenix. You were basically unstoppable once you got the putter going. What does that feel like? Do you know inside that you've got it going out there? What's it feel like when you put your game into that next gear? INBEE PARK: I think it just feels good, and I felt good. I had a great putting week in Phoenix, but last week was a disappointing putting week. It's really hard to judge on the greens. Hopefully I'll get something like Phoenix where I can look at the putt and feel like, oh, I think I can make this one. You just kind of need that confidence and that feeling when you're putting good. So, yeah. I really like the change of the putter as well. I really love these greens here. The greens are -- even if I played here probably a hundred times by now, but some breaks on the greens sometimes tricks me. So just trying to not to get tricked by these greens. Yeah, the most important thing is hitting a lot of the fairways here. The fairways are pretty firm, so when I land on the fairway, it should be a running cutaway, so I give myself a short iron. You know, when you're not landing on the fairway and you're going long iron in the rough. So it's just not fun there. Q. We as journalists, the only mistakes we make about you is when we underestimate you. We all say Inbee's going to retire now, Inbee's injured, it will be very difficult for Inbee to come back. Do you take extra motivation when you hear things like that or you sense that you're being underestimated? INBEE PARK: No, not really, because sometimes I doubt myself as well, and I get surprised myself as well. That really doesn't give me extra motivation, I should say. I sometimes like being a little bit under the radar and nobody pays big attention to me. I kind of like that as well. This year is the first time this year that I did the press conference or second time. But over the years I've been in the media center every week. So it has been little bit different to me this year, but I've really enjoyed it, the little bit under the radar, and being a little off the pressure and just trying to just play golf. Not much else going around was very enjoyable, I should say. Q. Usually when people take long layoffs, the first thing that goes is your short game because you can't get the feel. Yet you come back and putt better than ever. How do you do that? INBEE PARK: Well, I still think that my putting is not consistent as much as I want at the moment. My chipping and the games around the green is not still there. I kind of think that I still need a couple more weeks to get the feels. But putting worked really well in Phoenix, but it has not been like that every week, and even this year. Last week in Singapore was not a great putting week. So, yeah, I still need some work on the putting. But I don't know how it happened, but, yeah, it happened (laughing). Q. Your countryman Se Ri Pak always talked to us about finding balance in her life and finding happiness off the golf course. Can you talk a little bit about is that something that you've learned recently maybe a little better, and how that's working for you and your game? INBEE PARK: Yeah, I think I have been pretty good with the balance of life and the golfing life, I should say. I think I have been pretty good with taking the balance of the two. I got married a little bit earlier than other girls on Tour, and I started traveling with my husband. I sometimes took time away from golf, and I had to balance it out a little bit. But everything has worked really well, and I was able to enjoy something that's other than just Tour golf, I should say. So, yeah, it was a good experience. Something that I never really have experienced over the 20 years that I started playing golf, just enjoyed time with family, just ordinary life. Yeah, I think I can do that as well, I can do the Tour golf as well. So, yeah, I think it's really hard to find those two, like getting in between those two. But I somehow found a way to do it, and I have enjoyed it. Q. You're not No. 1 right now. How much pressure is it to be No. 1 and to stay No. 1? Is there a little bit of relief not being there, or is that still the goal? INBEE PARK: Well, I think it is a big relief for me not being there the full-time. Yeah, I really enjoyed myself being up there as well, don't get me wrong. But I really enjoy myself being down here as well. Yeah, I think I can do both, like I said. When you're just outside No. 1 and you want to be No. 1, you always want to reach that goal. But once you reach that goal, you've been there, sometimes the golf doesn't work the way you want it to work, like not good all the time, not perfect all the time. So when it's not working well, that's where you have to take some time a little bit off and take some pressure off of you. Have some energy in you so when you get back to No. 1 or you get a lot of attention and you have enough energy in you that you can just enjoy while you're there. Q. When you start doing Inbee things on the greens and get in the zone, I'm curious, does the hole look bigger to you? Do you see lines more clearly? What does that feel like and how is it different than any other day? INBEE PARK: No, the hole doesn't look bigger to me. The hole is the same. But I mean, it doesn't come to me often, but whenever I putt good, I feel like when I stand over the putt, I feel like I can make this. I have that confidence in me, I should say. That's just it and nothing else. When I set up, I think being just over the ball, it's confidence. Even if you feel like you aim slightly wrong, you feel like you can hit it to the hole. Yeah, it's just a confidence level. I wish I could get that every week, every day, but I don't get that every day. Q. Would you agree, a lot of players say this is a bomber's golf course. Do you feel that's the truth, and it takes certain conditions to bring someone like you to the top? INBEE PARK: Yeah, I think this golf course can be definitely a bomber's golf course when the rough is not up. When the rough is short, I think the long hitters definitely have an advantage on this golf course, especially desert air, the ball goes far. Even when you're in the rough, you're going in with a 9-iron instead of a hybrid or 6-iron. So it's a totally different club you're going in with the holes. But I really like the golf course the way it is right now. The fairways are firm, and the rough is up and the greens are hard. It kind of gives us a little room so we can catch up a distance. When you land on the fairway on this conditions, it's running, so you can kind of get to maybe make two short irons in range. But you have to hit every fairway. That's really the important thing, yeah. Q. When your husband started making changes to your swing, did he look at your putting stroke and just say I'm not touching that? INBEE PARK: Yeah, he has been really kind of been off the putting a lot, but he teaches me on the set-ups and a little bit of a stroke because he remembers what my good stroke was, so he always tries to repeat that. Because sometimes my stroke goes a little bit off line or not perfect all the times. But he remembers what a good stroke is, so he tells me, oh, you stroked it that way when you were putting good. So let's just try to repeat that again. So when I'm a little bit off of stride, he gets me back on track. Q. You've pretty much been your own putting coach for most of your career; correct? INBEE PARK: Yes, but, you know, I rely on my husband a lot. So even if my putting stroke is a little bit off, sometimes I don't realize it, but he realizes it. Q. What were the key fundamentals that you taught yourself on your putting stroke? What makes your putting stroke yours? INBEE PARK: I think my husband said to me that I have the consistent rhythm. So when I hit the ball, I have certain speeds, like speed that's not too hard or too soft. It has good speed and it is consistent, he says. He sees some other girls and other players and sometimes some junior golfers that we see, amateur golfers that we play on the Pro-Am days. We see them hitting the ball, but with the putter, they're not consistent. They think they hit it same, but the way they hit the ball, sometimes they hit it too hard or too soft. It's not consistent. So he said my strength of putting is the rhythm. Just hitting the ball in the same rhythm and the same speed. The ball pretty much roles the same speed, so that's what he said. Q. Also having achieved just about everything, you're in the Hall of Fame, seven majors and a gold medal already, do you feel less pressure? And if so, how does that affect the way you're playing? INBEE PARK: Sometimes I thought because I achieved a lot, I should be feeling more pressure. I think I was feeling a lot of pressure after achieving so many things. But now after a couple years taking a little bit of a break, I kind of realize why did I do that? I didn't have to feel the pressure. I know I want to perform good, but there is no pressure for it. I should be really ready to enjoy tournament golf. But that's something that I haven't been able to do, and that's what I'm trying to do. I really wish I could enjoy tournament golf. I mean, it's so hard without the results. No matter how much you tell yourself that now you can really enjoy, you can enjoy missing a cut, you can enjoy shooting 77, but it's just hard to do as a professional golfer. I was never would be able to do it without results. I think that's the case for a lot of people it's so hard to enjoy golf when you're shooting 5-over. Yeah, that's something that I have to try to find a way, no matter what the result is. But somehow somebody tell me how to, because I don't know how to. Q. Just to continue on what Randy said, you've accomplished so much. You're a Hall of Famer, you've won all these tournaments and majors. What's the new goal? What is on your bucket list? What is the thing you still want to do in your career? INBEE PARK: Yeah, just like what I said now is trying to enjoy. Whether I achieve something or whether I perform good, whether I shoot 77 or 67, that's some kind of goal that I have been really setting myself up for this year and on. Just trying to enjoy what I am doing. Because even if over the years when I said oh, I think I am enjoying golf, and I think I enjoy being out on the golf course. But I kind of thought about myself and I think I was kind of lying because I wasn't enjoying myself without the results. Over the years because I had results, I was able to enjoy. But if I didn't have that, would I be able to enjoy it as much? So that's kind of the thought process that I was going through. Over the years I had some bad times and tough times, and that's when I wanted to not play golf, yeah. But if I want to play golf for a long time from now and on, I have to enjoy golf, whether I play good or bad. Otherwise I kind of think that golf -- I don't want to play golf anymore when I'm not playing good. So I'm trying to find that balance a little bit out, so I enjoy golf a little bit more. THE MODERATOR: We hope you keep enjoying golf, because we want to keep you around as long as you'll stay with us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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