PELICAN WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP

November 9, 2021

Brittany Lincicome

Pelican Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Here with Brittany Lincicome at the Pelican Women's Championship. Brittany, home town event. First year of this event with fans. How are you feeling to be playing in front of a hometown crowd?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Super excited. I cannot wait for people in the area, my family, my friends to come out and see this beautiful golf course. Not a lot of people have had the opportunity to come out here. It's a true gem. It's such a treat for us players to be here playing.

The golf course is so good right now. The greens are running so fast. It's like putting on the cart path. I don't know how we're going to get the ball to stop, but it's going to be super fun, super challenging. Might not look too intimidating off the tee, but those greens are something crazy.

It's definitely going to be whoever can chip and putt this week is going to win for sure.

THE MODERATOR: We haven't seen you since ShopRite. You've taken a month and a week off. What have you been doing the last five weeks?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Well, I have a two year old, so she keeps quite me busy, which is great. I don't know what I did before her. Like I don't know what I used to do with all my time.

Now I just hang out with her, and we got her her first little set of golf clubs. Try to take her out to the putting green. It lasts about three minutes, all of her attention span.

Yeah, just been hanging out at home, practicing here and there. Just trying to get ready for the last two events.

THE MODERATOR: New sponsor in DEX Imaging. How did that relationship come about?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, super excited. I mean, just being a local girl, DEX being a local company, I think it's going to be an amazing fit. I've just seen Dan, had the opportunity to come out a few times and play, and just kind of seeing him out and about, finally he said, You know, I want to get my logo on your shirt.

I thought it was so cool being a local girl and local company and then getting to play this amazing golf course. It's been a dream come true, so super excited we could get it done before this week and get the logos on my shirt so I can represent this week and hopefully do my best for them.

THE MODERATOR: And another local connection. You were the social captain at a Tampa Bay Lightning game last month. How was that?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: That was so much fun. To getting to down by the ice could see how tall, how big these guys are in person, it's amazing. They have skates on, but they look so much bigger than on TV. So it was cool to get to go down there. Got to do some fun interviews, some putting before, give some tickets away to some lucky fans. Hopefully they come out and support me.

But it was great. I mean, obviously being a Lightning fan my whole life, what they did the last two years was really remarkable. It was cool to go to a game and be in a suite.

Q. Curious, obviously it's been five weeks since you last tee'd it up, but the cadence of this season due to canceled events and other things, what are the last two really pressure-packed weeks like knowing that there is another big break other the other side of them?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Absolutely. It's just been a weird year just with various things happening over the year and not getting into Korea and then Asia getting canceled and my grandmother passed away a few months ago as all. It's just been a crazy time. I cannot wait to get back to normal and have more consistent weeks on tour.

It's hard to get in a rhythm. It's just taking a bunch of time off and trying to get prepared for this week, I mean I can practice as much as I want at home, but the competition isn't there and that competitiveness isn't there, so it's hard to get hyped up.

Being here hopefully we figured it out the last couple weeks. It's hard to take that much time off and come out and play, I am hoping having all my fans out and my friends out and all them coming out and watching and supporting me will give me that little edge that I'm going to need to get it going and play really well.

Q. Yeah, has to be a little disjointed.

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah.

Q. Like you said, having fans and people on your side this week. Curious, we were talking to some players on the range, and the feedback we got was how great the courses are that you did play this year, obviously this one included. Give us some context how this course compares and why it does separate from other courses.

BRITTANY LINCICOME: I mean, this golf course could be a major no problem. It's long enough. There is even more length that they could add if they wanted to. I hit 7-wood into 18 yesterday into the wind, so there is definitely some meat on some holes. Obviously some wedges. That is where you need to do your scoring.

Just with the new superintendant that they hired that was at Concession, Terry, he's fantastic. Obviously that golf course was always in great shape, and you can tell him being here a few short months it's already changing and it's already amazing.

And the greens rolling like a 12, that's like U.S. Open golf. So like I said, it's not a lot from tee-to-green. I say you can kind of hit it anywhere, but watch I'll hit it somewhere and I'll be like, I didn't even know that was there. You don't have to be too concerned off the tees, but it is definitely that shot into the green. You can three-putt almost every green out there if you're not in the right section or tier of the greens.

That's where you'll have to score. It's going to be your iron shots into the green and then your putting has to be on. You need to make the 5-, 7-footers to save par. The golf course itself could be a U.S. Open or a major. It's that good to what we've played all year.

Q. I had tweeted about Austin Ernst and that hole-in-one. It has gone everywhere. Obviously a Lamborghini is a huge deal. What's that say about the fact that that is happening at this tournament to kick off the week?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Oh, my gosh, it's already just one little thing that's going to make this event so special. I mean, I'm super jealous. I hope she at least takes me for a ride. I've never even sat in one. There are three by the putting green and one on the golf course, which is just incredible.

So lucky her. I'm going to be trying my best. I told the Doyles I was going to come practice hole No. 12 months leading up, but I didn't do that. Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky and get another one. It's pretty cool that he's offering -- I'm pretty sure there are multiples being offered. Normally just one and done.

So to have one on Monday already, we have a lot way to go, so we'll see how many we can rack up.

Q. Can you tell about the start of the annual lefty competition.

BRITTANY LINCICOME: That's funny. We only do it once a year, and every time we do it we have so much fun doing it we say, Why don't we do this more times?

Me, Brittany Altomare, Cristie McPhearson joined this year, too, so it's growing, which is great.

I shot nine shots better than last year. I shot 50 instead of 59. I can that say I shot 59 in my career. Yeah, it's just so fun. It's entertaining. Like we think your athletes and we can play golf, and you flip it around and it's like holy cow, that is what amateurs feel like.

It's a lot harder than it looks, but it's super fun. It's super fun to go try something different. We definitely needed to it more than once a year though.

Q. How important was that for your preparation this week?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Super important. I got to hit some shots from situations where I don't normally play from. I was behind some trees and places on the golf course that I'm not normally, but it was just all in fun. It's funny, swinging right handed hurts. Like my body always hurts, but swinging left handed nothing hurt. Maybe I should just play left-handed all the time.

Q. Last one, looking at the big picture of the tour, Jin Young currently leads the player of the year race over Nelly who won a major and a gold medal. Do you like the player of the year decided by points, or would you like to see a player vote?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: That's a tricky one. I don't know, because players could all just pick a friend over somebody who played better. I don't know. Just what Jin Young Ko has done, four out of seven events, I mean, I need to go like rub her for good luck or figure out what she's doing on the golf course, because it's truly incredible to watch her play or even Nelly play.

I always say -- this is my 17th year, and I say every year I want to learn how to be more consistent and be in the top 10 like those girls every week, and doesn't seem to happen. Obviously need to go practice with them more and see what they're doing.

It's just incredible to see what both of them have done over the year.

Q. There is a pretty large LPGA contingency in this area. How cool has that been to be close to each other in a time where travel is more restricted?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Yeah, you know, it's funny, because earlier in my career I wish I would've moved down to South Florida, like Jupiter, Boca. There are so many LPGA Tour players down there. They always have somebody to practice with, and I've always been super jealous of that because we haven't had so many players in our area.

Now we have a few, so it's super fun to get together and play lefty golf or right handed golf, whatever, and come to a beautiful golf course like this. It's nice to have that competition playing with your buddies, just getting in some competition before an event is awesome.

Q. Will you hit any left handed shots this week?

BRITTANY LINCICOME: I hope not. (Laughter.) Yeah, hopefully doesn't come to that he. If I have to, I've got it.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us.

BRITTANY LINCICOME: Thank you.