WOMEN'S OLYMPIC GOLF COMPETITION

August 5, 2024

Celine Boutier

Perrine Delacour

Le Golf National

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon everybody and welcome to this afternoon's press conference with Celine Boutier and Perrine Delacour of Team France.

First of all, question to you both. Obviously competing in a home Olympic Games. How much does that inspire you? Does it give extra motivation competing in front of your home crowd?

PERRINE DELACOUR: For myself, a couple people inspire me, first of all, Leon Marchand. He won four Gold Medals, so that was pretty inspiring, and then also the judo team mixed on Saturday was pretty impressive to see the crowd like support them to get the medal. So that was pretty inspiring.

And I watched Victor yesterday and that was also pretty good what he did, even though he didn't get the medal, but he did a pretty good job like in front of the crowd and everything.

THE MODERATOR: And for you, Celine?

CELINE BOUTIER: Yes, very motivating to be here to be able to share the experience with all the French athletes, the French crowd. Definitely something you don't get to do every day and every year. So it's very motivating looking forward to getting to experience the tournament here.

THE MODERATOR: Another question to you both. How are your preparations going? Have you been out on the course? How is the golf course praying for you?

PERRINE DELACOUR: It's playing different than when we played on Sunday, myself I just played 18 holes. It's definitely firm. Rough are really thick. So it's going to be a game of patience for sure and I'm just going to try my best to enjoy every moment to play in front of the crowd.

CELINE BOUTIER: I've only played nine holes so far but it's definitely a challenging course, and then the rough is obviously very thick.

So it's going to be a good tournament. I think it's definitely one of the most challenging ones just because of the hazards and the rough. So any mistakes can definitely cost you a lot.

Yeah, it's going to be a big challenge and I think the greens are only going to get firmer because there's no rain in the forecast. Yeah, that's going to be a little bit of adjusting as well, as the week goes by.

Q. Growing up in the area, have you played this course often?

CELINE BOUTIER: Yes, definitely played it a lot. We had national junior championships here every summer and I joined the national team and had the official training camps, with Perrine, as well. So we have played a lot.

Q. Were you out and about yesterday? Were you trying to practise when the men were finishing? What did the scene feel like and maybe where you experienced it?

PERRINE DELACOUR: Myself, did I watch Victor on the first and I watched him from 15 up to 18, and I tried to practise myself because we still have to focus. We have four more rounds of golf and preparation is kind of short for us.

So I kind of did a mix because I want to know what is going on on Wednesday when we tee off because it's something that you only experience once in your life. I think it's good; the fact that we see the men on the first tee, how the crowd is like with them. So it's definitely helping us to see how to manage the emotion and everything.

CELINE BOUTIER: Yeah, I did watch Victor on the first tee yesterday, and then I just went to practise and get ready. But I definitely heard the crowd a few times from the practise facilities. I definitely know something was going on and was able to watch.

Yeah, it was cool to see what Victor did and the crowd went crazy. It was really fun to see. Hopefully we also get some crowds next week. But yeah, definitely night to see that ahead of time so, like Perrine said, you can prepare yourself psychologically.

Q. Is there anything that you can take from watching the men play about the golf course that you can apply to your own strategy, how greens are being played and where pins are, things like that?

PERRINE DELACOUR: Yeah, like Celine said, we played a few times on this course for the French championship, and we also played like together in school so we kind of know the course.

The men are playing so far different than us, so I personally think the strategy is way different. Like Victor had an iron on No. 3 yesterday and I had 3-wood to just like not even get to the green. I think it's playing different between the men us and but we definitely have the pins, like an idea where the pin can be. So that's helpful for us.

CELINE BOUTIER: I agree. Just the game is very different; the height that they have; the power that they have the stopping power that they have is very different. So you can't really expect us, me personally, to play the same way.

Like I said, maybe the pin position but again because they get so much height they are able to tuck the pins closer to the edges. With us, the clubs that we have, it's a little bit harder to stop it. You have a general idea of what the pins will be, similar to the men.

But honestly it's just fun to watch them play. But again, it's kind of different than ours, so I don't think we can take much from it.

Q. To be able to do this on an Olympic stage, how excited are you to inspire the next generation of young girls to maybe take up golf?

CELINE BOUTIER: It's definitely very cool to be able to be a part of the Olympics. Last week was huge for us, for French people to even get to the game golf. We saw a lot of people that were at the course that weren't really familiar with golf at all just wanting to be curious to watch something different.

So I think it's going to be huge for France and huge for golf in France. Personally I don't really think about inspiring people yet. I'm just trying to get to hopefully Wednesday, and then just one day at a time honestly. If I happen to inspire people, even better, but honestly, I'm not trying to think about that too much.

PERRINE DELACOUR: For myself, I know we've already inspired people. I felt it at the Opening Ceremony when we just moved from the Village to the boat and during the scene, it's no word to describe it. A lot of emotion.

And so like Celine said, we have a lot of people on the course and they are all here for you know matter what. They showed it yesterday to Matthieu during the four days, where he was struggling and they were still cheering for him and everything, we are just going to try our best. It's one time in your life you play in the Olympics. For myself, I just enjoy every moment as much as I can.

Q. Since Tokyo, you've had to bounce back from a couple different things off the golf course. How proud are you of yourself to get to this moment, and in Paris of all places?

PERRINE DELACOUR: Yeah, a couple years ago I took a break because mentally I was exhausted, I never thought Paris 2024 was in my head. Even my psychologist, after my good season on the LPGA, I said hey, 2024, I want to make the Olympics. She's like, really? I didn't know that. That's why I'm proud about that and I'm going to enjoy every moment and if it happens to be in the top three at the end of the week, I'll be super happy. If not, it's already a good moment. Playing in front of the family at the Olympics, it's already pretty good.

Q. I couldn't help but notice you were here practicing like early last week and your last event was the Evian. How long have you been home?

CELINE BOUTIER: I guess I stayed a little bit after Evian and I went back to see my coach a few days and came back for the Opening Ceremony. So I've been here since July 26th.

Q. Are you anxious for it to get going?

CELINE BOUTIER: Yeah, I'm definitely ready. It was fun to experience all the Olympics events, the atmosphere, The Open Village and the men's event but now I think it's definitely time to get start ed.

Q. What do you think the difference would be emotionally of winning a major championship in your home country and winning a medal in your home country?

CELINE BOUTIER: I'm not sure. I will maybe hopefully let you know after.

No, I think it's definitely different. I think the crowds at Evian are obviously very supportive of French players, but I think here, from what I've seen from the men, it's very much more patriotic and a lot more love. I think it's definitely a little bit more extreme here.

Yeah, I think it would be definitely very close to winning Evian but I'm not sure how different that would be.

Q. Were you in the crowd singing to Victor yesterday? Were you part of it?

CELINE BOUTIER: I was actually going on the first tee to be able to sing "La Marseillaise" because I wanted to sing it on the first see and then nobody institutionally sung it on the first tee. I was a bit disappointed. But it was super cool -- actually, I didn't even see anything because there was too many people. It was better when I watched it on TV like on the screen. It was really cool to be able to see it and experience it. I think they told us we have to expect a lot -- the next few days. We definitely didn't hear that in Evian.

PERRINE DELACOUR: That's for sure. Like we had the men's before and that was good, and yesterday I spent some time with Matthieu asking a couple questions like how he felt on the first tee to kind of have a couple tips and get ready for Wednesday.

Q. What did he say?

PERRINE DELACOUR: Breathe. He actually struggled the first tee last Thursday. He was emotionally like way like super high, which is normal. You don't expect to have that on the first tee -- he did say during the end of the week, he was so much emotion on Thursday that he struggled during the week. That for myself personally helped me, like, okay, I need to put some rest early in the week to be able to carry it for four days in a row.