THE CHEVRON CHAMPIONSHIP

April 19, 2023

Stacy Lewis

The Club at Carlton Woods

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome inside the online and in-person media center at the Chevron Championship, and I am pleased to be joined by the Woodlands' own major champion Stacy Lewis. Welcome to the major in your backyard. How does it feel to be preparing for this year's major in a new location that is so special to you?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, it's a little strange staying at my parents' house and coming and playing a golf tournament. It's something that definitely growing up here I thought would never happen, to bring a championship like this to the Woodlands. But it's been awesome. There's so many people walking around, so many people that I know, and I've played the golf course a handful of times, but I wouldn't say I know it by heart or anything, but yeah, just to be in a familiar place, you can drive your own car, I know my way around the Woodlands. I don't need a map or anything like that.

Yeah, it's just really special, and obviously the Woodlands is very special to me. It's why -- I seem to have a lot of hometowns as we travel around with the Tour, but I always want to be announced from the Woodlands because it's where I grew up, it's where I learned the game of golf, and it feels like the most home place to me.

Q. It's been an eventful weekend for you and your husband. Care to explain a little bit about those SEC championship-winning feelings?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, so I was in Hawai'i last week, and obviously my husband's team had played really well on Saturday to make it to the final championship match on Sunday. I landed from Hawai'i about 8:30 on Sunday morning, and I think they were through four or five holes at the time, and I rushed to my parents' house to go watch the finish.

Just to see his team get it done, I was stressed out. It's way harder watching than it is playing.

Their flight home ended up getting delayed, delayed, delayed. We were going to go surprise them when they got there and cheer them on. They didn't get to College Station until about 11:15. But I had told him that I wasn't going to come just because it was late, and with Chesnee, I didn't want to mess up bedtime and all that. I just got to thinking, I said, it's not that often you win an SEC Championship, so I got Chesnee out of bed and we went and surprised him at 11:00. There were tears, and I think Garrett had I would say probably 25, 30 people that ended up showing up to cheer on the girls.

It's been a special weekend for our family and been a whirlwind. The last two, three days have been really busy. It's been a lot of fun, and just excited to -- I guess two of the girls got to play the pro-am yesterday and meet some of the Chevron folks, so for them, what a great opportunity to kind of springboard off that success and then be able to experience this and hopefully see it in their future someday.

Q. You've talked about it being so special being from here. There are a lot of special touches that Chevron has done for this event. What has been the most special to you, and what influence did you have on them putting some of this together?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, so I got on a committee to help with the move. Chevron put together a player advisory group, just they wanted to know what was important to us to make the championship special. There's obviously a lot of traditions with this event, and what was the traditions that were most important to us. They asked current players, they asked retired players, they asked everybody.

To me, Dinah is and was the most important thing. You can take the leap in Poppies Pond and all that kind of stuff, but to me, there's a reason Dinah is the only non-playing person in our LPGA Hall of Fame. There's a reason for that.

Chevron crushed it. You see it with the trophy. Dinah's Place on 18. Everything is about Dinah this week, and that's what we tried to tell them over and over again is what was important.

But yeah, very involved in the move. Been in Glenn's ear at Chevron a bunch just with different ideas and how we can make this move successful.

Q. You said you'd only played this a half dozen or so times. Where did you normally play where you group up here?

STACY LEWIS: So my family, we were members at the Woodlands Country Club, so this is very private and not part of the Woodlands Country Club. Golf course is right down the road, the Player course, the Palmer course, so yeah, I spent a lot of days -- the Woodlands was always so great about -- we finished school and my parents would just drop me off at the golf course, and that's all I did.

In 2003 we had 30 girls on our high school golf team, and there was a reason, because we had the support of the community.

I'm excited for the girls this week that get this opportunity.

Q. You're wearing a lot of hats now with the Solheim Cup and everything else, and you of course are watching all the American players. Are you watching any of the Europeans, and what are you seeing?

STACY LEWIS: I am, and they're making me a little bit nervous, to be honest. The young Europeans are playing so good. Linn Grant is obviously not here, but Maja Stark has started off great, Georgia has been on a tear lately. I'm watching what the Europeans are doing, too, because you've got to know who you're playing against.

Q. How far away is your parents' house exactly?

STACY LEWIS: It's about three and a half miles.

Q. I want to talk about this golf course, just in terms of what you think it takes to win out here, how you'd like to see it set up.

STACY LEWIS: What it takes to win, I think it's going to be great ball-striking. The greens are firm. They're pretty small when you -- the areas that you have to hit it to certain hole locations are pretty small, so you have to be pretty precise there.

Then I think you could look to anyone that grew up playing on Bermudagrass, and the chipping and the surrounds, I think that's going to be a big factor this week of just knowing how to play those shots around the greens.

Q. You've had some Cinderella storybook occurrences in your career. How do you feel about your game coming into this week?

STACY LEWIS: I actually feel pretty good about it. Been trending -- the last three tournaments I guess I've really played pretty well, to be honest.

It's not fun to be out here and play poorly. I'm just not one of those players that just likes to be out here and just hang out and play bad golf. It's just not in me to just let my game go sideways even though I've got all these different things going on.

I've been working on it, been working hard, and I feel like it's trending in the right direction, and just keep working on the same things and try to get more comfortable with it in competition.

Q. It's been discussed this week about whether or not players will or will not make the jump into the pond. If the winner does not jump this week, do you think that will mark the end of the tradition?

STACY LEWIS: I don't know. I don't see it -- if somebody gets the urge, I'd love to see them do it. But again, that wasn't the tradition. To me it's not the most important tradition.

I think if it stays at Mission Hills, it stays at Mission Hills. I think that's okay. But if somebody gets the urge to do it, I'd love to see them do it.

But yeah, does it go away completely? Who knows, somebody could win next year and decide they want to bring it back and do it. Just needs to be like we talked about on our player advisory calls, it needs to be natural, it needs to be kind of spur of the moment and not a forced thing, so hopefully it stays that way.

Q. This is a major that counts for both of the next two Solheim Cups. What are you looking for out of the Americans that might be on the roster this week?

STACY LEWIS: Well, definitely looking -- this is Bermudagrass. It's what we're going to see in Spain, so definitely looking at that. Looking for them to just get some experience of playing on the big stages and playing in front of bigger crowds when things matter a little bit more.

Yeah, so I'm watching every single week. I'm watching how the girls are -- watching their stats, who's kind of trending in the right direction, and then we're still doing a lot behind the scenes to make sure we're going the right direction. The girls tried clothes on earlier this week, so hopefully just kind of sparks a bug in their ear that we're getting closer to Solheim Cup and gets them a little bit more motivated.

Q. What's the size of the potential pool of players you're looking at right now?

STACY LEWIS: We're about 15 to 20 right now. Yeah, so still pretty big.

Q. It was announced yesterday that Natalie would be a sponsor invite to JM Eagle so she'll be at Wilshire, be able to see some more people in person. What does that do for you two of you and how you've approached the assistant captainship throughout your Solheim Cup captaincy?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, that was important to me and my assistants that they were still around the game, and that's why Morgan and Angela -- even though Morgan is not playing, she's doing TV, she's still out here, she knows the players, just to develop those relationships, and Natalie is the same way. She's still close with five of the players out here. I wanted three different personalities, and I definitely got that in the three of them, so different players have somebody to go to.

There's definitely a reason to why those three were selected. But yeah, Natalie is going to be a great asset to the team, and just her energy is going to bring something different than the other two for sure.

Q. Focusing again on the Chevron Championship and also the traditions we talked about a little bit earlier, yesterday we talked with a few past champions on the Champions Dinner and how recreating that kind of legacy. What was that night like for you on Monday?

STACY LEWIS: It was a lot of laughs. I think we just sat at the table and laughed all night. Just telling stories and get to celebrate Sandra Palmer getting in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Just to see Dottie Pepper was there, she hasn't been at the last couple.

I already talked to Chevron about how we kind of push it forward and get more of the past champions to come that weren't there to really make it special, really make it a great tradition for this event, but it was a lot of fun to see the girls and just to get everybody together.

I always love it when the women that are retired come back and just show their support. It really means a lot to us.

Q. How many tickets did you request for this week?

STACY LEWIS: I think I'm in the 40 range about right now. But we'll see as the week goes on. But yeah, the tournament has been great. Whatever you need, they're willing to help us out.

Q. Having the first major pushed back, maybe six tournaments in or whatever, everybody is champing at the bit to get that major going?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, I think so, a little bit. We always had such a short season prior to when we were playing at Mission Hills. It was only maybe -- some people only played one or two events. I like the move back a couple weeks, getting off the Masters, getting off of the Augusta National Women's Am. I think it will help this championship out a lot.

But I do, yeah, everybody is ready to get going. We kind of cram a bunch of majors in a short amount of time.

But yeah, the first major, when you start practicing in January, this is what you're thinking about, this is what you're getting ready for.

Q. Being from this area and you know this is ideal time to have a tournament at this golf course, right --

STACY LEWIS: It is, yes.

Q. Can you talk about that?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah, spring -- I've always said spring in Houston is the best. It's when you've got the best chance of getting a firm and fast golf course, and the rough will be hit or miss depending on the weather, but yeah, this is the time of year when you can get your greens the fastest and make it the most difficult.

Q. You were talking about how many juniors there were on your high school team. What do you expect turnout to be for fans in general, and how important is that for this week to be a success?

STACY LEWIS: I don't know what turnout will be. I haven't heard what ticket sales are like or anything.

Yeah, I don't know about going off the numbers of the number of people on-site to tournament is success or not. I think if we're making an impact in the community, if people know it's going on, if we're supporting local charities. Not just in the Woodlands; I'm thinking all of Houston. We've got to get all of Houston involved in this, and that's something that probably doesn't happen in one year, to be honest. This city is so big.

That's the biggest challenge Chevron has in coming here is how big this city is and just getting the attention that this event deserves. I don't think it's something that happens overnight, but we've just got to continue to push it every year and use this as a good starting point and continue to move forward.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Stacy.