KPMG WOMEN'S PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

June 23, 2023

Mel Reid

Baltusrol Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Here with Mel Reid. Mel, coming in tied for the clubhouse lead at the moment. What were your thoughts after day two.

MEL REID: Yeah, I think I hit 18 greens. Obviously it's good ball-striking. Still a beast of a golf course. Weather kind of held up, which was nice, but don't feel like I've kind of been hitting my "A" game yet.

But yeah, obviously very happy. It's only halfway, isn't it, so just try to stick to the game plan the next couple days and see what happens.

Q. I think 67 is the low score out there. Can you just speak to the overall quality of the round?

MEL REID: Yeah, I mean, we've got a game plan. I just kind of stuck to it. They're relatively big greens. I feel like -- I hit 18 greens. My coach Jorge will be happy about that. I just didn't really put myself under much stress, which is nice around this golf course.

Q. What role did the weather play today?

MEL REID: Yeah, it's tough. The rough is really obviously thick. It's obviously a bit wet. I feel like that's okay for me because I'm one of the stronger players. I'm not really too scared about hitting it in the rough, so I feel like it's kind of freed my driver up. I struggled with my driver last round, and my, I hit it terribly, worst I've hit it all year. Didn't hit it great yesterday, either, until the last three or four holes.

Driver is usually my weapon, and it kind of -- obviously I hit it in the rough a lot yesterday, and it kind of freed me up today because I knew I could get it out of it.

Q. What clicked with the driver then? What did you feel differently today?

MEL REID: It's just a move that we're trying to do. We've been doing it for a few weeks and I just kind of got away from it. I just was leaning back on it a little bit. If I just try and hit my cut, I'm fine. I sometimes just try and do more than I need to. I've just been trying to cut it all day.

Q. Looking at your results, you've been trending recently coming into this week. What's kind of turning around the second part of the season?

MEL REID: If I'm honest, I was on a medical. I think I had six events to play well to get reshuffled after Founders. I think I birdied the last at Founders to make the cut on the number, and it's funny, that was huge for me, and then I finished 27th or 25th or something, which kind of reshuffled me back into stuff, which kind of took a little bit of pressure off.

That's been the turning point. Then we've just done some -- we've worked extremely hard in the winter, and it's kind of paying off. Obviously went back to Jorge, probably at KPMG last year, so it's been a year I went back to him. I was playing terribly last year, went back to him, made the cut at KPMG, didn't really play great after that, and we've just done a lot of good work this winter, so I've got to give full credit to him really.

Q. If I could ask a question about Rose and her meteoric rise. What's been your impression about how quickly things have been going? I don't know if you've had a chance to play with her at all yet.

MEL REID: No, I mean, I think what she did at Liberty was obviously extremely impressive. She's a very impressive young lady. She's great for the Tour. That was best case scenario. I think every player felt that.

I think that there's a lot of hype around her, which I understand why you guys do that, but I think for her to find her feet a little bit, it's easy to say that she's going to be a superstar, but this tour can grind you down sometimes.

I think she's going to do just fine, and just try and keep the expectations low for her and kind of let her feel her way into the Tour. But I think she's great for us.

Yeah, just a great girl from what I hear. I've never really spoke to her, but from everyone that knows her really well, could not say nicer things about her, so she's obviously very smart, very mature, just an all-around great girl. So I was really happy for her at Liberty, and she's obviously an impressive player.

Q. You said your game has been improving lately. Are you surprised, though, to have the lead here, or has it come to the point where you're not surprised?

MEL REID: I mean, excuse my language; I hit it like s--- yesterday in my warmup, so I was like, oh, this could be interesting, then hit a horrific drive off the first.

Am I surprised? Yes and no. It's halfway. Like to me, I don't feel like I have the lead. It's kind of weird. Don't really think that I did anything that impressive today. I just kind of stuck to my game plan.

Yeah, I kind of have my things that I kind of stick to and just trying to stick to those things, I kind of have them written in the back of my book. Yeah, that's all I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to keep in my own little world and just execute the shots as well as possible and just the standard stuff. Just trying to stay as present as possible. We've got a long way to go, and this golf course can eat you up in a heartbeat.

Obviously it's nice to be up there after two days, but there's still a lot of golf left.

Q. We've talked a lot about ball-striking all week. Can you speak to the importance of two-putting on these massive greens?

MEL REID: Yeah, it's really important. I feel pretty confident with my pace putting. I feel like I've always been a decent pace putter.

So yeah, I mean, the slopes on them, as well, you can read a putt and it doesn't go that way. They're just very tricky greens. If you're two-putting most greens, you're doing pretty well. That's what you're kind of prepping for. You're doing a lot of pace putting before the round, a lot of pace putting Monday through Wednesday, and you're just trying to get a feel for it because you can hit the green and literally be 60 feet away. A two-putt from there is pretty good. Yeah, again, just try and do your best and try and hit it as close as possible.

Q. You've got some exciting things percolating off the golf course with you and Carly expecting. Do you think having that kind of excitement off the golf course and that perspective off the golf course is helping you play free on the golf course?

MEL REID: Yeah, I've got a little bit more to think about now. I don't really think about it -- well, I do think about it quite a lot. She's starting to show now, which is quite exciting, but I guess I'm playing for something bigger than myself, like I'm playing for obviously Carly and we've got our own -- hopefully going to have our own family now.

Kind of puts things in perspective. Golf is really cool, and I'm really happy that I get to do it as a job, but at the end of the day, we're going to be a family of three in the not-too-distant future, and that's pretty exciting, as well.

Yeah, I guess it definitely has given me a little bit more drive this year for sure. I want to win tournaments, and I want my kid and my wife to be running out. Like that's something that I would love a moment to have. It's definitely given me a lot more drive, and got my hunger back for the game for sure.

Q. You mentioned Jorge a few times. Can you explain who he is and how long you've been working with him and the things that click not only with the game but in attitude and everything?

MEL REID: Yeah, Jorge Parada, he's at Liberty. I've worked with him since 2018, I think, or '17 even, and think I kind of split with him middle of '21. It was not a good decision for me, which I own, and luckily he took me back. I didn't think he would, but he did.

Jorge is Jorge. He's the best dressed coach on Tour for one, which is what he'd want me to say is No. 1, but he's a very impressive guy. Like he's the hardest working guy I know. He knows a lot about the golf swing, and I hate to admit it, but he knows me probably better than I know me, especially in kind of the golf space. He knows my habits. He knows what works, what doesn't work, he knows my tendencies, he knows my panics. He's just very, very good.

I think actually since I've gone back to him, I feel like he's a completely different bloke. Like he's a lot more kind of about understanding the player more instead of just technique. I think he's worked a little bit with my mental coach, as well, Duncan McCarthy, who I've worked with for about a year, so I can tell by the way he's talking to me that he is in close contact with him, as well, which just helps. They're all trying to get the best out of me, and as a team you try and kind of all be on the same wave.

Yeah, I can't give him enough credit. He has to put up with six of us girls, so he's a impressive bloke as it is doing that.

Q. Just the past year or so with your struggles, what was your mindset going through that time, and were you questioning that you'd maybe get back to the top of the game?

MEL REID: Yeah, it sucks. I legit quit. When I got my injury, I tried to play through it, which I kind of felt I had to because I was losing my card, and then yeah, we don't get money being on a medical.

As compares, I feel like the girls do a lot more than the guys. I feel like the guys can just take time off, whereas the girls, we feel like we have to play because that's our income, right.

So yeah, in September I literally told Carly, I'm going into media, like I'm going to be one of you guys, I'm not playing golf anymore.

Then took a couple of months. I worked pretty much every day with Duncan, so massive credit to him. With things like that, if you just give me a bit of space I do kind of work it out myself. I was just playing golf at home when I was kind of feeling fit just with the boys at Atlantic Beach, and I just was enjoying it again. I was just enjoying -- I missed the competitiveness of it, and I thought right, okay, let's give it one more go.

I've just been really enjoying myself this year.

Q. How did the injury come about?

MEL REID: Just from hitting a load of golf balls. Because I was struggling, I was trying to fix it. I was hitting an absurd amount of golf balls a day. That's what we do, right, and it's not always the best thing. But when you're struggling like that, you feel like you have to kind of -- you earn it out of the dirt. That's kind of what we do.

It just hindered me. It wasn't something that was very smart, but I felt at the time that's what I needed to do, and it was stressing me out, and then my injury, and I wasn't playing good, and I was tired, so it's a kind of snowball effect.

Q. What was the injury?

MEL REID: I had a wrist injury, just something with the joint. It was some medical term. I don't know what it is.

Q. Left or right wrist?

MEL REID: My right wrist.

Q. Can you take us through the birdies at 7 and 8 that put you in the lead?

MEL REID: Yeah, 7 hit a good drive, didn't quite catch my 5-wood, caught it a little bit out of the bottom, a little bit spinny, just kind of front of the green. Hit a really good putt up to probably about four feet and holed that.

Then hit a great drive down 8. It's a weird pin on 8. I actually didn't think they were going to put a pin there. It's kind of in between a little bowl at the top, which you can't be long, and I just under-hit my wedge by quite a bit actually. Yeah, I didn't hit my wedge great. I caught it a little bit heavy. You just can't go long there. Then I holed a great putt just up the hill and down. I knew as soon as it over the top, I was like, oh, that's actually got a chance, but I was quite happy just to two-putt. I was kind of lucky to make birdie there.

Q. How long do you think the putt was?

MEL REID: Probably 35, 40 feet.

Q. You mentioned your work with your sports psychologist during that time. What was the most important takeaway from your time together?

MEL REID: That I'm not just a golfer, that I'm a human being, and I'm Mel, and standard stuff like the human comes before the golfer. The thing I do is I kind of mix the golfer and the human together and that's when I get unhappy. I don't switch off. I don't switch off at home. I'm thinking about golf. Then I'm on the golf course and I'm not quite fully in it because I'm kind of drained from constantly thinking about it, like looking at golf swings, analyzing stuff all the time, and it just drains me. It's almost like an obsession.

So we've done a really good job, not perfect, but kind of when I'm at the golf course, I'm Mel the golfer, very professional, get my work done, very present. When I'm at home, I'm present with my friends, with Carly, whatever it is I'm doing, and we're just trying to separate that.

Q. How many balls do you think you hit?

MEL REID: Gobs.

Q. A day?

MEL REID: A lot. At Atlantic Beach we have these massive buckets like this. They must hold 250 balls. I was probably hitting two of them a day.