HILTON GRAND VACATIONS TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

January 29, 2026

Ingrid Lindblad

Lake Nona Golf & Country Club

Quick Quotes

INGRID LINDBLAD:

Q. Pleased to be joined by Ingrid after her first round at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. We'll get into the round a bit. Just take us through it. Very solid round for you.

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, I made quite a lot birdies. Also had a couple of -- probably could have saved a couple more pars, but it was -- I mean, it's first round of the year. It's always hard to know what's going to come out of the swing and the golf clubs and everything.

I made six birdies I believe, so...

Q. Yeah, six. No, seven.

INGRID LINDBLAD: Seven birdies?

Q. Seven.

INGRID LINDBLAD: I'll take that. I'll take six or seven birdies in my first round in the year.

Q. One of those birdies, a chip-in on hole No. 1. Walk us through that.

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, I hit it right in the fairway bunker and actually I saw where it hit if the bunker. If it carried two more inches it would've been over the bunker. I hit it and thought it came off okay off the face, but it came off -- I was short left of the green.

And then hit the chip and it -- once it hit the green to hit an old pitch mark or something and actually moved back online where I wanted it and then went in.

So it was pretty fun.

We went as a group 2-under on that hole, which is pretty good with the am I played with and the celebrity. Pretty good.

Q. Can you talk about what your caddie said after you chipped in?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Oh, yeah, so he said once I've chipped in ten times this year he'll give me a hundred bucks. So we've got one. Then I had a chip two holes later I believe. That was all I could think about. Okay, if you chip it in, we're on two.

Q. That's awesome. Obviously first time here at this event. What have you made of Lake Nona, the course itself?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, so I actually played one round here back in 2018 I believe. I didn't remember anything from the golf course, but it's in really good shape. I'm a little curious to see what's going to happen over the weekend with some wind and obviously the very chilly weather on Sunday morning.

But it's in really good shape and it's very nice to start off the year with playing on a golf course that's in really good shape.

Q. How would you assess your game coming into the week versus now getting a full round of play under your belt?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, I actually looked at some of my stats from last year, and I believe from -- the putts are not in feet they're in meters, but from two to four meters I improved half a stroke. So it's like 7 to 13 feet, I had improved half a stroke in 24 to 25.

So I kind of went out today and I was like, okay, you're pretty good with your putting, and I actually have a new putter in my bag which is literally the same model, just a couple years newer.

The lines that -- I don't know what it's called, the aiming lines on the putter are a tad longer and I feel like that has really helped me.

Q. What went into that decision to maybe switch up the putter a little bit?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, no, I said -- I work 14 clubs with Ping, so I said to them, I want to aim better but I also don't want to like change the whole putter. So they went like, well, the new model of the putter you're playing has a little longer lines on it. I changed into that, switched it, and I believe it was -- we had a camp in Phoenix. It was like two, three weeks ago. Three weeks ago maybe.

Q. You mentioned getting to play with the celebrities and ams this week. Have some good team camaraderie in your group. How has that experience been getting to play with the celebrities this week?

INGRID LINDBLAD: It was interesting. I didn't want to get my hopes up too much about their golf game because then -- but it was interesting. They were -- the am I played with, he was hitting the ball pretty well. I think he started thinking after a couple holes and then he kind of just had a couple of like pretty like unexplainable shots from the first couple holes.

I started off pretty well, so I think he was just thinking too much. He also had a camera right up in his face on 17 which probably didn't help.

But it was really fun and they exceeded my expectations a little bit. I expected it to be a little bit more like a pro-am, and in a pro-am you can get a little bit of everything. For sure it was better than a regular pro-am I would say.

Q. Obviously heading into your second season on the LPGA Tour. How much different -- obviously you have a win, but how much different do you feel as a person, as a player versus this time last year?

INGRID LINDBLAD: I mean, I hadn't played any of the golf courses that we played last year. I believe I only played Evian, so every golf course I came to was a new golf course.

I believe there will be a couple new ones this year. Just feels nice that I know where I'm going and just like the small things. Like you know where the locker room is. You know where -- it's not just the golf course. It's like everything around it. Like, oh, where is the parking lot? It's very small things that add up.

But I'm excited and feel like practice rounds may be a little easier because I know where we're going on the golf course I played before.

Q. The round to 2018 here, is there a story behind that, who you played with?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah. So it was when Henrik Stenson and Fanny Sunesson, they have a golf tournament, a junior tournament at home. I won it back in 2017. So there were two age groups for girls and two for guys. The winners from each age group got to play -- it was called Major Champions Invitational, so a couple major event winners were able to invite junior golfers to play on their teams. Hendrik took us since we won their tournament.

So we played -- I don't remember what golf course it was here in Orlando. Played this tournament first and Henrik took he is out here for a round and then we had dinner at his houses. Took us --I believe one of the guys did wakeboarding or something like that on his boat. That was pretty cool.

Q. Obviously Annika's home is here. Have you gotten to pick her brain about the course?

INGRID LINDBLAD: I have not. I saw her and her parents yesterday at lunch but she had just finished up the pro-am so I didn't want to interrupt.

Q. And then last one: Obviously as you were saying, second year on Tour. What's a piece of advice you would give to the next crop of rookies on Tour this year?

INGRID LINDBLAD: Yeah, I was on the rookie orientation a couple week ago with LPGA. You know, it's me and Gurleen Kaur, and we both said like you want to play everything but you also -- you shouldn't play everything.

So just probably don't play five weeks in a row even though on the schedule that looks great. (Smiling.)

But it doesn't feel great on week five. That's the advice I would give.