LOTTE CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY HOAKALEI

April 11, 2023

Siyun Liu

Hoakalei Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Siyun Liu, one of our qualifiers this week. Got in on the Sunday qualifier this week, not the Monday. Just talk about how excited you are to be playing in LOTTE. This is a pretty good event, pretty good location.

SIYUN LIU: Yes. Yes, I'm really excited to play my first-ever LPGA event at such a great venue. Everything is gorgeous out here. Course is in perfect condition. It's really windy, but it's going to be a really good test to all of the clubs in the bag.

So, yeah, the course setup is a little bit different from what I'm used to playing on Epson Tour, so it will be like a very exciting challenge for me as well. So, yeah, I'm very pumped for the week.

Q. We've seen you in big moments in amateur golf. Like you said, just play your first LPGA Tour event, is this like a dream come true at this point?

SIYUN LIU: Yes, exactly. Yeah, I've played a lot of Mondays but never made it, and at one point I was just like, is there any point in playing Mondays? My dad was like, this week you can come over, and if you don't make it we'll just have fun. It's Hawai'i. I was like, sure, why not.

Somehow just made it this week. So, yeah, it's a very exciting just to be in the actual tournament field.

Q. Been playing on Epson a lot. How has Epson really prepared you for this moment, obviously a big moment in your career? How has playing out there helped you prepare?

SIYUN LIU: So I think one of the things is that Epson Tour like played a lot longer than college events, especially par-3s. So when I played in college at least I was a really long hitter, so I never really need long irons.

If I'm using long irons it's usually like par-5s second shots, so even if I miss it a little it doesn't matter that much. But then once I got onto Epson Tour I came to the realization, oh, I need to be really accurate with my long irons as well.

So it kind of just shifted like my attention a little bit, like what I focus, what I'm putting the most attention on.

Like I feel like another thing is that in college I didn't have to make as many mid-range long putts to play well. Epson Tour I feel like my putting performance is like pretty much the same as what I had in college, but I needed to make a lot more birdies on Epson to get into top 10.

So I think that's a big thing for me as well, just getting used to that, playing more aggressive I guess. You really need to make a lot of birdies to get into the top, and I bet it's like even more so on the LPGA Tour.

So, yeah, I think that's kind of how Epson Tour prepped me for a higher level of competition.

Q. And then in your personal life Epson has helped you out a lot as well it sounds. Had that internship with them. Tell me about that, how that came to be, and how cool was it to work for the company that's sponsoring the tour that you're playing on?

SIYUN LIU: Yeah, it's awesome. About this time lat year it was an Epson headquarters tour that I sign up for, so my dad actually used to work with Epson, like Epson was like a supplier for what he was doing.

So we heard about it my dad is like, you have to go there. They're such an awesome company. Yeah, I got to go there, see the office and everything. It was incredible just to be out there.

I also had a chance to talk to a lot of -- I didn't know back then, but they were all top executives and got along with them really well. I really appreciated that they offered me this internship position.

I was like financial analyst, like I major in finance and like business analytics in school so it was like right what I studied for.

So, yeah, it was an awesome experience. Like I got to kind of help with all the regular processes, like regular reports, and then I also got to work with like (indiscernible) a lot.

And one thing that I'm really proud of is that like one the progress I made was I connected to a lot of different departments and the stuff, kind of the report that I -- well, like helped to like create, help with the decision making of some top executives as well. I thought that was super cool.

I visited their headquarters again last week when I was in California and I got to like meet most of them like that day. My boss actually took me to the CFO's office and she was in the meeting but she saw us waving and she just took me straight into their staff meeting and introduced me to everyone in the meeting.

So I thought that was so cool.

Q. So and then finally, just playing golf this week, what are some of your goals? Sunday here, but Monday is not always something you expect to do. Now that you're here, what are some of the goals you've got?

SIYUN LIU: I just want to play my own golf. I've never played with like such a strong field before, so I honestly don't know where I am in comparison to the rest of the field.

So I feel like for me, the goal this week is more like trying to play my good golf instead of compare myself to others. What you see on TV, how they play is not necessarily like their normal playing style, or also like the TV usually shows only the good shots.

So I don't want to stress myself out by constantly comparing myself. Yeah, it's more like just focusing on my own golf game this week. Wherever I end up it's going to be where I'm going to hit next, so, yeah.