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UL INTERNATIONAL CROWN

October 3, 2018

Incheon, South Korea

KRISTEN YOON: Good afternoon everyone, and welcome back to the media center here at the UL International Crown. I'm so excited to have the No. 8 seed, Team Chinese Taipei.

I'll go down the line introducing you to the players. First we have Phoebe Yao in her second UL International Crown with a record of 1, 2, and 0.

Next we have, Wei Ling Hsu in her first UL International Crown.

Teresa Lu in her third appearance with an overall record of 3, 3, and 1.

And down there at the far end we have Candie Kung in her third national crown with a record of 4, 2, and 1.

Welcome ladies. We are so excited to have you here. Candie, I'm going to throw you my first question. You're one of nine players in the field to have competed in your third international competition this week.

How has the preparation been different this week, and how important is tomorrow's matchup against this week's favorite, team Republic of Korea.

CANDIE KUNG: I think this year is very different than the last two International Crowns that we played in. All four of us get along very well but we don't get to see each other at all during the year. We're pretty much just showing up and going out there, making birdies, having fun all week.

Doesn't matter what happens the next few days. Were just going to make sure that we're having a good time here in Korea. We're going to be playing against Korea tomorrow, so we're going to have a lot of fans out there. We don't know how we're going to control the crowds. I'm thinking about getting horn to get them out of my way.

But we're just going to go out there and have some fun, enjoy the crowds, enjoy the weather the next few days.

KRISTEN YOON: Phoebe, this is not your first time representing Chinese Taipei wearing the flag on your sleeve. Describe what it's like to play for your country and represent Chinese Taipei.

PHOEBE YAO: Yeah, it's really great to be back again here. And just like my teammate say, we just be positive and try to make more birdies and enjoy the week.

KRISTEN YOON: Teresa, an important aspect of competition is teamwork, team chemistry. How important will that be for tomorrow, and can you describe for us Team Chinese Taipei's dynamic.

TERESA LU: Well, we going to play with the toughest team, Korean team. Obviously it's very tough to beat, so two of us have to be our A Game to beat them.

So, well, just try to play our own pace and just play like normal tournament. Just show your good game and then see how it goes.

KRISTEN YOON: Wei Ling, this one is for you. We talked earlier this the season about how badly you wanted to make the 2016 team. To finally have made it this year, is it living up to your expectations? Could you describe how your experience has been so far?

WEI-LING HSU: Yeah, like I said, very looking forward to playing this tournament, this event. This is my first time to play like as a team with my teammate. I very exciting to being here. So far we have two practice round and today's pro-am. Everything look just so much fun. Just very good experience so far.

You know, we don't have much chance to play with my teammate, and plus Phoebe and Teresa also playing in Japan, so it's very good to having them with me. We can like against to Korea tomorrow having same kind of fun, so very exciting for this tournament beginning tomorrow. Just can't wait.

KRISTEN YOON: We will open it up for any questions.

Q. Candie, you talked about the Korean crowds. What are they normally like at a HANA Bank, and how much do you expect to see that amped up getting to watch a Korean team?
CANDIE KUNG: They get pretty loud at HANA Bank following their favorite players. For this week you're going to have two players in each group, so that's going to add up their fans. Then some others from somewhere that they're just cheering for Korean players.

You're going to hear cell phones clicking, ringing, people walking, talking, anything you can think of it's going to happen tomorrow. We're all expecting that to happen. Going to try to prepare ourselves tomorrow for that.

Like I said, I'm seriously going to go find a horn at the store and bring it out with me tomorrow. There is going to be at one point where I'm probably not going to be able to walk from the green to the tee box. It's happened to some players at HANA Bank before. I'm sure it's going to happen here tomorrow.

Q. So I just want to follow up on the crowd thing. I find it so fascinating. Do you welcome that challenge? Is it something that you're looking forward to? Is it you're just going to try to get through it?
CANDIE KUNG: Well, I think we all love it. For us, we're from Taiwan. We get a little bit of crowd when we go back to Taiwan, but not as much as in Korea. All their people, they love their Korean players. Doesn't matter where you go, you're going to see a group of 20, 10 coming out and following one player. We love to see that. It's great for golf, for women's golf, for everybody.

So we're just going to go out there, prepare ourself to take that challenge, and see how well we can play under that circumstances. Because we have some family out here the next few days, but we're not going to be that much louder than those people because we only have ten and they're going to have like 100,000; who knows.

So we're just going to go out there and see what we get.

Q. Korea is the favorite every year at this thing. They have yet to actually win it. Does that give you a little bit of a boost in terms of playing the underdog role? Should you pull off an upset tomorrow, how big would that be back home?
TERESA LU: Well there is slight chance we can win the Korean team, but we will try our best. But, yeah, it's going to be a great experience for us, especially playing here, playing with the big crowds here.

Yeah, so we'll do our best. We're eighth place for this team, but, you know, also I feel like so many people are cheering for the Korean team, but not as much as Taiwan. Like we don't have much people come out here cheering for us, so definitely a lot of people from Taiwan they can cheer for us on TV.

So definitely if winning Korea, it's definitely very inspiration for all the maybe young kids or all the another junior golfer that anything can reach his -- I mean, could be happen, right? So I think it's very exciting. Maybe we're going to focus on tomorrow against Korea. If we take a shot maybe we win, the ball is going, who knows?

KRISTEN YOON: Any other questions?

Q. Candie, this whole fan club phenomenon in South Korea, how unique is it? And do you think other players from other countries are envious that the Koreans have this phenomenon?
CANDIE KUNG: Their fan clubs, it's something that I've been on tour for 17 years and I've never seen anything like it. You probably see it out there, too. You'll see somebody with a sign out in New York following their own player. We don't get to see that at all.

Even with the U.S. players you probably don't get to see this a whole lot either. So it's a great thing to see for golf. I'm not sure if it happens on the PGA Tour, too, but it's awesome. It's like going to a basketball game, a hockey game. You see players with signs cheering for their favorite players. It's just kind of like that. Makes golf a lot more fun, a lot more fun to watch. Just like any other team events, you want to get some crowds out.

For us, the LPGA, we want more people to watch women's golf, bring the ratings up a little, and get more sponsorships. I think the Korean fans are doing it for us, helping us out, so it's great to see.

KRISTEN YOON: Phoebe, this is your second time to be playing for Team Chinese Taipei. What was your takeaway last year, and what advice did you give Wei Ling, if any, from your experience in 2016?

PHOEBE YAO: Well, she played really good on the U.S. tour, so I think she got a lot great talent, so I don't think I have any good idea for her. Yeah, and I had a practice round with her yesterday and her shot is really well, so I'm really looking forward. She did really great this week, yeah.

KRISTEN YOON: We know the team goal is to do your best and go out there and to fight. Is there anyone on the team that has any personal goals, anything they would like to accomplish at the end of this week?

Any other questions? Thank you. Great luck Team Chinese Taipei. See you at the first tee tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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