COGNIZANT FOUNDERS CUP

May 11, 2023

Stacy Lewis

Upper Montclair Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. All right, here with Stacy Lewis after her first round at the Cognizant Founders Cup. Stacy, being a past champion of this event, how much does the Founders Cup mean to you personally and how exciting is it to have such success on the first day?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I mean, this tournament means a lot to our tour, means a lot to me personally. I mean, just got to know Marilynn very well before she passed away.

You know, just that we continue to honor the Founders is really important. So this event is really special. You'll see the girls running around here this weekend.

So, yeah, any time that's going on you want to play well, but this golf course is hard. I think that suits my game and I think that was part of why I played well today.

Q. Yeah, it is hard, but you went bogey-free, which seems difficult to do.

STACY LEWIS: Yeah.

Q. How are you managing the challenges and keeping your card clean?

STACY LEWIS: Really just kind of taking the bounces you get. Hit a lot of good shots today that ended up on the fringe so the stats maybe don't show the ball striking. I think showed I only hit 12 greens, but probably putted four or five times from the fringe.

So the misses were really good, and just took what the course gave me and took advantage of the par-5s.

Q. Wanted to ask your opinion on this year's schedule. I know for a lot of players it was hard to get some momentum early in the year because there wasn't really any full-field events until late March.

STACY LEWIS: Right.

Q. Wondering what your opinion was on that, and maybe moving forward for next year and beyond how they could possibly improve that?

STACY LEWIS: I'm actually the opposite of some people in that I would like to see the schedule be a little bit more condensed so that you can feel like you get into a rhythm. Where maybe we take all of January and December off and condense things in more, give players an off time. I think that's the ideal schedule, to be honest.

That way you're allowed to create the rhythm where you feel like you get to play some more golf. It's hard for us to find golf courses in January. That's the big thing for us. If we can build our schedule a little better in February and March, that way when we get to May people have more reps under their belt.

Q. On a different topic, Annika Sorenstam, going to be 20 years since she tee'd it up at Colonial against the men. What are your recollections of that 20 years later, and 20 years later what do you think that means to the tour nowadays?

STACY LEWIS: The initial reaction is, one, I can't believe it's been 20 years, but two, that no one else has done it since then. That's kind of the crazy part, is that we haven't had another player go do it.

Obviously it was huge for the game. She was in the prime of her career, it was the perfect time do it. Aaron Barber is my financial advisor now so I got a lot of stories from him of that week as well.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you'll see another player do it now with as far as these guys hit it, but still pretty amazing that it's 20 years.

Q. Would you like to see some more LPGA players tee it up against the men on the PGA Tour?

STACY LEWIS: Not necessarily. I would like to see a mixed event where we play different tees, different leaderboards, but I don't know what a female going and playing a 7,000 yard golf course -- I don't know what that's going to prove.

I don't think that really moves the needle.

If you can put us in the fairway where we're both hitting 8-irons you can see how games compare, and I think it could be pretty cool.

Q. Last question from me: Second year here at Upper Montclair Country Club. How much more comfort do you feel on the course compared to last year?

STACY LEWIS: Oh, it's night and day. I was very uncomfortable on this golf course last year. Just at times not really knowing where to hit it. The greens are firm. Kind of when to take advantage of certain hole locations.

So definitely a lot more comfortable second time around.

Q. And a lot warmer.

STACY LEWIS: And a lot warmer, yes.