THE ANNIKA DRIVEN BY GAINBRIDGE AT PELICAN

November 11, 2026

Linn Grant

Pelican Golf Club

Press Conference

MALLORY KINAHAN: All right, we are pleased to be joined by defending champion of The ANNIKA, Linn Grant, ahead of 2026 The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican.

Linn, what could you recall from that winning moment last year here at Pelican?

LINN GRANT: Oh, wow, just a lot of fun. I mean, such a relief. At the time I felt like I didn't have the season I would've wanted, and then to finish it off with that win was just so amazing.

To have my parents on site, to have Pontus on the bag, yeah, just great memories.

MALLORY KINAHAN: That bring me to my next question. How does the course play to your strengths overall? Obviously you're familiar with it from last year.

LINN GRANT: I think in general I just like how it looks. I think usually I'm the best from tee to green, and I feel like on this course there is a couple of greens where you really want to be precise with your shots, and to me, that's when golf becomes really fun, when you can sort of take my strength and really use it.

I think the course is looking a little different this year, but obviously it kind of also looks the same. So, yeah, I'm just really excited to get started.

MALLORY KINAHAN: Can you address any of the differences the course is playing? I know the owners had mentioned yesterday maybe the rough is a little bit thicker. Do you think that's impacting you or other players in the field this year?

LINN GRANT: Yeah, for sure. I think it will have an impact. I feel though it is -- last year the greens were super fast and firm, and I think this year they're a little bit on the softer side and not as fast, which I think we all kind of appreciate a little bit.

But I think they've done a great job just with how much rain it has been for the last couple weeks. And I think it's just going to play a little bit longer since it is on the softer side, which I hope will be to my advantage.

MALLORY KINAHAN: Switching gears before we open it up to the media, you were a part of the first match in the WTGL history. What were your initial reactions there and that initiative to just grow the game in such a different way?

LINN GRANT: Yeah, I mean, we had a great time. I think any sort of team format in golf, I think any player just loves it. I think it brings something else out. And just playing indoors, it's obviously a whole different thing playing in there. It becomes more of a TV game/golf tournament, and it's really fun to see that there is a lot of belief in women's golf in so many different ways.

Yeah, I think it's a great initiative. I think it's a place for us to showcase something else than what you see out here. Also, I think there is a lot of people who might not normally watch our tournaments that will tune in and hopefully that will spread on to our own broadcast.

MALLORY KINAHAN: Open it up to the media for questions.

Q. How would you assess your game coming into this week?

LINN GRANT: Feels pretty good. I think it's hard to judge on a Tuesday. I'm normally honestly quite bad -- or on a Wednesday. I'm normally quite bad on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Those are not my days.

But it feels pretty good. I made some changes and I'm trying to figure things out and trying to get better. So, yeah.

Q. Can you take me through some of those changes and where you are in that process?

LINN GRANT: I've been looking a lot at my putting lately. I feel like that's kind of where I have an opportunity to actually get a lot better.

I know that normally I have a lot of opportunities. I get quite close to the pin. I hit a lot of greens. But I have a harder time to really get those birdies rolling in.

I think I've gotten to the point where I've had the insight to actually look at it and change things. So I made a lot of changes this week to be honest, which is actually going very well thinking about like how many those -- many changes it is.

So if anything, I'm excited for the week, but I'm also excited to have an offseason and actually grind it out and come back next year and be better.

Q. Is this more of a technique change or equipment or both?

LINN GRANT: Well, I change putter just before Solheim, and then that's been feeling much better. And then now I've changed everything in my setup, tempo; my stroke looks different. So pretty much everything, which I'm very confident with. It feels actually surprisingly good just for doing it for like three days.

Q. How long does it typically take you to work through and adapt to a change like that? Do you feel like you'll be ready come tomorrow?

LINN GRANT: Yeah, I'm fine. But I'm usually -- like I like a change once I've decided that that's needed. So I just fully commit and I think now -- obviously over time I will need more time to do it, but I can already tell that my putting, like the ball rolls way better.

So even if I did all these changes I would still be better than with my old setup. So, sure, I'm not expecting miracles this week, but also not expecting it to get worse, so...

Q. Coming into a place that you've won, do you feel more pressure to kind of build on that and repeat, or do you feel a little more relaxed knowing you're familiar with the course even though it's changed a bit from last year? How do your feelings go like that coming into this week?

LINN GRANT: Yeah, I think it's a mix. Obviously there is always this little person on your shoulder saying, you won last year; you better play good. But then on the other hand, even before I won I've had some really good results on this course.

So just knowing that I can sort of relax, and just the thought that I'm just going to go out and do my best, and usually on this course it works out pretty well.

But that's the sane side of me. The other side is just like, you better win again, which is not realistic at all.

So, yeah, I'm just going to try and go out and be calm and just enjoy it actually.

Q. Good luck.

LINN GRANT: Thank you.

Q. On a lighter subject, you rock those boots.

LINN GRANT: Thank you.

Q. Can you take us through the thought process on wearing those and will you wear them again?

LINN GRANT: I got them sent just to wear -- well, there wasn't any directions really. I ordered them. I wanted them and I was going to wear them walking into the thing, and then I -- when I picked them up I'm like, maybe I can actually play in them.

So I just tried them on during the morning practice and it worked out well. I was like, they're too cool not to play in. I mean, if there is any time I should use them it's this time.

I mean, I'm not sure I will rock them during a tournament because they're so warm. I mean, I think it would be cool if in the future maybe there was a golf boot design, but I haven't heard anything about it and we'll see if that will ever come.

Q. I feel like there might be an entrepreneur there; make your own boots.

LINN GRANT: Yeah.

Q. They were great. Good luck this week.

LINN GRANT: Thank you.

Q. You mentioned last year you weren't having the season that you wanted to have and then all of a sudden things fell into place. Was there a particular part of your game that fell into place? Did you kind of feel that before you tee'd off on Thursday last year?

LINN GRANT: I think it was a mix of feeling like the weeks prior sort of there has been different parts of my game feeling good. So like one week it was putting. One week it was chipping. One week drives, whatever. But they never really came together.

I think last year I was a little hard on myself in like how my performance over the year was, just thinking that I just see myself doing better than what I had been.

When I got here I was just like, you know what? It doesn't matter. Like I just had to like think about something else, and I remember going out and playing and all I thought about all week was just I'm just going to try to do as best I can with this shot.

Instead of thinking like, oh, I need to be top whatever or I need to hit this many fairways or yada, yada. I think that mindset for the week, it was just so nice to finally find that again and play with it. I was so relaxed. I think that was the key for me that week.

Q. It's easy to talk about freeing yourself up and quote-unquote not caring, but when you're a professional, how hard is it to actually put that into play like you did a year ago?

LINN GRANT: I think it's hard because you always judge yourself. Like we always want to be better obviously and we know -- like we all know how good we can play when we play our best.

I think in some, again, really insane way, we think that we should be able to do that every week instead of like I will have weeks that I play really bad, but how can I make them still be kind of decent.

Yeah, and I think it's just that hard balance of like we play so many events so it's really easy to get into like a bad mindset of like, I should be better, I should hit more greens, yada, yada. When I practice I do this really well and I come out here and it's just crap.

Instead of just it is what it is and I'm just going to do my best and that's for today, you know.

Q. So what's your mindset this week?

LINN GRANT: Exactly that: I'm just going to go out and do my best and then I'll leave, regardless of how it works out.

MALLORY KINAHAN: One more to wrap it up.

Q. What makes this week special? A lot of players rave about this tournament and being so young. Is it the weather? Is it the course? Is it the field? Or is it the fact that it's almost the end of the year and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel? For you, what makes this week so special?

LINN GRANT: I think the last is a good point, but I also think it's a great event in terms of like everything is good here; some things are great. You know, having Annika on the team kind of helping to set things up and her view of playing so many tournaments for so many years on the LPGA, kind of to have her insight, I think that does a lot.

And like you said, you can feel that everyone is like oh, we're almost done. Like that's kind of all we talk about when we play. What are you going to do in two weeks? So I think it's a really good kind of last event before the CME, and even though it's a tough course, to me personally it feels quite easy in a sense of like you can -- like it's not a -- you don't have to go out and fight the course.

You can actually play well if you have a good week and just a lot of opportunity out there which is fun. Like just relaxed.

Q. Seems to fit you.

LINN GRANT: Hmm?

Q. Fits your game and fits in the schedule as well. It's a good fit.

LINN GRANT: Yeah.

MALLORY KINAHAN: One last question from Alex. Go ahead.

Q. Hey, Linn, how are you?

LINN GRANT: I'm good, thanks.

Q. Great. I know we talked in the past about your putting. You've obviously been honest about how you wanted to improve your putting in recent years and you have. What is it specifically about these greens that helped you last year get the victory, and what do you look forward to when you get back to a course like this, and specifically these putting surfaces?

LINN GRANT: I think honestly if I look at now my old technique, it would suit my game to play on greens that were faster just because how my setup was. Like the faster they were, the more help I got with actually kind of reaching the hole is an easy way to explain it.

And I think it just suited my putting technique at the minute. I mean, they were really hard, but I think with the changes I made this year I think I'm really happy that they're not as fast and they're actually on a really good pace and that I can be more firm and committed to those putts instead of being on the more scared side of it.

MALLORY KINAHAN: All right, thanks so much for your time, Linn. Appreciate it.

LINN GRANT: Thank you.