MEIJER LPGA CLASSIC

June 18, 2022

Cristie Kerr

Blythefield Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Cristie Kerr. Kind of a throwback round today on moving day. 7-under 65, no bogeys on the card. What switched in mentality as you came out here on Saturday?

CRISTIE KERR: You know, yesterday was a tough day. Got off to a tough start, but I brought it back, played really great obviously to make the cut.

I've been playing well. Just struggled with driver a bit. Put a new driver in play this week. Went back to a Ping driver and I've just hit it awesome.

So feels good to be in the fairway and ready to attack the course in a lot of instances, and today was a lot of fun.

Q. Driver worked well: 11 of 13 fairways, 17 of 18 greens today.

CRISTIE KERR: Yep.

Q. And 28 putts. How key for you out here has been the ball striking and the putting?

CRISTIE KERR: You know, and cleaning up the driver stuff, too. There was a lot of mental worry in there about where it was going to go, and since I've switched, it's given me a little bit more freedom to be able to work on my mental game out here and start to get those statistics better.

As you saw today, I hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens, and once I hit a lot of greens, get the putter rolling, it's fun to make a lot of putts.

Q. Let's be honest, game is getting younger; 44. What's been the secret to your longevity out here? I still feel like you're competing pretty well.

CRISTIE KERR: Yeah, I am. I just have always really loved this game. Sometimes it breaks your heart, makes you mad, but I've always had a love for this game and a love to work at it. I think once I don't feel like working at it anymore, then I'll probably do something else.

But yeah, game is getting younger, but the golf ball doesn't know the age. I've always said that. I just got to work harder off the golf course to be able to compete.

Q. What is it about Blythfield in particular? Obviously played here before. What is it about Blythfield that you think gives you the opportunity to shoot such low scores?

CRISTIE KERR: This is such a fantastic golf course and the staff has done an amazing job. It's never been in better shape.

I mean, the greens are as good as any greens we putt on on tour, like even in a major. The rough is really up this week, and the fairways -- I mean, you could eat off the fairways. The course is in such perfect shape.

Meijer always makes us feel welcome when we're here, so I've got good friends, staying with a good friend who's a volunteer at the tournament, chair the ops committee.

So just great memories here.

Q. Some crazy consistency, four birdies in the last five holes. What was going through your head on those last few holes and how did you approach them?

CRISTIE KERR: I was just trying to stay really committed to every shot I was hitting and just kind of saying to myself, like in the past it's proven if I do that, if I take care of my job mentally and I know where my game is in the spot, then just let the results take care of themselves and I get a lot of birdie looks coming in.

Q. After your result today, what are your hopes for tomorrow?

CRISTIE KERR: Just keep doing the same thing. You never know out here. I've come back from eight shots back to win a tournament.

You know, I might be a little too far back to do that, but enjoying where my game is heading and I'm just going to keep working on that track.

Q. And just final question from me: You talk about mentality a lot. You got a lot of different hats that you wear.

CRISTIE KERR: Yeah.

Q. You're a mom, you've got Kerr Cellars, playing professional golf. How do you kind of separate everything when you get on the golf course? You know, golf Cristie is here. When you're out doing your wine business, wine Cristie is here. How do you keep things separate?

CRISTIE KERR: For the last couple years there wasn't much balance and I think that's why my game suffered. COVID really put a damper on everybody's life and nobody really knew how to handle it.

The beginning of 2020 we had let somebody in the operational role go, so I picked up because didn't look like we were going to play golf, and turned out I was pretty good at it.

So going into 2021 I was like, oh, I can play golf and work at it and do wine -- have a job in the wine business and do that.

Going into this year I said, if I want to have a comeback, if I want to try to do really, really well again, I can't do that. I've got to focus all my energy on golf, on my fitness, which is starting to happen again.

And have some time for me away from the golf course as well, instead of just going right to another grind. I've put everything into golf this year and struggled a little bit with caddies early this year. Worth Blackwelder is in my thoughts. He was a long-time caddie for me and he caddied for me for -- up until ShopRite, and he's got a little bit of heart issues going on that he's got to take care of and have a procedure.

So my thoughts are with him. I got really, really lucky finding Dave Lindquist. He's caddied on the men's tour before, and found out about him through some mutual friends. He caddies at Sebonack periodically. Found him and we have had insane chemistry on the golf course, and that never happens for me.

So somehow, some way, it went from not knowing really where the driver is going to go to, wow, I have a straight driver, wow, I have a great caddie, and wow, my game is turning around. So you never know. That's why you got to keep working at it.

Q. How gratifying is a round like this when you've gone through all that, been working so hard? To finally get one that's really low and deep in the red, how good does it feel?

CRISTIE KERR: It feels good. I felt like myself out there today for the first time in a couple years, maybe three, four years. I'm excited. I'm excited for -- who knows how much longer I'm going to play. Just got to have maybe not two or three jobs, maybe just one.