LPGA Q-SERIES

December 9, 2022

Riley Rennell

Magnolia Grove

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Riley Rennell. Playing pretty well here at Q-Series. You're not a player that I know a whole a lot about. Give me some of your background and where you come from and how you got started in golf.

RILEY RENNELL: So my dad is a PGA professional also and he's been my teacher ever since I was little. He had a teaching and learning facility before I was born and he just taught out there. So I learned growing up golf, like I learned that was what the cool kids did.

Just like I went out and followed them and played in the bunkers and stuff like that. But, yeah, that's kind of how I -- everyone was kind of playing golf around me, so I just naturally took it up. My dad has been my teacher ever since.

Q. Where are you all from?

RILEY RENNELL: A little south of Nashville, Tennessee. A small town called Columbia, Tennessee. But it's kind of out in the boonies. We live on a farm. We've got like 40 acres. Got a little like kind of mini range out there, so, yeah.

Q. That's awesome. Didn't go to college from what I noticed. Just take me through that decision. I know like a lot of Americans I feel like typically go to school to get four years of college. Makes sense.

RILEY RENNELL: It was an odd circumstance for me. So I was committed to the University of Georgia, and that's where I was going to go if I had like done things differently.

But I was a weird like birthday. I was 18 my senior year of high school, so I was able to try Q-School before I had to officially sign. So I played Q-School and I got some decent status for what was the Symetra Tour, now Epson, and now I played the rest of the year as an amateur because I wanted to play in some USGA events, like U.S. Am and like a team event for the USGA.

Then the next year I turned pro for the Epson Tour, so I've been grinding out here for a little bit.

Q. Tell me a little bit about yourself off the golf course. Any hobbies? Anything you really like to do away from the game?

RILEY RENNELL: I'm a painter and illustrator, so I do a lot of water color painting. Then I'm also a martial artist, so I've been -- it was -- I've been a martial artist for 15 years. With the COVID I haven't been able to get back to my dojo as much.

Yeah, I was a senior fourth degree black belt.

Q. That's insane.

RILEY RENNELL: Uh-huh.

Q. How did you get involved in that?

RILEY RENNELL: So my dad like was looking to get me into some sort of cross training, and he had known a couple other players like that had taken up martial arts, so we found like a studio near me. I kind of grew up and that was kind of like my school almost.

So it was really nice.

Q. How has it helped you on the golf course? I know a lot of control and a lot of -- and especially these last two weeks; stressful as all get out.

RILEY RENNELL: Mentally I feel like it helps me a lot. You learn to control your breathing through martial arts, but also athletically I feel like growing up athletically that built me a little bit different. Like I'm a little bit more heavy in the upper body, a little bit stronger, and it's the same motion like going through as like kicking someone, so...

It definitely coincides with the golf and helps me athletically and mentally.

Q. And to have that and be an illustrator and artist, that's kind of a different ballgame. What do you like to paint most and how much work have you done, I guess?

RILEY RENNELL: Well, I've not done any like professional work. I designed some logos for some friends. I did design a logo for the martial arts academy I told you about.

So I just like to paint portraits. Like to paint flowers and animals, all kinds of stuff. Just a lot of random stuff.

Q. Still two rounds to go here. To be this close now and to have just 36 holes left, what the mindset? You're playing pretty good golf. Today was a little bit slower than you would've wanted, but played pretty sold.

RILEY RENNELL: Yeah, today was kind of a weird circumstance. I had a lot of mud balls today, so I had a double that was coinciding with the mudball, and then another bogey that was coinciding with it.

I felt like I played pretty good besides that, so it was just some funky stuff happened to me today. But I feel like I'm in a good spot right now. I'm playing really good and in a good spot going into the final two.

It's just a lot of golf, so I just have to kind of mentally give myself some breathing room and take it one shot at a time.

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