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SAFEWAY CLASSIC PRESENTED BY COCA-COLAAugust 28, 2013Stacy LewisPORTLAND, OREGON THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome Stacy Lewis into the interview room. Stacy, thanks for coming in. We're back in Portland this week. Your best finish here is a tie for 8th. Obviously a new venue, but how nice is it to be back here? STACY LEWIS: It's great. Portland is a place we've been for a long time. It's such a good golfing community for us and a great place for our Tour to play. I was excited with the course change. The other one, it's a good golf course, but it didn't quite fit my eye. So I was excited to get here. While I didn't play it for a tournament, I had played it a couple of times and knew it was something that would fit my eye. Q. What are your thoughts on it so far? STACY LEWIS: It's great. I love it. I was out there yesterday; I played 18 holes. It's old school. You know, it's old style. The tee to green is really close. Each hole has character to it. You can't just bomb it straight down the middle and have a shot. You have to play stuff around trees and kind of work the ball, so I think that fits with my game pretty good. THE MODERATOR: You withdrew last week in Canada, but I saw your Tweet this morning saying you're ready to go. Obviously you are feeling better, but how excited are you? STACY LEWIS: Yeah, it's everything from the British until (indiscernible) hit me last week. I was tired, but I didn't expect to feel the way I did on the golf course. I was out there, I overshot and I completely forgot what I shot I was hitting, how far I was. That's not like me at all. I needed to clear my head, kind of take in what really happened over the last threeweeks and clear my mind and allow my body to rest. I didn't touch a golf club until Monday, so I needed to put the clubs away and just relax a little bit. Q. What did you do? Anything fun or just‑‑ STACY LEWIS: Well, I had to stay up in Canada because we had some passport issues. I stayed up in Canada, went to a spa, went hiking. I completely got away. I turned my phone off and just got away from everything. It was probably the best thing I could have done. I saw people‑‑ I see people this week and they are like, man, you look a lot better this week. I guess I should take that as a compliment, not that I looked terrible last week. Q. You are currently the top‑ranked American on Tour with International Crown in its inaugural year next year, how excited are you and what are your thoughts on that event? STACY LEWIS: Well, I'm excited to see how the teams come together. I was kind of looking yesterday that you guys came up with the countries that would be in it. I was surprised at a couple, actually. I'm excited to see how it all comes together. I'm excited for the fans to really‑‑ I think in those team events, you see players' personalities more. I think you will see the personalities of the Koreans. That is their knock. Everybody thinks they dont' have personalities, but a lot of them have great personalities. I think that's going to come through in that event, and it's really‑‑ it's going to be competitive and it's going to be fun. Q. You went to University of Arkansas. I know one of your hobbies is watching SEC football. With football starting this week, will you be calling the Hogs a lot this year? STACY LEWIS: I'm going to go ‑‑ I think at least one game is on the list. I'm excited for it to start this weekend. I'm excited to have next weekend off because I'm going to spend all Saturday on my couch watching football. I love this time of the year. I wish we were a little bit closer to the US most of the season so we could watch a little bit more. I love college football and I love this time of year. Q. Aside from the obvious, is there anything you do in terms of preparation for 72 holes over 54? Any mental changes you make for a tournament that's an extra 18? STACY LEWIS: I don't think you change your preparation at all. It definitely makes the week a little bit shorter. Other than that, the preparation is the same. I like 72‑hole events better just because at 54 they feel like such a sprint that if you have a bad stretch of six or nine holes you are pretty much out of it. I like the 72‑hole events. I feel like you get a better winner over those fourdays versus three. Q. With Inbee withdrawing and there's still a major left, any chance you can catch her for some of the postseason stuff? STACY LEWIS: I think the Player of the Year and Money List is going to be tough. I mean, winning three majors, that's pretty good. I think I would have to win a couple more times to really give any of that a run. It's not going to stop me from trying. I think there's always a chance. I think you can always play better; you can always work harder. I want to give her a run, but at the same time I want to take care of myself and still try to win golf tournaments. In the end that's kind of what you want to do. Part of the reason I withdrew last week was to prepare for this week, but to also make sure my energy level was good going into Evian. I played well there the last few years and I wanted to be 100 percent going into that week. Q. And withdrawing, I think you said you had never done that before? STACY LEWIS: Yeah. Q. Was it physical or mental that you were feeling? STACY LEWIS: I had never‑‑ I think it's just my personality. It was physically hard for me to‑‑ I was nervous calling the official telling them I had to pull out. I called four or five people that were closest to me and they gave me good advice. I asked them what I should do. They all said the same thing. My caddy was the one that truthfully kind of pushed me to do it because he saw the way I was on the golf course. And I would say it was probably 50/50, though, mental and physical. Any time you win a big tournament like the British, coming off of that you need some time to decompress. We went straight from the British to Solheim Cup. So I had two weeks of Solheim Cup stuff and never got time to kind of decompress off of that, so mentally I was fried. And then physically we played so much golf in Colorado at altitude and walking up and down the hills, that was definitely part of it. Q. Did you get a chance to really appreciate what you have done at S. Andrews, kind of the scope of it and the history and all that? STACY LEWIS: I don't think I have yet. It really‑‑ that 36 holes on Sunday happened so fast. You are grinding all day and then all of a sudden I hit a great shot on 17 and make a putt on 18 and I'm done, you know. Now what do I do? I did media for a couple hours after that. We celebrated, I got on the plane the next morning and I was going into the next thing. I never really got to enjoy it. The last few days my coach has been sending me pictures of it saying remember you did do this. You did win the British. You did do this at the home of golf. So I have good people around me that are helping me making sure that I remember what I did twoweeks ago. Q. Just want to ask you about the scoliosis that you overcame as a teenager and all that you went through physically to have a chance to play. Do you feel sometimes‑‑ do you have to almost pinch yourself to say I'm really lucky to be able to be doing what I'm doing at this point? STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think about tenyears ago is when I had surgery. Coming out of surgery, not knowing if I'm going to play golf, but not even knowing how ‑‑ I mean, I could barely sit up by myself. The surgery in my back, it puts everything in perspective. At the end of the day, a bad shot, pulling out of the tournament, pulling out of a tournament, a bad round really not that big of a deal. I get to do what I love every day. I get to play golf. I don't know how I get to do it. It's amazing what doctors are able to do now. To think that I have a rod and five screws attached to my spine and I bend and I twist every single day. It doesn't make sense, but it makes you so much more thankful for everything I get to do. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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