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KIA CLASSIC

March 21, 2017

Tiffany Joh

Carlsbad, California

THE MODERATOR: Get afternoon everyone. My name is Christina Lance with LPGA Communications.

I'm really happy to welcome San Diego native Tiffany Joh to the interview room. Glad to have you with us today.

TIFFANY JOH: Thanks for having me.

THE MODERATOR: The words that come to mind - and I am sure you could chime in with these - are home, happy, and healthy.

TIFFANY JOH: Yep.

THE MODERATOR: Let's start with home. It's got to be nice every year to have a home game for you. What's it like to be back in your hometown playing?

TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, it's really nice. Whenever people ask me on the road what's your favorite city I always say San Diego, because I love living here. A break that I surf a lot is Terra Mar, and it's literally one exit up from here. So it's nice.

I snuck in a surf session yesterday. I don't know if people appreciated me showing up to the course all salty, but I showered.

THE MODERATOR: You grew up here; went to high school here; you still live here. What does it mean to you to always know you've got that one to come back to where you have the fans behind you?

TIFFANY JOH: Oh, man, it's everything. I always tell people this is almost like my U.S. Open. I love all the staff here. When I come up -- I live about 35 minutes away. When I come up, they're all so good about letting me out on the course.

And Jerry and Joe, the starters, who are always like giving me baked goods. Jerry saves all the red and brown lollipops for me because those are my favorite. I feel like this is my second home family out here.

THE MODERATOR: Great feeling. We're extra happy to have you back with us now that you're healthy. I know many of you here in the room know you were diagnosed with melanoma on your scalp earlier this year. Underwent treatment and are cancer-free. Great news.

What was that experience like? It's life-changing for anyone, but you're so young and healthy.

TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, it was definitely really shocking, I think especially as someone of Asian decent. It's not really on our radar for a lot of things.

In retrospect, I'm glad it happened because it brought a lot awareness to a lot of girls. A lot of them made appointments to go get their skin cancer screenings.

Honestly, I feel like I have a really good perspective on things now. So, yeah, in retrospect I'm glad it all happened, but definitely was scary at the time.

THE MODERATOR: I know in the Golf Week piece that was written about you, it said one of your first calls was to Mo Martin. Pulled in the UCLA family and of course the LPGA family. How has it been to have this group rallying around you as you went through the treatments and celebrating with you now?

TIFFANY JOH: It's been really awesome. Mo Martin is one of those people that is kind of a perfect person in a crisis. She's very level-headed and she is definitely -- she has a lot of empathy, but at the same time she's very logical about things.

So I think she was the perfect first person to call, because she was like, This is what we need to do. You need to get off the Internet. You need to get off Web.M.D., because I know that's where you are right now.

On the other side, it's actually got me in touch with a lot of people that I lost contact with over the years. There have been a lot of positives from the whole experience.

THE MODERATOR: That led me into my next question: What are your takeaways from such a life-changing experience? How does it change or does it change your outlook on life?

TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, well, it really does. I think when you play a competitive sport you have this really narrow focus. It actually kind of helps you compete because you're not really thinking much about anything outside of the ropes.

But I think I definitely realize that -- and maybe this is just a by-product of getting older, too -- but I think when you're young you're constantly chasing achievements, trophy, wins, tournament wins.

I think over the last few months I've really found a value in the relationships that I've had. It's interesting, even like those long waits and practice rounds we complain about as players, it's such a great opportunity to build all these relationships. Like I've made so many great friendships out here.

And I think at a certain point when I was looking back on what the highlights of my life were, they weren't getting my card or first professional win. They were like the little moments in between where I was able to build all these friendships.

THE MODERATOR: Truly puts things in perspective I would guess.

TIFFANY JOH: Uh-huh.

THE MODERATOR: And you made your debut last week at the Bank of Hope Founders Cup. You missed the cut, but as much as it puts things in perspective, has to be good to get back on to your routine, back to normal.

TIFFANY JOH: Yeah. I think the thing about testing something in competition is you really don't know what's going to happen until you test it in competition.

So I had a little bit of a hiccup the first round and it was a little difficult, but I'm honestly just so happy to be out here that I honestly couldn't even be upset about it.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open the floor to questions.

Q. Curious about your motivation, a little more about playing in San Diego.
TIFFANY JOH: Uh-huh.

Q. How does that improve your win probability?
TIFFANY JOH: Well, I'm not sure about that. I mean, it's just really nice to play in front of friends and family.

I always joke around that like there is such a big difference between my friends on tour and then my friends at home, because I have my surf friends I hang out with and like some friends with the yoga studio.

You can definitely tell when they come out here. They're not completely sure what's going on. The people that hear the ball come off the club face and like hide because they're not sure where the ball is and they haven't figured out how to track the ball in the sky or anything, those are like my yoga and surf friends.

It's just really nice because a lot of them have no exposure to the game and they still come out and they come watch me. They don't know what's going on. They just see me like walking around a field and like being angry sometimes.

It's just really nice to expose them to the game.

Q. Secondly, with the possible weather change, how do you think you'll adjust your game or what's your game plan?
TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, you know, honestly, haven't looked at the weather, but I did check the surf report. I did see that there are going to be some on-shore winds tomorrow.

Weather doesn't really change anything because everyone has to play in it. Like obviously there may be a couple changes in like the equipment. As it gets wetter you're going to want something that -- as it gets windier you're going to want some lower ball flights out there.

Other than that, mentally everyone is out there doing the same thing, and I think you just have to accept it as one of those things you can't control.

Q. My last one. You told us one of your favorite breaks. Toll me a few other breaks that you like in San Diego?
TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, like I kind of like to go all over the place. I learned how to surf at La Jolla Shores. Like I totally grabbed one of those Costco boards and scurried out there. I mean, that'll all be home for me.

Terre Mar is really fun because it's a reef break so it's really, really consistent. Actually a friend and I recently got SENTRI passes so we could drive across the border to Baja.

We have been doing that a couple times. Yeah, kind of all over.

Q. Going back to the article, it said you never took it that serious. Was that easy? Hard? Obviously this is you. You're happy.
TIFFANY JOH: Took what serious?

Q. The...
TIFFANY JOH: Oh, right, yeah.

Q. Was that easy to do? Hard to do? People, if something bad happens, people panic with you.
TIFFANY JOH: Right.

Q. What is it about that you that didn't...
TIFFANY JOH: I think I'm one of those people that maybe internally I might be panicking a little bit, but I would say laughing at things has a been a little bit of a defense mechanism for me, and I think this was just a classic case of that.

Sometimes when something seems really, really scary the best thing you can do is kind of smile about it and laugh about it. I don't know what it does like internally, but it makes me feel a little bit better.

I think I got incredibly lucky, so definitely wasn't something you don't take seriously. But at the same time, so many positives from the whole experience.

Q. Did you deal with anyone who was worried because you weren't worried about it?
TIFFANY JOH: Probably my parents. The classic opposite of a hypochondriac, so they are shocked that I was like, Oh, maybe I should get this checked out.

I'm totally someone that will be like, Oh, my arm fell off. But I got another one, so we're cool. (Laughter.)

THE MODERATOR: I would think that's probably what helped you get through, your happy-go-lucky nature. You were able to deal with it well.

TIFFANY JOH: Yeah. I'm not going to lie. There were some really, really dark periods of time, like the ones I spent on WebM.D.

Yeah, it was really scary. I had maybe six days between the diagnosis and my pre-op appointment where I figured out what my situation was.

There was another couple weeks after the surgery where I had to find out if my lymph nodes had come back clear or not. You never really realize how crazy you can be until you're waiting for results like that.

One day you're like, I'm fine. Everything is good. Everything happens for a reason. The next day you're like, My toe is cramping. Why is it cramping. What is that? It's never cramped before.

I think there were definitely some moments where I went a little nuts.

THE MODERATOR: I don't blame you at all.

Q. I wasn't aware you were surfing. Equate your golf index to your surfing index.
TIFFANY JOH: On a good day, probably like -- I don't I think I'm even breaking 90. Yeah, I started relatively late, about five years ago. It's like golf, where the younger you start the easier it is to pick up. A friend of mine a few years ago actually said, Man, you love surfing. You do it all the time. I don't understand why you're not better at it.

Learning to surf would be the equivalent of like going to the driving range but every time you want to hit a ball you had to sprint from 40 yards a way and race six other people and even then the ball might move.

Like that's how hard it would be to learn.

Q. (Question regarding onesie.)
TIFFANY JOH: I have 12 onesies. I feel like 13 would be too many. 12 is a good number.

Q. Perfect number.
TIFFANY JOH: Thanks.

Q. Obviously you had a lot of fun out there today. Is that how it always is on the course, or is it extra fun being home?
TIFFANY JOH: Yeah, I would say normally -- you saw us in the practice round, and those tends to drag on for a little longer than we would like. I can say I can usually stay focused for about the first three holes, and the next 15 it's like, I don't know what's going to happen.

One of the caddies had her Pandora station on and we were listening to '90s hip hop. That may be part of what you saw. I don't know if you saw the attempts at dancing.

Yeah, I would say for the most part we're pretty normal out here. Like we like to have fun, and practice rounds can drag on for like five, five and a half, six hours. Sometimes it's nice to break it up.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Again, glad to have you with us. Good luck this week.

TIFFANY JOH: Thanks.

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