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KRAFT NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 29, 2012Lindsey WrightRANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome our current leader Lindsey Wright into the interview room. Congratulations on a great round, 5‑under par. Can you just take me through your day and how it went out there for you? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah. Started on the 10th tee this morning and played pretty consistent. Birdied No.13, downhill ‑‑ I'm trying to remember it. 13, yeah, I hit about a ten‑foot putt downhill, hit it really good in the hole obviously. Parred 14, 15. Three‑putted on 16, which I was disappointed since I hit the fairway, and that's a tough par‑4. I had about a 30‑foot putt and then three‑putted, left it about 15 feet short, so you can tell it was a good putt. Parred 17, 18. Then on the back nine, started‑‑ hit a 9‑iron to about five feet, made a birdie. On the second, hit sand wedge to about ten feet. Made a birdie on No. 3, hit a 5‑iron to about 16 feet for birdie. Parred 4, 5, 6, made a great up‑and‑down for par on 7. And then birdied 8, 5‑iron to about ten feet. And on the 9th, a sand wedge, again, to about six feet. So I played the front nine just looking really well. THE MODERATOR: 31 on that front nine. When you got things going when you started, did you feel you were getting on a roll? What was the biggest difference in your play today that you really felt helped you to shoot so low? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, obviously from tee to green I don't think I missed one fairway today, which in a major you want to hit fairways and then you set yourself up because the course is just pure. If you've got an 8‑iron in, I was just feeling it. It was one of those days, everything just felt good. I didn't feel intense. It was just going smoothly. And I putted really well. Everything‑‑ not everything I looked at, but I was just‑‑ my speed and line matched up really well, and it showed with my last nine shooting 5‑under. THE MODERATOR: It's been a great start to the year for you. You won in New Zealand, which was the first time in about eight years I think it was for a victory? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah. THE MODERATOR: I know we had talked a little bit about last year. You played in 16 events but then took some time off at the end of the year. Take me through kind of your thought process and what that time off really meant to you and how it's helped your golf game. LINDSEY WRIGHT: Taking the time off, I didn't really think I was going to come back out and play, which wasn't‑‑ I just wanted to do something else. I felt really like I was being smothered by it, by the lifestyle and golf, and wanted to do something else, so I took four months off, and I worked as a media person, funny, at the men's New South Wales State Open, and then I worked with the tournament office at the men's Australian Open and did some other things, as well, relating to media stuff and sport. It was really great. I mean, I didn't pick up a golf club from the last event I played, which is Taiwan, until the 2nd of January, and I didn't really want to. So I took the time off and experienced other things, and I think that's made a massive impact for me coming into the year. There's no pressure on my game. I don't feel that pressure. I didn't really‑‑ if you'd said to me before New Zealand, you're going to win, I would have went, oh, yeah, whatever, I'm so unlucky. But having won that tournament has opened all these doors for me to play in Europe, which I really want to do, so I'm excited to do that. And I'm really enjoying my golf, which it's not a grind anymore. I'm actually enjoying it, the good and the bad. THE MODERATOR: Take me through the last few years. I know you got off to such a good start early in your career and then the last few years the golf just hasn't quite been there for you. You've talked openly recently about some of the issues that you struggled with, with some anxiety and some depression. What was it like going through those experiences, and how much did that impact your golf? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, I would say it all kind of came to a head at the end of 2009. I had a great season. I think I finished second to Anna Nordqvist at the LPGA Championship, and after that it was kind of on a downhill slope, slippery slope. It just kind of happened quickly. You have bouts, and without getting into the psychology and everything, it wasn't a great time, and I just couldn't really get through it. I had some things going on, and from a‑‑ it's hard to explain it other than from a physical standpoint. People think depression, oh, just get over it if you're in a bad mood or whatever. It really impacts you physically, and playing on this Tour, coming out and trying to play, grinding it out each week when you're not sleeping and you can't concentrate or focus and the other symptoms with it, it just gets you down, and it's a bit of a nightmare. Fortunately for me, I've got some really good friends, and one in particular really helped me out a heap and encouraged me to take those steps, which was not easy. So I'm glad I did it, and it's actually funny to be sitting here now because I never thought I would come back. So it's just golf, isn't it. THE MODERATOR: I know you've been much more open about it now. What kind of prompted you, I guess, to kind of be more public about it? You wrote a great article in the Sydney paper right after you won in New Zealand and shared some of the things that happened. I guess your media experience, did that help? What prompted you to want to share those experiences? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, I think I'd gotten a little bit fed up with not lying but dancing around the problem. People would say, oh, what's wrong with your golf, what's going on with your golf, and I thought, it's not golf, it's my head. It's me. And in all honesty, I've seen a lot of people who have had and dealt with depression and anxiety, and there's that stigma where you don't want to talk about it because you can't‑‑ you can't see it. If you have a broken leg, you see it, and people go, oh, there's the empathy and whatnot. So for me just to be honest, I said, look, I was on tablets, I've had psychologists, psychiatrists and I'm mental. I've got to laugh about it. There were times when it was horrible. But to get help and to be encouraged to do that made such an impact on me. One of my best friends did that. If me saying something can help someone who is struggling or has problems‑‑ to me I thought, yeah, I feel like I have a little bit of a responsibility to do that. So yeah, definitely encourage anyone to talk about it for sure. THE MODERATOR: From watching you over the last few events I've been at throughout the year, you just seem to have a weight almost off of you. You seem back to laughing and having a little bit of, I guess, a lighter feel. Do you feel that? Are you in a good place right now where you feel like you're‑‑ LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, definitely. Aside from golf, I could have shot 80 today, and I'd still feel really great. I'm happy, and I don't feel like I'm swimming with weights and dragging around ten pounds of excess baggage. I sleep better and I'm happier, and I'm surrounding myself with good friends, and I'm talking to people. I mean, anyway, I'm very lucky. I'm lucky to be sitting here now and very happy to be feeling the way I am. THE MODERATOR: I will say you were even that way in Australia when I talked to you before you had won in New Zealand, so you could tell you were in a good place at that point. Questions for Lindsey? Q. You told a Sydney newspaper that it was the environment, the Tour environment played a role in how you felt, that it can be a bit isolating to be a foreigner over here. Could you expand on that a little bit? Was that a factor in what you started feeling and going down the slippery slope as you called it? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, I would say it was a factor for me, not for everybody. Everybody is different. When I first came out here‑‑ I think it's an age thing, as well. When I first came out here, I was driven to try and make as much money as I could, to play as well as I could, and I was pretty intense, as you are when you're a rookie and you came out. You want to do as well as you can. I think as you start to get a little older, things change and your environment, your friends change, and I started going home, and I missed home, and my best mates were having families and everybody seemed to be growing up and I was out here doing this, which is nothing wrong, it's a great lifestyle if you have a healthy balance. For me it was all about balance. I have not really had a healthy balance and spent a lot of time, ten months a year in the States and two months at home. And I'm a real family person. I've always pushed myself, and in retrospect, I should have taken‑‑ in 2009 when I had that great season, I should have taken four or five months off then, but I didn't. So yeah, I wouldn't say it was the LPGA's fault. You know, it's a personal thing and more of an environment thing for me. Q. You say you didn't know if you would come back when you started taking the time off. What caused you to know that you were going to come back? Did you just start feeling better or did you miss it? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Well, I wanted to‑‑ I rang home in September last year and said, I'm done. I don't want to play anymore. And my dad had said, you know what, that's great if you want to do that, but you need to have something to fall back on, and I said, that's a good point. So that's when I did all the other stuff, the media stuff and whatnot. My intentions, even playing, was to finish in September this year and maybe still finish in September this year. And coming into when I played my first event, the Australian events, that hasn't really changed. At the moment, it's hard. I mean, I'm just kind of doing‑‑ I'm on like a three‑week plan. I do my three weeks, then I plan something else for three weeks. I'm not putting too much pressure on myself. In September of this year I might go‑‑ I'm really loving this, and I've found a balance, or I might not. That's kind of what's going to happen then. Q. It sounds like that doesn't necessarily‑‑ that plan doesn't necessarily change whether you win, finish in the top 10, miss the cut. LINDSEY WRIGHT: No, not really. Q. A leap in the pond Sunday isn't going to change your plan? LINDSEY WRIGHT: No. It would be nice to leap in the pond on Sunday, but I doubt‑‑ yeah, it wouldn't change the plan, no. For me it's not about‑‑ people say, oh, it's about winning, but for me I just want to enjoy my life, from when I wake up in the morning to when I go to bed at night, and when I was having depression, and my anxiety, I actually was getting along fine on the golf course, but as soon as I would leave I was miserable, lonely, depressed, homesick, and life's not meant to be like that. I made a conscious decision last year to change that. So it's taken a lot of pressure off my golf, and I'm playing better. Q. This is a very personal subject to be shouting the questions across the room, and I apologize for that. One of the earlier stories suggested that it reached a point that you really didn't know if you wanted to continue with life. What was the low point, and how quickly after that did you realize it was depression and anxiety and were able to get it diagnosed and deal with it? LINDSEY WRIGHT: I would have said there was probably many low points. It always came to a head. When you're out here, it's go, go, go. You're constantly going and you move on. When I would go home, that's when it would hit me the worst. It was difficult for my parents, I think, the most, because they'd see me‑‑ seemed like pretty happy‑go‑lucky and then I'd come home and I'd be a miserable person. I had some significant low points. But I think the lowest is when you have insomnia and you're waking up at 2:00 a.m. with strong emotions and your head‑‑ and then you have anxiety so you don't know what you're doing, you're all over the place. The only time‑‑ I mean, there's no relief from your mind, really, and I mean, the only time I really had any relief is if you had probably two bottles of red wine. It helps you sleep, but it's not the way to combat it. That's when I realized I've got a problem here, and I've got to deal with it because I'm getting worse, I'm not getting better, because I'd always think, I know I'll be all right. It'll be all right, mate, that kind of attitude. But it really wasn't. So when I did go to the doctor and get a diagnosis, I realized, geez, I really do have a problem here. I wish I'd done it sooner. Q. As an athlete you're conditioned to fight through anything, to gut it out. There's nothing that‑‑ if there's a will, there's a way. Was that a factor in you taking longer than you should have to seek help do you think? And as a follow, what has been the reaction of your peers out here now that they know your story? LINDSEY WRIGHT: Yeah, I was brought up in a pretty working‑class family, and my parents‑‑ where I played golf and grew up, it's like, you just get on with it and do it, get over it and move on because you're working hard, you don't talk about it. And I've had that kind of attitude, just do it, I'm not a complainer or a whinger and never really had the resources to get help. Yeah, I'm glad I did, and the reaction from my peers has been, from the players who actually read what you guys write‑‑ I'm kidding. From a couple of peers recently, yeah, it's been‑‑ they've been really great, encouraging. A few people have said, oh, I've had problems. I'm happy you said that because that's how I feel. And I remember watching a TV show back home in Australia, and there was a woman on there who was talking about depression, and I sat there and I thought, oh, my God, that's me. So for me to‑‑ if it helps someone, then that's what's important. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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