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KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIPJune 27, 2018Lynn MarriottPia NilssonKildeer, Illinois Q. What are your thoughts on Brittany Lincicome playing in the Barbasol tournament and if it's good for women's golf, and what's your thoughts on that topic? LYNN MARRIOTT: Well, Pia can speak to Annika's experience at the Colonial more than I can, but I would say I think it's great for women's golf. Yeah, I really do. I think any time that we can -- honestly, I was just talking to some of the players about this, any time we put the men and women together and they can both be showcased, it's excellent. I was actually talking to Morgan Pressel about it because they just played up at the CVS with Brad Faxon's charity, and she said, it's so great when we can be together because one plus one is more than two in this case. PIA NILSSON: I think it's important, we don't need to try to prove who is best and whatever. No, it doesn't need to be about that. It can just be a really cool thing to see her do and see what happens. But it's not about how far you hit it or what's the scoring average and who's a better player. No, two genders play this game of golf, and they're both great. But just from the Annika whole thing, when I was so close to her, it was such a shocking thing for her when she realized what a controversy it was because -- and all the people making up all the reasons why she did it, and they were like not true. I knew and obviously Annika had told me from the beginning it was for her, just to challenge herself, a new challenge she's never done, and through the challenge she's going to learn things so she can be better at the tournaments on the women's side. She was like running out of things that really inspired her, so she just did it to challenge herself. It was never to prove anything else or show anything else that everybody made up. So I'm sure Lincicome now, Brittany, has to go through her own thing, and I just think it's fun. Even like Kiradech saying last week, oh, that would have been really tough for me to play here. I don't know if I could do it and compete with the women. And I thought it was really cute. LYNN MARRIOTT: Yeah, and Ariya said after she caddied for Kiradech at Augusta, she said, I realize I've got to learn so many more shots and these guys are so good, and I think, again, the game just benefits from that. So yeah. Q. So what did you tell Annika so that she could tune out everything that was white noise? PIA NILSSON: She couldn't tune out, but we made a deal, and we talked about it, not to read any internet, no newspaper, because it started getting to her, there was so much noise. So the solution was to just stop reading and only focus on what she was doing and her preparation, and then she was like -- after Friday she missed the cut by one, she started reading, like oh, my. But she had to just totally not go there because it distracted her and what she was doing and how she was preparing. So that was her smart choice. Q. Did you walk the first two rounds with her? PIA NILSSON: Yeah. Q. What stuck out to you from those two days? PIA NILSSON: Well, what stuck out was right before she's going to play the first round, and I was close to the putting green, and I just stood close to her, she came up, and I've never in my life seen her more nervous. She couldn't even speak. And I just realized, I just gave her a hug, and I said -- she had a cap called Nilsson. I said, you know what, no matter what happens today, the Nilssons still are going to love you. And she just went, you're right. But she wanted that. She wanted to be more nervous she's never felt to see if she had the tools to manage herself. So if she missed the cut or not missed the cut, of course it would be fine, but that wasn't the deal. It was can I actually manage myself putting myself in this much stress. Q. So I imagine you would give Brittany the same advice, to just tune everything else out -- PIA NILSSON: Yeah, and do it for her own reasons and prepare the best she can and keep her mind on that. Q. Are you guys excited to see the reaction when people see how far Brittany can hit it? That's going to be a revelation? PIA NILSSON: Oh, it is. LYNN MARRIOTT: It is. PIA NILSSON: Seeing Lexi, Brittany, obviously we see Ariya a lot, it's really cool. We had Ariya and Maria come in for practice in Phoenix, and we had them play on the same teams as Kevin Streelman -- LYNN MARRIOTT: And Jason Allred. PIA NILSSON: And they're like, it's really cool -- LYNN MARRIOTT: Ariya out-drove them a few times. PIA NILSSON: They're very much side by side. Q. So let me turn this on its ear. If you had one of the men that was paired with her or that was in the field and was feeling a little bit of self-consciousness like I can't finish behind Brittany, what would you tell them to manage that? PIA NILSSON: Well, and that's with every player it's different, but it could just be -- like Kevin, when he plays with the guys, they hit it further -- usually what happens is they get too much tension because they try to hit it harder, so often they need to dial down the tension level and tempo not to go above what is actually good for the swing. So it's usually tension and tempo that's -- Q. But ego is the third thing that's going to enter into this. PIA NILSSON: But ego is okay if it's there, as long as they know how to manage their own ego. Q. Has Kevin already qualified for the Open? Is there a chance he'd be in the field? PIA NILSSON: No. Well, I don't know. Russell Knox will most -- but Kevin -- LYNN MARRIOTT: Russell texted us after Ariya won the U.S. Open, and he said, she was a beast. I need a bunker lesson from her. Q. Oh, that's awesome. PIA NILSSON: That's obviously -- we coach a lot of women and a lot of men, and we don't need to compare, let's just appreciate all the great players of the game. Q. But there's something to be learned on the men's side from watching the women play, as well. LYNN MARRIOTT: We've just seen a little bit of a shift, let's say, from 2003 and then even take it back longer than that. It's 2018, and I think a lot of the younger guys are like, it's no big deal. It's cool. Q. Yeah, I do remember sitting in that room when Rory said, why doesn't your field have any male members? That just seems kind of weird to me. Go preach, Mr. Rory. So what has changed between 2003 to 2018? Do you think enough has changed that this will be a different experience for Brittany than it was for Annika? LYNN MARRIOTT: I do. PIA NILSSON: You still don't see all the controversy and all the stuff that went down, so I totally think it's very different -- LYNN MARRIOTT: Or questioning Brittany's motives. People questioned Annika's motives from the get-go, and I don't see anything of that. PIA NILSSON: It's going to ruin women's golf and all those things. Q. Did you notice that immediately and think that was a good sign of where we've come as a sport? PIA NILSSON: Yeah, and I think it's really cool to Brittany, like she wanted to give herself a challenge. She's a player, she needs inspiration like that. Q. That's exactly what she said she's doing it for. LYNN MARRIOTT: Yeah, she's definitely an inspirational player. Q. Unlike Annika, she's not going to -- I could see Annika preparing very meticulously -- LYNN MARRIOTT: Yeah, Brittany won't do that. She'll have fun with it. Q. There's more than one way to skin a cat. LYNN MARRIOTT: We often say there's inspirational players and there's perspirational players, and Annika is definitely a perspirational player, practice hard, put your plans together, then execute the plan. Brittany is much more inspirational. It's got to be fun. This is a well-known fact but Brittany has done Sudoku puzzles between shots, singing songs about going fishing. She won her first major that way. Q. Exactly. Love it. One more question about working with Ariya. She's really obviously cited your work as why she's become a happier golfer on the golf course and we see her smiling before pre-shot routine. How have you gotten her to this point in her career? PIA NILSSON: When both of the sisters came three years ago, they were still so young, but it was still so obvious with Ariya that she has the natural ability, hitting it so well, and the game was -- but she never learned anything else. They never learned anything how to manage yourself. In golf there's technical skills, but there's many non-technical golf skills, and she never learned them. So if we could just help a little bit, anything from actually you have to make a decision before stepping in -- LYNN MARRIOTT: And then stay committed to it. PIA NILSSON: Or how can we actually keep it together through the swing -- she started doing some of that. The pieces of the puzzle just came together more and more, so it's -- if you don't have some of those in place, you can't be a tournament player. I think she was just in the perfect position to just learn a few things and then scoring just started happening because she already had the good putting, good short game and hitting it far. LYNN MARRIOTT: We started coaching her the week before Founders, so she came to Phoenix, went to the golf school, both her and Moriya, and so she played Founders and went straight to Kia and then ANA. She almost won ANA, but then she bogeyed those last three holes at ANA in '16. But again, it was such a great learning because she'd never been in that kind of position. I mean, she had led in Thailand when she blew it and Inbee Park won but not make a major on the LPGA. PIA NILSSON: Well, and like we say, every player is unique and different. LYNN MARRIOTT: Really, really great learning. PIA NILSSON: And that's why we stay coaches so many years because every player that comes around is a blank canvas. Ariya is very, very unique there. She's so competitive, but it doesn't mean anything to her just to win money or doesn't mean much to her just to be the best. She wants to keep learning and she wants to be happy, and she loves to help the poor Thai children, so she has a different set of motivations. So being so good and just feeling the pressure from Thai media or American media or European media or any one of the sponsors, it doesn't feel good. She's like, why should I do this when it doesn't feel good. So when she taps into -- like I can play really good golf and win, and by doing that I can help these children, then she starts -- Q. Different type of motivation? LYNN MARRIOTT: And it's authentic. PIA NILSSON: Everybody is different, but we just found early on that it was so important. So like we never told her to smile. We were just testing different things so she could stay more focused during the swing. So it was in San Francisco '16. So okay, really, really see the ball flight and then step in. And then another hole, really feel like relaxed shoulders, step in. Something that could focus on to stay committed. But when we got to the hole and we just said, okay, let's just test this, Lynn said it, what if this would be the last golf shot you ever get to hit, ever -- LYNN MARRIOTT: This is it, last one. PIA NILSSON: Last chance, this is it. And she did it, and afterwards she said like, that feels good. And she did that to smile up here. So it's not the smile, it's what she feels -- Q. Internal. I thought her value system was on full display when she clapped, and yet people had a problem with that, and I was wondering what your reaction to what I thought was the most authentic, beautiful gesture of -- LYNN MARRIOTT: We've seen her do it before, so it wasn't a surprise, but we were surprised by the commentary about it. Q. And really heated -- PIA NILSSON: Actually I think it was really good because we got so many emails, and we read more about it, because we always felt for us that the original meaning of competition going way, way back was to strive for excellence. So we always in our coach training with our players, we like that mindset. And then Ariya, she had it the first time we saw her. So we've always seen her do that. So I think she was very shocked and a little hurt by that at first, by not getting -- but then she had to decide for herself, what do you want to be? What is sportsmanship for the future? What model do you want to be for those young children? LYNN MARRIOTT: Then she said, a good shot is a good shot, you should just acknowledge that. Like so factual, so authentic. PIA NILSSON: And it doesn't make her any less competitive. Q. Sports should not be a zero sum game and only someone who sees it as such would have a problem with that gesture. PIA NILSSON: Actually we kept telling her how important she is for the future of golf and sports that she's doing that, and a player in the heat of competition, that's what came through. It happened then, and it's something we've seen for years that was really cool. Q. For her development as a person and as a player, was it in some ways more impactful the way she won the U.S. Women's Open, to blow the lead, face your demons and overcome them the way she did? LYNN MARRIOTT: Yeah, again, we talked to her on Monday about that -- PIA NILSSON: Monday after the U.S. Open. LYNN MARRIOTT: Yeah, but she had gone in and started reading not U.S. media but Thai media and social media, and she said, oh, people are saying I choked -- no, no, no, we go, yeah, you started to lose it for sure, but what was really awesome was how you faced it and you knew what to do and then you did it, and we talked through like what happened on 10, what happened on 17. And even after Kim made the putt on the first playoff hole, she said she had a little thought of this might be her day, and then she caught herself, well, wait a minute, I'm going to play this last playoff hole and give it my best. It was just awesome. So we said, look at the learning -- like the learning of that. We often say that with success, you don't learn as much from your successes as you do from your challenges, and we said, this learning, and you did it on the grandest stage in women's golf -- Q. She got both. She got to have a challenge and a triumph, too. PIA NILSSON: That's what she said in the press conference yesterday. I started to realize winning by many shots or this way, this probably was for the future a better thing for me. Q. Do you guys think taking the positive role from that will enable her to maybe jump forward in more majors? LYNN MARRIOTT: If she didn't get the learning, no, but she got the learning. PIA NILSSON: We know that. Her confidence in managing herself under pressure totally got a big boost. She knew, I want to be proud of myself that I know what my talent is and I know what to do and I needed to do something about it, and I did. LYNN MARRIOTT: There's kind of a funny joke, but it's really true. So she likes in her off time to go back to her room and watch Thai dramas, so we've said like that was a Thai drama. We could have done without that, but that was cool. Q. Soap opera stars are now going to watch her final nine for their -- fun. LYNN MARRIOTT: Exactly. Q. Do you guys think she has the type of game that could really do well here at Kemper Lakes, have to be accurate, a lot of water? Do you think she will do well this week? LYNN MARRIOTT: Well, we never know, but I think the course definitely suits her game, the length, and she's such a good putter. You have to be a good ball striker here. You can't punk it along. PIA NILSSON: If she says what she always says, like I stayed committed, meaning that she keeps her feeling throughout the swing, she's actually pretty straight for being such a long hitter. When she forgets what she's supposed to do, she says it (indiscernible), but it's happening less and less often. LYNN MARRIOTT: I think, too, just being with her on the back nine and I was with her on the front nine, when she misses the green, her short game, bunker play, pitching game, it's really solid, so you've got to have that here, too. I mean, those are hard shots around these greens. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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