MEIJER LPGA CLASSIC

June 17, 2021

Lexi Thompson

Blythefield Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Lexi, bogey-free 4-under start at the 2021 Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give. You had two birdies, two on the par-5s today.

LEXI THOMPSON: Uh-huh.

Q. Take us through specifically the par-5s and how you approached them.

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, well, I birdied my first hole today, which was a par-5. Hit a good drive and hit my 2-iron up in the greenside bunker and hit it up to about six feet; made the putt.

Then the other one I hit a good drive just ended up in the left rough. Hit a 4-iron to about 20 feet; two-putted poor birdie.

Then the other two I just barely missed the fairway and wasn't really able to I guess get those birdies. Overall good, strong day.

Q. I was talking with Brooke Henderson earlier this week and she mentioned that some of the course changes with some of the bunker placements and run-offs kind of brought some of the field back into play for longer hitters like yourself and her. Was there a different game plan with the course setup?

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, it's definitely a little bit more strategic off the tees with a few of those bunkers out there, especially in the afternoons it gets playing really firm.

I mean, with my driver I was running through a few of the fairways and into those bunkers. But it's a great layout. We all love coming back here to Michigan. It's in great shape for us. The bunkers definitely make you think twice about pulling out a driver.

Q. Obviously afternoon played a little harder if you look at the leaderboard than the morning did. Contribute that to the heat or maybe did the wind pick up? What do you think made the morning a little bit easier today?

LEXI THOMPSON: Probably a little bit of everything. The wind picked up a little bit out there, but never got more than 10 at most. Greens maybe got a little bit firmer.

I don't really know. Maybe in the morning just everything played a bit soft, newer, fresher greens, maybe a little bit quicker. Then in the afternoon you got all the play and might be a little bumpier.

Overall the course played great in the morning and afternoon.

Q. Now that you've seen all the morning scores, are you excited to play in the morning?

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, I definitely am. I'm a morning person anyway so I don't sleep too much. I'll be up ready to go and looking forward to playing and getting on some nice greens early in the start.

Q. I was curious about when you see those 65s from this morning, does that impact you in any way when you go out there in your strategy?

LEXI THOMPSON: I saw them, but obviously you can only focus on your game and what you do and your emotions. I knew there would be low scores out there today. This course just brings it. You have to make a lot of birdies, and that's what's a great about it.

I knew coming into today, I was like, All right, let's just play aggressive and go for those pins.

Q. Lee-Anne Pace owns the 18-hole scoring record at 61, but you have the same score to par of 10-under at this event. Is that kind of number -- just from seeing the course this week, is that kind of number out there this week?

LEXI THOMPSON: A 10-under?

Q. Yeah.

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah. If it you make everything. (Laughter.) It's out there, but you to have your A game and have everything working for you. That's golf. I told my caddie, I'm like, I could have easily shot 8 today if I had a few more putts drop.

But that's life.

Q. Yeah. Absolutely. You guys had a solid following throughout the day. After not having the event last year, what's it like to have people back out here?

LEXI THOMPSON: It's amazing. I love having fans out here, and this event especially always gets a good crowd supporting us and the event. That's what we want to see, so I'm happy they took the limit off the fans, and hopefully we get more and more people as the week goes on.

That is what we want to see. We want the fans back out here cheering us on because it makes golf worth playing.

Q. One more. You got a bunch of people waiting.

LEXI THOMPSON: Yeah, no, speaking of...

Q. What does it mean for you to have so many young girls trying to get into golf look up to you?

LEXI THOMPSON: It means the world to me honestly, seeing the little girls and smiles on their faces, I mean, they don't care what I shoot. They're like, Oh, great playing. It just makes my day just seeing them out here.

And that's what w want to do. We want to grow the game, get kids involved, boys or girls involved at a younger age, and just let them have fun at it and be around kids their age with the game and get them involved.

Because it's an amazing sport. You learn so much about yourself, so I definitely tell those kids to pick up a club and have some fun with it.