Q.  So you had a couple colours on your round, but tell me about the eagle there.

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, so eagle was my second hole of the day.  I don’t even know the total number but it was a 5‑wood that I hit exactly how I wanted to and then ended up eight feet past the hole and rolled it in for, you know, the eagle start.

Q.  Good way to start the round.

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah, so it was nice.

Q.  And the rest of your round, mostly birdies, one bogey on the card, but you got to feel good how you started here?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah, definitely a solid start.  Kind of working off last week in Boca, playing well there.

Q.  You got in Boca, what, 30 minutes before your tee time, if that?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Eight minutes before my tee time.  Yeah, Madison let me know ‑‑ I mean, she had to give it a shot and so she ‑‑ I mean, she basically almost walked halfway to the tee and then realized she couldn’t play.  So yeah, I had like eight minutes before my tee time.

Q.  So that’s called taking advantage of the situation.  So you come in on a roll?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah.

Q.  Feeling well right now?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah.  So I actually got the flu after ‑‑ in Boca on Sunday, I felt really bad and basically felt like ‑‑ really bad when I got home.  So when I flew out I was finally starting to ‑‑ I was on some medication finally, but I got home from Boca, I didn’t touch my clubs until I got to Australia.  Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe I’m a little refreshed, I guess.

Q.  And I was reading Beth Ann’s piece about all the work you put in in the offseason.  That seems to be helping you?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah, for sure.  Me and my team, you know, trainer, coach, PT, we all put together a plan this offseason and I would say it’s paying off so far.

Q.  Is it more of like a physical change to your swing or your body or mentality, or all of the above? 

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Kind of all of the above.  So worked really hard with my trainer this offseason, I got pretty strong in the gym.  And then I changed swing coaches this offseason, so then with him, too, the dynamics of my swing are completely different from what they were and gained a lot of distance from that.  Just consistency with my ball‑striking also.

Q.  You’re always consistent, but those extra yards off the tee help?  

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.

Q.  Did that help out with the eagle there?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah.  You know, usually ‑‑ I mean, last year playing this course I don’t think I sniffed trying to go for that par 5 in two.  Yeah, I had 5‑wood into it this year, so a little bit different. 

Q.  And got lucky with the weather this morning with the wind being down, too?

DANA FINKELSTEIN:  Yeah, yeah.  It didn’t blow nearly ‑‑ I mean, I think it was forecasted like 15 to 20 and I don’t think it’s quite there yet.  Took advantage of some calmer conditions, so yeah.

Q.  This is Australian Amateur champion, Jed Morgan.  Jed, well played today, 66.  I know that professional tournaments are still something you’re learning.  You’ve got to be happy with that.

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, no, I’m very happy.  66s don’t come around very often, so when you shoot one, you’ve got to be very pleased with it, so I’m happy.

Q.  To be fair, though, they’re coming around more often than they used to.

JED MORGAN:  Well, I wouldn’t say that, I’m just playing pretty solid golf at the moment.  Yeah, no, the ball’s just going in, it’s nice.

Q.  That’s a good problem to have, I would imagine.

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, I think so.

Q.  So you had a big confident shot, I’m sure, when you won the Australian Amateur Championship recently.  Is it something you brought down to Victoria with you?

JED MORGAN:  I tried to, yeah.  But I played a couple of the boys ‑‑ I played Jake McLeod and Andrew (indiscernible) for a bit of cash before I came down here and they flogged me, so it came down pretty quick.  They busted me back to reality very quickly, but like I did the same thing as I did in the Oz Amateur and I guess it’s just rolling over.  This is three days hopefully, so hope just keep going.

Q.  I know you’re only joking about that, but like what did they do to you?  Is it something they said you’re not a pro yet, mate?

JED MORGAN:  It’s something when I played Jake, he does get in your head very, very easily, I’m not gonna lie.  So for me to beat him is a big accomplishment, but I haven’t managed to do it very often.  Yeah, it’s just playing with better people and they’re teaching you a few lessons.

Q.  So you started a little bit both ways today, but then you caught fire in the middle of the round?

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, yeah, I was playing good.  My little brother caddied for me and he said I was swinging it pretty good.  I just hit one bad tee shot off nine and then actually made eagle from it ‑‑ off 18, sorry, so I made eagle from it.  Then yeah, just made a putt on my 10th hole and then hit another good approach shot into a par‑5 on the next hole.  Just kept it rolling.  It was nice, it was really nice.

Q.  Have you thought about what’s going to happen the next few days in your head more than anything?

JED MORGAN:  Oh, I mean, there’s a couple of things that are really driving me this week.  I’m not going to tell you them, but like I try not to get too ahead of it.  It’s obviously a little bit of fire that wants to burn there.  You want to achieve that, but like you still have to just hit golf shots.  It’s pretty cliché, but it’s very important that you just hit golf shots.

Q.  You won quite a few tournaments two years ago.  Why are you a better player now?  What’s clicked?

JED MORGAN:  I wouldn’t say anything’s clicked or anything out of the blue’s happened.  Like I started working with ‑‑ I was on and off with a sports psychologist and my mum and my dad sort of have always believed in me more than what I’ve believed in me.  Like, I don’t know what happened honestly.  It got to the first round of match play of Oz Am and I’m like, I just said ‑‑ I just, like I beat my first opponent, I think it was Jack Buchanan, and it just ignited something, a more competitiveness I think and eagerness to beat people.  But like nothing ‑‑ no, nothing special, nothing really out of the blue.  Just like ‑‑ and a couple things have gone my way as well, so I’m not going to deny those things, be grateful for those moments, yeah.

Q.  Any danger you won’t get the cash but if you win someone could share you a haircut?

JED MORGAN:  No, I’ve said why I’m keeping the hair.  I want to become sort of a novelty.

Q.  It’s a novelty.

JED MORGAN:  Someone throws some money at me to shave it for charity, I’d love to do it.  I’d love to raise a lot of money for it, but I’m not doing it until someone throws me the money at it.

Q.  Golf’s supposed to be serious business, you’re laughing.  Is that genuinely part of playing your best?

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, a hundred percent, like without a doubt.  I’m very serious when I want to be.  Like I’ve noticed that lately, I can be very serious and obviously some people would look at that and think like it’s a bit ordinary looking.  But I can’t really do much about it, it’s just like the way I look.  I try to have as much fun as I can because it’s pretty tough sometimes.

Q.  Sounds to me like what you’re describing is growing up.

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, growing up.  That’s what my old man said to me, like I’m becoming a young adult now and transitioning from a good amateur to hopefully one day a good professional.  That’s what I dream to be. 

Then like there’s so many more emotions to it rather than just golf.  Like there’s a lot to it and everyone knows that because they grew up, like when you’re doing something at a high level, when the emotion’s already high and you’re also going through things as a person, like it changes and you caught a bit of crap from people, but it also like shapes you as an individual.

Q.  There’s a whole pool of talented golfers out here, isn’t there?

JED MORGAN:  Yeah, like everyone out here can play golf.  Like there’s 288 exceptional players out there.  It’s the small things, like some things have to go your way and like you’ve also got to be telling yourself like you want to win this thing in my opinion.  Yeah, it’s a big week, it’s pretty cool.

Q.  Will you tell us on Sunday what’s driving you if you get home?

JED MORGAN:  I will, yeah, definitely.

Q.  We’re all cheering for you.

JED MORGAN:  Cheers, mate.  I appreciate that.

MODERATOR:  Haeji, 8 under, tell us how you did that.  There’s a million ways to shoot 65.

HAEJI KANG:  I actually putted really, really nicely.  I have actually been putting quite nicely starting ‑‑ from starting this season, so I was just feeling really confident being on the green, yeah.

Q.  That early first group of the day, we don’t often see the best score of the day in the first group of the day.  You must have got hot right from the start.

HAEJI KANG:  Well, I usually play better when I go off quite early in the morning.  There was not much wind, so I think it was ‑‑ that was one of the keys on this golf course, when there’s no wind, then we just go for the flag and we just roll it in.

Q.  It’s very annoying actually.  Have you been here before?

HAEJI KANG:  Yes, last year.

Q.  How have your performances been?  How did you find it last year and what did you learn then that’s going to help you this year?

HAEJI KANG:  Well, I learned how to play in the wind last year.  I mean, I played in many courses that is windy, but I think this course is especially like really, really super windy, can get really super windy, so like you’ve got to know how to play low shots and learn how to putt in like strong wind, yeah.

Q.  Some of the players call it throw‑the‑yardage‑book‑out golf where the numbers don’t matter, the wind’s so strong, you’ve just got to feel.  Would that be your take on it as well?

HAEJI KANG:  First I’ve got to know the distance and then I can just calculate from there, yeah.

Q.  You grew up in Queensland or you spent some time in Queensland?

HAEJI KANG:  Yes, I actually went to high school Gold Coast for three years, so I played junior golf when I was growing up.

Q.  Won the Queensland Junior Championship twice?

HAEJI KANG:  Yes.  Yeah, I actually won the Australian Junior Champion, too.

Q.  Why did you come here?

HAEJI KANG:  Every time I come here I feel like it’s my second home, so I feel very comfortable being out here and I like to hear all these accents and I feel like I’m home.

Q.  Ask Haotong Li, he has an excellent Australian accent.  Did you move here for golf?

HAEJI KANG:  Yes, yes.

Q.  I want to ask you about the unbelievable near miss you had in the Vic Open a few years ago at Spring Valley.  Can you recount the story for us?

HAEJI KANG:  Well, so on my 72nd hole I had to hole my second shot on a par‑4 to go into the playoff and I actually made it, so I was like ‑‑ so one of the competitors, she was actually drinking in the clubhouse.  She thought she won it, but then we had to play in the playoff.  But then I made a bogey and I lost.

Q.  Waited five minutes, two more drinks, maybe.

HAEJI KANG:  I know.  I should have just played slower and made her drink a little more.

Q.  What do you do from here, at this stage leading in the first round?  We haven’t got all the scores in.  What does it mean for tomorrow and the next three days?

HAEJI KANG:  Well, you can’t really win a tournament on the first day, so I’ll just try to be as calm as possible, like just play like today and feel like it’s my first tournament of the year and just, yeah, be patient.

Q.  So just your putter today, but you had a couple streaks, what, four in a row, four birdies in a row at one point?  Were you putting them in close or were they sizeable putts?

HAEJI KANG:  A couple of them were 20‑footers, a couple were close, but yeah, I think I putted really well in any ranges today, yeah.

KATHIE SHEARER:  You’ve been to Victoria a number of times, you like it here, you like this golf course.  Give us your thoughts on it.

HAOTONG LI:  Yeah, it’s a great course.  Actually, it’s my first time being here, so played here, being here in lovely conditions and nothing can complain.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Tell us a little bit about your Presidents Cup experience.

HAOTONG LI:  It’s a great experience.  Luckily, I make part of the team and everyone’s like going for the same goal, you know.  And we were quite close there and our captains does a great jobs.  The teams always there and just whatever.

KATHIE SHEARER:  That’s exactly what Geoff Ogilvy said when he came in here.  He said that you were all such friends that now you’re still on WhatsApp to one another.  It was different to any other team that he had been on because it was so cohesive, everybody got along, the girls got along, the guys got along and you had a wonderful time there, especially the game of football when it was all over and you went to the practice fairway and everybody played there when the whole event was over.  Do you remember that, you played Aussie rules football?

HAOTONG LI:  Oh, yes, yes, I did.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And he said that even though you had lost, it was a great bonding time between everybody there.

HAOTONG LI:  Sure, sure.  It’s a great week.  You have to enjoy that, especially against the best team in the world.  It’s just a great experience to have there.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Doyou like the tournament with the men and the women playing together?  Have you ever played a tournament like this before?

HAOTONG LI:  I mean, this is my first time, but I think it’s a great idea and to grow the golf games, you know, that more people realize golf can be a little bit different.  It’s going to be an interesting week, but I’m enjoying that so far.

Q.  We remember your final round at Birkdale in 2017, 63 was fantastic.  You played well at the Duty Free Irish Open last year.  Is there something about links golf that is particularly appealing to you and does that mean this week we might expect to see you on the leaderboard?

HAOTONG LI:  Yeah, I think game’s getting there, just little bit pieces need to put it together, need to be sharp little bit.  Especially this course, it’s just very similar, a lot fade shot so you have to hit some ‑‑ keep your ball lower and hit more fairways, you’re going to have birdie chances, yeah.

Q.  You’re a pretty stress‑free character, Haotong, but do you feel any pressure being the top‑rated player in the field this week?

HAOTONG LI:  No.  I’m outside like hundred or something.  What’s the reason?  (Laughs.)

Q.  Seventy‑five.

HAOTONG LI:  Seventy‑five.

Q.  You’re still No. 1 here.  No pressure?

HAOTONG LI:  Why?  What’s the point?  But hopefully I can keep the position, though.

Q.  As Kathie says, you’ve been here a few times now.  How’s that Aussie accent of yours?

HAOTONG LI:  I’m working on it, mate.  How’s that sound?  (Laughs.)  Some others I’m not allowed to say here, but I can say later.

Q.  That’s probably wise.  In all seriousness, we were joking about it with Lucas ‑‑

HAOTONG LI:  No, I’m not joking, I’m serious.

Q.  No, about the coronavirus.  Have you been given any ‑‑ have you been harassed by anyone because of your nationality?  Is it ‑‑

HAOTONG LI:  No, but ‑‑ yeah, it’s fine, but I mean, we’re in a tough situation.  Hope our country can getting better soon and quick as normal, so you’ve got nothing to expect.

Q.  Do you have friends and family in that area of China?

HAOTONG LI:  Yeah, my parents.

Q.  In Wuhan? 

HAOTONG LI:  No, in Shanghai.

Q.  Is everyone okay?

HAOTONG LI:  Yeah.

Q.  What do you have to do well here on this course to contend on Sunday?

HAOTONG LI:  I think I have to hit a lot of good tee shots on this course.  I think it will be the key, especially when in the windy conditions, that course can be some real test there.

Q.  Last one for me.  Lucas spoke about it being difficult to play at home sometimes because you have so much support, particularly for him.  You played many times in China with that pressure.  What is it like ‑‑

HAOTONG LI:  Great, incredible.  Seriously, I felt like everyone’s on your side and everyone’s rooting for you.  Just like, just like play at home, you know. 

So for me, it’s perfect, but even better playing in Australia and seeing Lucas a little bit stressful.

KATHIE SHEARER:  We’ll leave it on that note.  Thank you.

HAOTONG LI:  Thank you.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Well, what a fantastic year.  I mean, your win in Dubai, we were all glued to the TV to see the end of it.  How did it feel and how do you feel?

LUCAS HERBERT:  It was pretty cool.  I mean, I’ve obviously finished top 10 a few times and like that’s an awesome feeling and an awesome rush to like get in the mix of a tournament, but to actually win it was ‑‑ yeah, it was just a different feel.

It’s so hard to even explain what it kind of felt like.  I guess it’s just one of those ones that you want to go and experience again.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And you will, no doubt.

LUCAS HERBERT:  I hope so.

KATHIE SHEARER:  We certainly hope so, too.  You’ve been out on this golf course, you’ve had a look around.  How do you feel about it and what shape it your game in?

LUCAS HERBERT:  Yeah, my game’s good.  I played good this morning, so it’s just kind of trying to shake off a bit of jet lag from the travel in Saudi Arabia last week.  The course is good.  I’ve been here enough times to sort of know what’s going on, you know, where they like to put all the pins and how it kind of plays.  You get pretty much any wind direction out there, so having like a lot of experience is going to be really helpful if the weather sort of behaves or it doesn’t on the weekend.  Yeah, it’s a good week, I feel pretty confident.

KATHIE SHEARER:  One of the guys was walking with you and he said that you birdied six of the first seven or seven of the first eight and you were playing fabulously this morning.

LUCAS HERBERT:  Yeah, as a pro‑am team we had 49 under and still lost.  Yeah, that was a pretty good morning.

Q.  Do you know what you shot?  You were 6 under when I saw you.

LUCAS HERBERT:  Well, I picked up on seven from about 15 feet because obviously par’s your friend.  So Dom (Azzopardi) doesn’t give me that putt and I think I shot 10 (under) if he gives me a bogey there, 10 I’m going to say.  Problem is I’ll probably think about that tomorrow morning and then be upset with whatever I shoot tomorrow because it’s going to be pretty hard to replicate that again.

Q.  Tell us how you turned it around, because at the end of last year you were actually ‑‑ you said that you had been talking about whether you wanted to go back, which is pretty heavy.  You were obviously in a bad state at one point last year.  How has it changed?

LUCAS HERBERT:  Yeah, I think it was a bit of a combination of like stuff that I did and probably good and bad misfortune in a way.

Obviously, just within my team we had some pretty in‑depth conversations and meetings last year that we sorted a lot of stuff out and got a lot of stuff out that needed to be said.  We obviously had some success and then it wasn’t kind of going the way we wanted to early last year, just all the tension that can create and the friction that can create at times.  We just ‑‑ we spoke about everything we needed to do there and everyone got more on the same page.

And then also I came home just after France and was playing with some friends back home and did a ligament in my hand, basically had to take six weeks off.  I think that was a bit different from just taking six weeks off because you want to, because like I didn’t get a choice.  So yeah, six weeks at home doing nothing, trying to find things to do with my life.  All my friends want to catch up.  “Oh, do you want to go play golf?”  I can’t.  I think that was enough to kind of, when I did get back to play, I actually really want to play now. 

So yeah, like the last few weeks has been great, I’ve actually really enjoyed going out and grinding to get the best out of myself both before the tournament and during the tournament. 

And then even like after the win, I think 12 months ago I probably would have just gone home to celebrate, but I was really keen on playing the next week in Saudi Arabia.  So yeah, I think things have changed quite a lot.  It’s good to be back enjoying the game.

Q.  What was the second shot (inaudible) was that the worst shot you ever hit in your life?  What’s the difference between Lucas Herbert 2019 and Lucas Herbert 2017 and ’18 when you had (Inaudible)?  What’s the difference, what changes?

LUCAS HERBERT:  To answer the first one, it’s a pretty high contender for the worst shot of my life.  Don’t want to try to rack my brain to try to think of any worse than that, to be honest.

Yeah, look, I think a win’s going to change quite a lot because it always felt like I was good but wasn’t good enough to win, and it’s not until you actually do that that you actually prove to yourself that you are good enough to win.

So yeah, I felt ‑‑ I definitely felt different about my game the last two weeks.  It feels like there’s something proven there that I actually am good enough.  Like within myself, not to anyone else around me, but it’s more win myself like okay, yeah, I am good enough to win, especially given that I was not handed that at all.  I had to go and earn that win.  It wasn’t like I won in a playoff where the other guy hit three in the water and it was shaking hands after two shots.  So, like that’s a big thing, I think.

And then, I don’t know, it’s one of those things.  I’m 24 now, maybe a little bit more mature.  I don’t know that that’s a really big problem with myself because it wasn’t hard to be more mature than 22‑year‑old Lucas, but a couple extra years under my belt, a few more finishes, a bit longer out on the road of seeing what’s going on and learning about myself as well.  I think that’s probably where I’m different.  And hopefully we’re sitting here in two years time having the same conversation and going, yeah, I’m way better than that 24‑year‑old Lucas as well.

Q.  Is it overstating the case to say a win can be career changing, life changing?  Could it be that big a deal?

LUCAS HERBERT:  I mean, it already is regardless of how I play from now on.  That trophy’s got some serious names on it and like mine’s right there, they’re never going to rub that off.

It’s life changing regardless of what happens now, but I think for sure the confidence that I carry forward, the knowledge of that gives me that like, yeah, the shots under pressure that I need to hit, like yeah, I can hit them.  Even if I do hit bad shots like that 3‑wood in the playoff hole, I can come back from that.  The confidence and knowledge I can take from that, like yeah, that’s definitely going ‑‑ well, hopefully it changes my career, like you said, for the better quite a bit.

Q.  What would it mean if you were to win this in your home state?  I presume you’ve got some family around?  Who is around this week?

LUCAS HERBERT:  Yeah, plenty of family and friends.  Yeah, too many to name names.

Yeah, like the Vic Open, I mean, I think it was the second tournament, second professional tournament I ever played.  It’s obviously my state home open, so I mean, yeah, to win at home would be something different from winning overseas with everyone else around. 

Yeah, it would be pretty cool to win this week, but it’s one of those things like it actually, it is quite difficult to come home and play, and I think a lot of players feel that when they go and play back at home.  You know, they play a worldwide schedule.  To go and play in their home country can be quite tough because there is obviously quite a lot more expectation, quite a lot more pressure on you to play well.  You’re expected to play a lot better. 

So the challenge for me this week is just going to be try and make sure to keep a level head and not get ahead of myself, not expect too much of myself.  The week in Dubai we were pretty much trying to finish in the top 40, so there’s no reason to change that.  I want to have a nice solid week, do all the things that I need to do and kind of let the rest take care of itself.

Q.  Just going to this week after the desert swing, the fact that you are teeing it up rather than taking time off to celebrate, is that something that you’re looking forward to this week or are you here with a more competitive mindset knowing what the feeling of winning is like and wanting to get over the line again this week?

LUCAS HERBERT:  I don’t turn up to any tournament just there to kind of enjoy or celebrate at all.  You want to win every event you tee it up in.  Yeah, I’m definitely not here this week for a bit of a party with my friends.

And, you know, like I’ve got next week off and then I’m playing two in a row and then I’ve got a pretty nice stretch off.  I know in the back of my mind I’ve got some celebrating to do coming up, but right now it’s business time and we’re going to go and do the things I need to do to play well.

Q.  You and I have had discussions about the distance debate at times.  (Inaudible.)  USGA suggested they’re going to do something about distance.  Do you have any initial thoughts about that or is it something that you still remain interested in?  (Inaudible.)

LUCAS HERBERT:  I actually have, me and Clayts.  Twitter’s a hard one as well because we’ve got 250 characters to try and explain ideas that are obviously a lot more complex than that.

Yeah, look, it’s a different one ‑‑ everyone’s got a different idea of what you’re going to do to try and limit it.  I mean, I don’t know.  As far as the current product goes, I don’t know how you’re really going to make it much better.  It’s at a point now where you can’t be getting 10‑yard extra out of a driver, they’re all ‑‑ if they’re going to make a change at all, if they’re going to make it any better, it’s one or two yards max.  So from here I’m not really sure ‑‑ like I think we’re kind of at the limit now.

But, I mean, I get the whole point and the argument of the fact that golf courses can’t keep building more tees back further and further, and obviously it can’t help the amount of golf courses that are shutting down with the fact that they’ve got to build more tees and irrigate more tees and grow more rough and everything like that.

Yeah, everyone’s got different ideas on it.  I’m not against it if they want to bring the distance back.  I guess turn it back into something, it’s more of a ‑‑ the skill of making a centre strike and catching a ball flush is more important than just how hard you can swing it.  I don’t think anyone is going to be against that because that tests the pure skill of golf. 

Obviously what goes with that, with the great courses where it’s about management, it’s about working out where you’re going to leave your next shot, where you’re going to leave your ball in three shots’ time.  I guess in Dubai, like that was a proper test of golf.  Obviously the rough was up and the greens were quite firm and because of that you really have to think about how you were ‑‑ like on the tee, where did you want to leave your par putt because every shot from there is then planned to try and make it easy for yourself.

Back to your question, it will be interesting to see where it all goes.  Personally, I don’t have any issues if they want to try and change it and try and improve it.

Q.  Just in terms of your own game, we know you’re a long hitter.  What other aspects of your game perhaps have changed (inaudible)?  I suspect some of the things you talked about there is what’s changed about your own game to go from contender to winner?

LUCAS HERBERT:  Yeah, I mean, I’ve always putted it pretty well, that’s definitely a strength.  Everyone keeps telling me I’m long, but really I’m playing with a lot of guys that are quite a lot longer than me.  I guess driving overall, like I’m long and reasonably straight, so that’s probably where it plays into more of an advantage for me.

Yeah, like iron play is something that I’ve definitely improved on.  Obviously the wedge play with that second or, what is it, fourth shot in that playoff hole, three months ago I don’t know that I would have been able to hit that shot.  So those are aspects we’ve definitely tried to work on and we have seen some improvements over the last few months.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Terrific.  Thank you for coming in.  

KATHIE SHEARER:  Last year was a different year for you, just not so many events, very few events.  Did you just try and cherry pick the ones that you wanted to go to?

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah, that’s sort of been the case for the last two years.  I played nine events in ’18 and nine last year, just cutting back my schedule so I can spend more type in Australia.  It was really the main ‑‑ and I just didn’t have the heart to put in the full commitment that was needed and I felt like I was missing out on life by playing a full schedule.  So it’s been a good mix of the both.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And your golf course design with Ross Perrett now is taking up much more of your time and keeping you in Australia more.

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah, yeah.  Hopefully it will take us all over the world, but yeah, so far it’s given me a little bit to do when I’ve been home.  You know, we won the job at Indooroopilly to redesign 36 holes there, so we’ll be there for quite a few years.  It’s been really exciting.  I’ve known Ross for many years, so it’s great to partner up with him, and hopefully it’s the first job of many.

KATHIE SHEARER:  What about your game, what kind of shape is your game in at the moment?

KARRIE WEBB:  It will depend on what the pencil wants to do on the scorecard tomorrow.  It’s not too bad playing casually, but I haven’t played a tournament since August, so it’s completely different playing with your mates or even today versus when it really counts.  It’s a bit of an unknown, but it doesn’t feel too bad for not having done as much as I normally would have coming in.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And the topic for everybody that we’re speaking to seems to be the success of the men playing with the women.  We had Stacy Lewis just in before and she said that she had a practice round with three fellas out there and really enjoyed it and they seemed to enjoy it as well.  A different kind of golf, a different way of playing the holes.  How do you feel about this event with the men’s and women’s together?

KARRIE WEBB:  I think it’s fantastic.  We don’t cross paths ever until this tournament.  What I loved is this event’s been around for many years, but last year with the co‑sanctioning, the LPGA and the men’s European Tour, for whatever reason it got the attention of the world.  Now, you know, it’s the hot topic as far as a concept for a golf tournament.  Annika and Henrik are doing one in Sweden.  There’s a few popping up around the place. 

I think going forward it could be a great model for companies that want to make sure that their money’s spent equally in sport.  You can say that automatically if you have a men’s and women’s event for the same purse.  You don’t have to justify that to your board or to your investors, you’re equally helping out men’s and women’s sport in one event.

Q.  A couple years ago at the Australian Women’s Open you spoke at length about creating pathways for young women to have legitimate careers in golf and make enough money to retire.  Is the importance of this event in some ways perhaps more symbolic that it is possible to do and that becomes a reality quicker?

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah, I think so.  I think obviously having two events in Australia co‑sanctioned by the LPGA just gets young girls, we’re on TV that little bit more.  We’re on TV when we’re playing overseas, but at different times of the day.  Like this is afternoon sport Saturday, Sunday.

You know, it’s good that we have that.  I think with this model with the Vic Open, you know, it would be great to see it replicated in all the state opens and have five, six, seven events like this around the country for guys and girls.  The pathway would be not that your choice is ‑‑ especially for girls, there’s a little bit of money here for the guys, but there’s not really that much for the girls.  You know if you’re turning pro, you’re going overseas.  It would be nice to know that you can have some experience playing professional golf at home before taking that jump overseas. 

So if we could create that sort of pathway here in Australia so that the guys and girls have some tournament experience before they go overseas, I think it makes that next step or that jump in level that much more attainable than I just played the Australian Amateur and now I’m going to LPGA Q‑School.  That’s a huge step, a big jump forward in level of play.  To be able to have that stepping stone would be huge for the pathway of golf in Australia.  And they would be on TV more often, so more and more people will see golf and want to pick up golf.  Kids will want to play, so it’s a win‑win.

Q.  We’ve seen in some other sports (inaudible) soccer and cricket are really forging ahead.  Is there a danger of golf being left behind if you don’t make the most of this opportunity?

KARRIE WEBB:  Definitely, definitely.  You know, I was a sports mad kid, but all my sports heroes were men because there was no women on TV.  And one of my aspirations if I wasn’t a professional golfer was to play cricket for Australia and that wasn’t ‑‑ I knew that even though women’s golf wasn’t a visible thing, I knew it existed, where women playing cricket for Australia was not ‑‑ that wasn’t visible at all when I was growing up.

So I think of myself as a 10‑, 11‑year‑old girl if I was watching TV now, would I have gone golf, you know.  There’s so many more options.  So that’s why golf has to create these pathways and create more visibility, so that we do keep up with these other sports that honestly have more income to allow these pathways for the girls.  But yeah, we’ve got to step up our game as well.

Q.  Karrie, you’ve had some interesting involvement in the Vision 2025 efforts to get more girls playing.  Do you sense any change in momentum in terms of that or is it too slow?

KARRIE WEBB:  I mean, obviously it’s Vision 2025 for a reason, it’s a long‑term plan.  I think what’s fantastic, though, is we have Hannah and Minjee flying the flag, and obviously Su Oh, plenty of the girls, but Hannah and Minjee winning, Hannah winning a major.  Again, that visibility is great.  I think with the grassroots stuff that’s being done, I mean, they had a junior clinic here yesterday and there was a ton of girls out here.  That’s just fantastic to see.

You know, the more that ‑‑ the more events that we have like that that we go into communities and get the kids out just to get a golf club in their hand and if they have a great experience that might bring them back.

Q.  I don’t know exactly the question I want to ask, but can you describe the feeling of having had people go through the Karrie Webb Series and when (inaudible) scholarship, to see them win a major championship?  Is that just something you could never have dreamt of?

KARRIE WEBB:  I don’t know if I ‑‑ I think the way it happened, I probably never would have dreamt of.  Just last year’s experience was kind of the ultimate for the Karrie Webb Series. 

So we rented a house like we always do with extra bedrooms, so I asked Hannah and Su (Oh) if they wanted to stay, so we had Hannah and Su and Becky Kay and Grace Kim, who were the scholarship winners last year in the house, and Stacey Peters was there as well, who is a past scholarship winner as well.

For that to happen and then Hannah to lead wire to wire and win was just an incredible experience.  Probably the worst job I’ve ever done of mentoring was I probably celebrated like I won and probably wasn’t the best mentor that night, but I did show them how to celebrate the right way.

Q.  Is your heart still beating out of your chest when you think back to that moment?

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah, I think I understand what my family and friends went through watching me because even though you’re out there and you’re nervous, you’re in control and you know how you feel. 

So I was nervous for Hannah just because I wasn’t in control, but she impressed me so greatly because she looked like she had been there a hundred times.  You know, she never ‑‑ her pace, the way she walked never changed.  She had a tough period there through the middle of the round and you wouldn’t ‑‑ just by looking at her body language, you would never have known that.  You can’t teach someone that, that’s just very special talent and special mental strength. 

And then I sat in on her press conference.  I’ve always thought that Hannah understood the game really well, but her press conference just confirmed that to me because she had everything ‑‑ like what she was telling herself was everything she should have been telling herself. 

The fact that she did that to win her first tournament and it was a major, you know, I don’t think she understands exactly that gift that she has, and I don’t want it to be taught to her.  I think that’s going to carry her on to many wins without her playing her best golf.  And even that week she probably said that there was periods that weren’t that impressive.  I played a practice round with her and she was struggling a little bit, but champions can always win not with their A‑game.  Most of the time you’re not winning when you’re at your best, but you just know how to manage your game when you’re not at your best.

Q.  (Question regarding her contribution to golf.) 

KARRIE WEBB:  Well, I think my contribution to ‑‑ my give‑back to golf, this is greater than what I actually personally achieved because I think when I’m doing that, I’m not ‑‑ that isn’t about giving back to golf, that’s taking from golf and doing something that I personally set out to do.

But my give‑back for what golf has given me has been as rewarding, if not more rewarding.

Q.  Now you’re in the golf course design business and the distance report has come out today?  Have you seen much of that?  Do you have any thoughts about distance in the game and whether it’s a problem we need to do something about?

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah.  We don’t ‑‑ on the LPGA, I don’t know if it’s ever explained well enough, but the technologies designed for those guys, it’s not designed for even us.  We get a little bit of benefit out of it, but it’s designed for guys that have swing speeds over 115 miles an hour and anyone that’s 120, 125 miles an hour, they’re the ones that can hit it 30 yards further with a certain diver or a certain golf ball. 

For the rest of us, we might find small incremental changes, but overall I think it does because in golf course design, like Indooroopilly, we’re redesigning that golf course.  They’re losing some land because they’re selling it off for development, so it’s not going to be an overly long golf course, if they were to play the Queensland Open there or the Australian Amateur there or whatever.  So the challenge is then you don’t want to trick it up too much but you need to make it ‑‑ it has to have a defence.  I think Royal Melbourne proved beautifully that that was under 7,000 yards and, you know, it wasn’t a birdie‑fest out there and it wasn’t stupid, like ridiculously hard and fast greens like I’ve seen there.  It was quite playable and they still struggled a little bit.

But with the distance, I think they do need to ‑‑ it can’t keep going, it has ‑‑ there has to be a limit at some point because golf’s going to run out of room.  We can’t build bigger and longer golf courses.  And the best ones ‑‑ the great thing for women is that these great old golf courses in the States that never wanted us to play on them now can’t host a men’s event because they’re too short and now they actually want us to come and play their golf course.  So for us, we’ve gotten the chance to play these great golf courses now because they’re too short for the guys, they can never hold a major championship again.

Q.  The collaboration between the LET and the LPGA, just your take on that and the state of women’s golf generally internationally?

KARRIE WEBB:  Yeah, I’m really glad the LET took that offer up.  It’s not great for the health of the LPGA for the LET to go down the tubes.  You know, some of our best players have started on the LET, I started on the LET.  You know, again, it’s a great pathway to playing on the best tour in the world.  And again, if that goes away, European girls will go and play football or another sport because they don’t see it.  So that was the best thing.

And obviously it’s been proven to be a good joint venture because with the R&A and the European Tour also coming in and helping, they’ve got quite a healthy schedule.  They’re not playing for tons of money, but it’s better than playing for nothing and no events.

So for that quick a turnaround, I mean, it’s impressive that that’s happened so quickly, but I think it’s only going to strengthen the women’s game and diversify who are the top players in the world.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Thank you, thank you for a great interview and thanks for giving us a lot to think about.

KARRIE WEBB:  Thanks, Kathie.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Stacy, it’s been quite a year or quite a time since you had your little girl and now I hear that you’re fighting fit and ready to go.  You managed to go back to the tour at end of 2019.

STACY LEWIS:  Yeah.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And now you’re back on tour full time or as long as motherhood takes you?

STACY LEWIS:  Yeah.  Last ‑‑ the whole ‑‑ I guess really the last 15 months has been pretty crazy, just having the baby and then trying to get back into it, get my body in shape.  Then she’s travelling with me, so last year was a challenge.  Then I got hurt at the end of last year and wasn’t really able to finish out the year the way I wanted. 

So that’s a lot of the reason why I’m here.  Obviously I’m excited about this event, but I just ‑‑ I feel like I played two tournaments since September, so I need to play some golf and come down here to some good weather and some great golf courses.  I haven’t been to Australia I think in five years, so fun to be back.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And what did you think of the golf course today?  How did you play?

STACY LEWIS:  The golf course is awesome.  I love how different it plays every day just depending on the wind.  I played a few holes on Monday and it was impossibly hard, and today was a little ‑‑ or yesterday a little less wind, today even a little less wind.  I like this style of golf.  You can be so creative and hit all kind of shots around the greens and just a lot of fun.

Q.  (Inaudible) involved in the LPGA Tour seeing the rebirth over the years.  This event, like to get your thoughts on that.  Is that part of the motivation for coming down here?  

STACY LEWIS:  Yeah, I think what we’re doing this week is really important.  I think ‑‑ I hope this tournament sends a message across the world to ‘let’s do more events like this’.  There’s obviously a lot of challenges with it.  You have to have two golf courses and the facilities and all that kind of stuff, but it’s really ‑‑ I mean, I’ve had a lot of fun this week so far.  I played a practice round with three guys yesterday and just doing it a little different than I normally do it. 

But I think we need more events like this and we need ‑‑ obviously we’ve got some of the top females here, but we need more of the top guys here to step up and say, you know, this is important.  It just sends such a great message for supporting men’s and women’s golf.  One of the guys I played with yesterday talked about how us coming on board has elevated their purse as well.  So I think it’s a win‑win for both tours.

Q.  Who did you play with yesterday?

STACY LEWIS:  I knew you were going to ask me that.

Q.  (No microphone.)

STACY LEWIS:  No, it’s just chatting up golf.  It’s nothing crazy.  I like playing with guys because they’re so creative and they see different shots and they hit different shots.  I think there’s five or six holes there where we’re playing from the same tees and it’s a completely different strategy, what they’re doing versus what we’re doing, but then at the end we’re making the same score. 

So I just think it should be fun to watch.  Hopefully we get a lot of people out here to watch and just to see the different ways you can play the game.  I don’t know, I really enjoyed it so far this week.  I really hope ‑‑ I think there’s talk of another one maybe in Sweden happening, but maybe it’s something we can do in the States.  I think that would send even a bigger message.

Q.  Do you play much golf with the guys at home?

STACY LEWIS:  No, not hardly at all.  The men’s PGA TOUR, we’re on opposite sides of the country, opposite sides of the globe.  You’ll see a few of the guys ‑‑ I lived in Florida for a while so you would see some of the guys there, but we haven’t had a team event with the guys in a long time.  I think ‑‑ I mean, I think it’s a win‑win for both sides if we can get something like that.

Q.  What’s your impression of what the guys think about playing alongside the women?

STACY LEWIS:  I don’t know.  The guys I played with yesterday were super supportive of it.  I could tell when I kind of walked up there they were like, “She’s going to play with us?”  But you just have fun with it.  I just think, I don’t know, hopefully maybe they learned a little bit playing with me, and they made a comment about how straight I drove it.  They were joking, they’re like, “Does golf get really boring for you,” things like that.  It’s just the different styles of golf that they don’t get to see either.  I think most of the guys here have really embraced it.  Like I said, we need more ‑‑ we need top players.  I know Geoff Ogilvy’s here and we need some top players to really step up and support this, especially if they have little girls, you know?  Let’s give this opportunity to your daughter.  That’s a lot of what motivates me now.

Q.  And your daughter, how has that changed things for you in terms of playing professional golf and traveling?  Is it difficult?

STACY LEWIS:  It’s very hard.  Everybody asks me what it’s like, I say it’s hard.  I think it’s two‑and‑a‑half full‑time jobs.  Raising a kid is probably a full‑time job in itself, then I’m taking her on the road with me.  I just ‑‑ I miss her when I’m on the golf course, so when I get done, I want to do dinner with her, I want to do the bath with her and do the little things like that because she’s growing up so fast. 

But it just changes your perspective on what you do.  Golf is gone as soon as I leave.  I mean, that is my last concern at night is thinking about my golf score that day.  Just helps put things in perspective of what’s important and kind of motivated me with my things off the golf course, kind of what I’m doing of trying to give more opportunities to women and to little girls.  I want things to be better for my daughter and I don’t want her to have to answer the same questions that we’re talking about today.

Q.  Who did you play with yesterday?

STACY LEWIS:  I knew you were going to ask me that.

Q.  The distance report from the USGA and R&A came out today. Have you seen anything on it and do you have thoughts in particular on this issue given that women aren’t often asked about this? 

STACY LEWIS:  I definitely think you’ve seen a difference in the last four, five years in distance on our tour.  I mean, it’s crazy how far ‑‑ I mean, how far some of these girls hit it.

I think, my perspective is the golf balls have gotten so much better that your misses don’t go offline as much, which allows you to swing harder at it and it goes straighter.  So the golf balls have helped the distance part and it’s helped just the freedom of being able to swing as hard as you want. 

And then the clubs obviously, that’s the biggest factor.  You know, I just ‑‑ the game has changed so much.  It’s literally go up there and hit it as hard as you can because your misses are going to be better that way.  I mean, I think on our side we don’t talk about it as much, but I do think something needs to be done.  Whether it’s a golf ball issue or a club or maybe a combination of the both, I do think something needs to be done because golf courses are going to become irrelevant here pretty soon.

Q.  Is the gap between the longest and shortest in women’s golf bigger than the gap between the longest and shortest in men’s golf?  

STACY LEWIS:  I’ve seen ‑‑ I’ve seen more players maybe that don’t hit it as far not being able to contend as much on our tour.  I just think distance is such an advantage.  I mean, if you can carry it 250 on the women’s side, huge advantage.  You’re carrying bunkers, you’re reaching par 5s.  Distance is such a big advantage. 

But you go to a golf course like this, distance is taken out.  Some of it is golf course design.  Do we make golf courses trickier to take away that problem?  I mean, I don’t know what the answer is, but I do think on the equipment side something does need to be ‑‑ needs to happen.

Q.  Who did you play with yesterday?

STACY LEWIS:  Dave ‑‑ they’re going to kill me.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Tom, Dick and Harry.  That will do you.

STACY LEWIS:  I know one was Dave.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Dave, Dick and Harry.

STACY LEWIS:  There you go.

Q.  Last one.  The change of perspective you talked about after having a child, has it sort of helped or hindered in terms of competitive golf?

STACY LEWIS:  Probably hurts a little bit, but I don’t think you think about that at all.  She’s the greatest little thing in the world.  I wouldn’t ‑‑ it was so hard leaving just to come here to play, but I wanted to play, I’m excited to play.  But it definitely hurts in your preparation and your time and the amount of time and your energy that you put into it, but it’s worth it.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Just a quick word about the Solheim this year, that you had an injury and you ended up almost being sort of a vice captain.

STACY LEWIS:  Yes, yes.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Did you enjoy it?

STACY LEWIS:  I did, I had a blast at Solheim.  I mean, I know I was hurt and in pain and all that and I didn’t get to play, but it was so much fun to be behind the scenes.  Juli (Inkster) was asking me questions all week.  I got an earpiece and so I got to hear everything that was going on. 

I’ll be a captain at some point, so it was nice to kind of learn of what needs to be done behind the scenes.  It was just such an amazing day for women’s golf.  To watch that all unfold and to come down basically to one putt, it was an amazing week.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Great.  Any more questions, ladies and gentlemen?  Thank you so much for coming.

STACY LEWIS:  Thank you.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Geoff, thank you for coming in this afternoon.  It’s been a year since I sat beside you here and what a year it’s been.  You came off the U.S. Tour, you spoke of it last time, that you had a complete change of lifestyle.  In between you’ve been sort of co‑captain of the Presidents Cup. 

Can you tell us just something about the year, how life has changed for you since you were back at 13th Beach?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Yeah, it’s been good.  Didn’t play much golf in the last 12 months really.  Played New Zealand after here, that was about it until Sydney, I think. 

It’s been good settling the family back in Australia and getting back into Melbourne lifestyle and getting the kids all settled and doing the school drop‑offs and pickups and drinking good coffee and playing in the Sandbelt and watching St. Kilda try their best. 

Yeah, it’s been a nice period.  I’ve missed it a little bit.  I didn’t watch any golf until later in the year and then it kind of started piquing my interest.  Obviously the Presidents Cup was a great thing, kind of watching the boys as they jostled for the team.  We had a great text going around.  It was the captain’s group, me and Ernie and Trevor and Weirsy and KJ, who didn’t participate too much in the texting, and the players, a group with them.  That was kind of fun as they were getting revved up and stuff for the Presidents Cup. 

That was kind of the highlight of the year, that was a brilliant tournament that nearly went our way.  It didn’t even matter in the end.  I mean, it would probably be better for the event if we had won, but it was a massive success and we all had a really good time, and the boys are constantly on the text still every day.  Three or four of them have won since.  Obviously guys bounce out of that tournament with a lot of confidence and buoyancy.  Everyone’s already revved up for Charlotte next time, so there’s been a few meetings already with guys about stuff for next time that Ernie suggested.  Yeah, so that’s been good.

Back here and play here, I’m going to play New Zealand again and I’m going to try to play a few more.  Winged Foot this year at the U.S. Open, so I’m going to try and make my way into that if I can find a way in the tournament.  Play a few more tournaments, you know.  Get out of the city a little bit more.  Try to have my cake and eat it, too.  Play a little bit of golf and live in Melbourne, all after that, it’s been great.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Howis your golf game coming into this?

GEOFF OGILVY:  It feels pretty good.  I’m hitting the ball well.  It’s like riding a bike in some ways, but it’s also tournament, not fitness as in fitness but mental.  Kind of tournament golf is different from golf.  You don’t forget how to do it, but you’ve got to polish the skill a little bit.  I haven’t really been polishing it, so hopefully I feel like I’m playing well, but I didn’t score very well at the Australian Open.  I like how I hit the ball now way more than even five years ago when I was playing well.  I like my ball‑striking better than I did before.  Short game sharpens up the more you play and that’s coming around.  If I can make a few putts, good things will happen.  It feels all right.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Will you be involved in the Presidents Cup in Charlotte?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Hopefully.  We didn’t like have one of those kind of blood brother handshakes or anything, but we all kind of decided that it was a good crew that we had. 

Everybody’s trying to convince Ernie to come back and he’s taking a bit of convincing.  Whether he’s captain or not, it will probably come out of the guys who were there and he’ll be involved anyway, Ernie. 

No, it was a great group of guys.  The boys really responded to it and the senior players are becoming very senior.  Scottie’s played like a hundred Presidents Cups now.  What’s he on, nine, and you would think he’s a pretty good chance to play 10.  He’s almost a captain now, too, because he’s played so many.  Louis’ on about his fifth or sixth now and Leish is going to be up to about four next time.  We’ve got a lot of experience in the players and the captains. 

It will certainly be ‑‑ kind of captaincy and the leadership of the team will be a very similar group.  Who is the No. 1 guy, I don’t know, but yeah, it’s exciting.  Usually everyone talks about it the next day and then doesn’t talk about it for the next 18 months until the team starts shaping up, but everyone, as I said, I’m getting WhatsApp every day from the guys about it.  If Ernie did anything, leave a legacy of really uniting the spirit of our team, you know, it was really impressive.  And not surprising because he’s one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met, loves winning, really believes in kind of team golf in the southern hemisphere, if you like, plus a few others taking on the Americans, so he really did a good job there.

Q.  Is he going to get in trouble with what he said about the PGA TOUR in his closing speech at the Presidents Cup?

GEOFF OGILVY:  About having a bit more power on our side?  Control?  No, they listened, I think.

Q.  Properly listened?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Well, I don’t know, but they listened.  There’s been a few meetings I know already about it.  And it’s fair enough.  I don’t even know really what he was talking about because he was the one on the inside the whole time, but it certainly ‑‑ we’ve always just kind of been told this is the way it is, these are the clothes you wear, this is how we’re setting up the course. 

He just felt like the Ryder Cup benefited from each side having a bit more say in how it went, especially when it was a home game for each side.  And I felt like he thought it was to continue the team spirit, to really build that bond, kind of the international group, that a bit more control would be a good thing.  So I don’t know how that will end up, but they certainly listened, I think.  He’s not in trouble, he’s definitely not in trouble.

Q.  On the Presidents Cup, was a close call almost perhaps a better result in some ways, to come close and not get over the line, the fire remains in the belly in the next year ahead of the next one?

GEOFF OGILVY:  You can argue it both ways.  I think a close win would have been better than a close loss.

Q.  The Europeans, when they first came close in America, that seemed to be the moment that spurred everything beyond that.

GEOFF OGILVY:  Yeah, like certainly the close ones ‑‑ New York was a bit of an aberration, I think, because it was super close.  I mean, we were one‑putting the last hole from ‑‑ one missed putt from us and one made putt from them, Chris Kirk and Lahiri, from winning.  They all came back from that really excited and pumped up, and everyone was really flat up for Liberty National because we just got annihilated by a better team.

Certainly any time it’s close I think the event gets better regardless of the result, I think.  I think a close win would have been better, but as I had, it wasn’t ‑‑ none of us took it as a negative.  We were all pretty gutted there for like the last hour of play as it slipped from our fingers, but by the time we were playing kick on the range with our footies we were all pretty over it and we just realized how good a week it was.  Certainly a good springboard for next time, I think.  And Charlotte’s a great one for us because we’ve all played the course so much.  It’s less of a home game for them because everyone who plays on the Tour has been playing there every year for 15 years.

And there’s a lot of players have connections in Charlotte for some reason.  It’s one of those towns where a lot of guys are starting to live, international guys are sort of going in and out.  I think we’ll ‑‑ of all the places in America to play, that will be one of the better ones for us in Charlotte.

Q.  Having had a bit of a ‑‑ I know you’ve been doing other things than what I’m about to ask you, but how do you see Australian golf in light of the Presidents Cup, the politics of it?  Can you see something that you hadn’t seen from outside previously?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Inside golf in general?

Q.  Yeah, in the governance of it, where it should go.

GEOFF OGILVY:  Trying to kick a little hornet’s nest? 

The top end, we’ve done well.  Like we’ve got those four or five guys that are really ‑‑ I mean, Cam’s really kicked on the last couple years, Leish has become a truly world‑class, well‑respected player wherever he goes.  Scotty is Scotty.  Jase when he’s fit, he’s obviously amazing.

It seems like a gap to the next group.  If you just talk about professional golfers, it seems like a bit of a gap.  Sometimes you just have talent gaps.  I feel like we’ve got the talent, maybe it just hasn’t worked out. 

The PGA TOUR’s getting really, really competitive and it’s always been hard to get on and hard to do well, but it’s harder and harder and harder.

We are trying to beat Americans on their own turf.  If the PGA TOUR was Australia, we would be like them, you know, because it would be much easier to play 30 tournaments in your own country than across the other side of the world, a whole new culture, away from your friends and family. 

I don’t know, as far as the governance, I don’t know.  I think professional golf tournaments ‑‑ this is an outlier, this is really going well.  This is a great tournament and this was the Victorian Golf Association, Victorian government like really seeing an opportunity to create a great event and a great little kind of community outside Melbourne and have the guys and the girls in the same tournament. 

This is the leader of Australian golf tournaments at the moment, it seems like.  It would be great to see The Open and the PGA and something like the Masters come back.  Development tour, like to see that second tier like kind of progress and have 10 or 20 tournaments for our guys to play so they would have an option here instead of having to go somewhere else.  But I feel like there’s some stuff happening behind the scenes that’s hopefully going to help that sort of stuff happen.

Q.  Like a Sunshine Tour?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Like a ‑‑ what’s a Sunshine Tour?  Like South Africa? 

Golf is a very popular sport and everybody loves it and everybody wants to play, it seems like.  I feel like we could have 10 or 15 events during the year that would do all right if we just kind of all got our ducks in a row.  People like the product, we just have to show it to them a little bit.

And maybe too many different parties are involved and everybody wants to pull in different directions and stuff, but I feel like there’s good things happening.  I think everyone seems to be receptive to maybe doing it a different way.  This tournament again has proven that open your mind a little bit to different sort of ways to looking at things and you can be really successful quite quickly. 

I mean, we’ve got one of the best women’s fields anywhere.  That’s not a small achievement on the other side of the world.  And the guys are playing for a lot of money in Australia here.  Absolutely, I think.

I feel rumbles of really good stuff happening.  I don’t know any details of anything, but when I landed here last year, I was like, What happened to the tour and where are all the young golfers coming from, but after 12 months I think there’s good stuff happening.

Q.  Can you see a day when this is the model for the national championship?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Maybe.  The U.S. Open did a great thing at Pinehurst a couple years ago and that was a massive success, I think.  Well, we did back‑to‑back weeks.  It limits your venues. 

There’s still couple ‑‑ for a national championship, there’s still a couple of issues with this sharing the same course, especially on a Saturday.  I think there’s issues on Saturday here because you’re going to have people on the same score playing five hours apart.  I’m not sure that’s ‑‑ for a lot of tournaments that’s okay, especially down by the coast you’ve got guys playing dead still in the morning being on the same score teeing off in 40‑mile an hour five hours later.  That’s going to upset the integrity of the tournament a little bit sometimes. 

But certainly concurrent Australian Opens at a Royal Melbourne East, Royal Melbourne West, or Peninsula North, South, something like that, or even just neighbour courses nearby and kind of combine the collective ‑‑ you combine both sites and it’s the sum is greater than its parts. 

It’s proven it here, so certainly I think that would be an interesting thing.  It really was successful at Pinehurst when Martin won and Michelle Wie won the next week.  We all loved it.  I watched ‑‑ that’s the U.S. Open I watched the most of of the girls because I was interested to see how they played the course that I just played.

That would be ‑‑ you work for GA, Haysey, you can suggest that.  Yeah, that would be great.  The more of this the better, absolutely.

Q.  Do you have any Vic Open memories going way back? 

GEOFF OGILVY:  The first memory is ‑‑ well, like Yarra Yarra early ’80s, they used to get a good field there.  The Shark used to play and Finchy.  Also at Metro one time, is it Metro he won ’83 or something?

Q.  ’82.

GEOFF OGILVY:  And then it kind of died.  Then Allenby won at Woodlands as an amateur and that was for us, like someone ‑‑ a kid winning a major.  He was four or five years older than me, but that was just outrageous what he did there.  And it kind of came back ‑‑ at least in our mind it came back on the map. 

Then it was in Victoria for a few years and I kind of contended, played the last group Sunday two years in a row.  It was that first pro tournament we could get in, you know.  The Australian Open was the next kind of step up, but to qualify was doable and get in and play with the pros, and we used to get some pretty legitimate pros to play.

Yeah, so the Vic Open’s ‑‑ it’s come and gone over the years, but it’s obviously come back to where it kind of should be because it’s a pretty ‑‑ the trophy’s got some pretty impressive names on it over the years.  It’s one of the first pro tournaments I was ever going to and was really ‑‑ it was one of the first ones I maybe aspired to play in, especially when Rob won in ’91.  I was 14 and that was just outrageous that an 18‑year‑old or whatever he was would win the pro tournament.  That doesn’t happen, you know?  Yeah, great tournament.  It’s one of the earliest ones I remember.

Q.  In the WhatsApp group, has there been any chatter about Premier Golf League?  Some of those guys would be targets, I would think.

GEOFF OGILVY:  Well, you guys just found out about it, but we’ve known about this for a while.  Managers are good secret‑keepers.  It’s popped up ‑‑ this one has had more legs than some of the other ones we’ve heard talked about.  This one’s come and gone for about the last seven or eight years and they seem very well funded.

I have absolutely no feeling for how it’s going to play out.  Money talks at the end of the day, and I think conceptually, taking away all the territorial pissing matches and stuff that you would get, conceptually having the best golfers in the world together regularly around the world has always been a good idea.  Greg had the idea.  The WGCs, that kind of was the theory that that was going to happen.  Conceptually, that’s a great idea.

Now, again, the PGA TOUR is an incredibly amazing organization and they provide an amazing lifestyle for a lot of people, not just the players but a lot of people benefit from the PGA TOUR.  There’s people who watch it, the towns, the charities, they just got to $3 billion in charity. 

So it’s not a simple thing, but guys are talking.  I mean, it’s a lot of numbers that are getting thrown around.  I have no feeling for how it will play out, but this one’s had more legs than most of the ones that have been talked about.

Q.  You’ve spoken a lot recently about equality in sports and certainly this is one of the leaders of that.  Why is that so important to you?  

GEOFF OGILVY:  Well, it’s more than just guys in the world who play golf or play sport.  To be honest, most ‑‑ I’m a golf tragic, so when I come to a golf tournament, I’m watching other people play just as much as I’m playing myself. 

This week I found last year all I wanted to do was watch the women and how they went about it.  Some of them are just machines, they just don’t hit bad shots and they hit hybrids on to the green 10 feet all day.  When I hit a hybrid, I’m happy to hit it within 30 yards of the green.  It’s just a different style.  There’s something to be learnt from both sides and there’s enjoyment in watching both styles of play. 

Tennis has clearly benefited from trying to ‑‑ I know to some people it’s not complete equality, but at least they play on the same place and the same time, they play for the same prize money in Australia at the matches and stuff. 

There’s more than just guys in the world, you know.  I think it just makes sense.  The footy’s gone really well, I never thought that would work, but there’s an appetite for it, I know there is.  Yeah, it’s just great.  We should do this more often.  The fact this happens only once in a year is just nonsense.

Q.  You just said it’s nonsense it only happens once a year.  What’s the hesitation do you think?  Why aren’t we seeing other tours kind of replicating this?  We’ve seen kind of attempts, like there was a mixed open in Jordan and there’s been variations like the U.S. Open, but why do you think other tours don’t do it as well?

GEOFF OGILVY:  The U.S. used to do it, was it the J.C. Penney or something?  They had the same tour and the LPGA Tour, which was a pretty good idea.  I don’t know why that didn’t continue on.

I don’t know.  It’s probably just golf’s being stuck in conservative traditions I think for a long time.  You see the Japanese ladies tour is a much bigger and successful tour in Japan than the men’s tour is, and whenever it’s presented properly, it’s just as popular it seems like.  It just needs to have the opportunity, I feel like.

I don’t know.  The logistics are difficult.  Like this is 300 people at one tournament.  You need two courses to make this work and you need the right sort of venues.  And you would be pretty limited if you tried to do this style every week, but you can have concurrent events next door to each other.  Like I said, a north and south course or east and west or neighboring courses, or you can do the partners thing, you can back up one week and then go the next week.

It’s just a bit of creative thinking.  I’m not sure why, it’s maybe just everyone’s scared to rock the successful boat that they’re riding in.  The PGA TOUR’s a pretty proven model, what they run.  Maybe they just don’t want to rock the boat.  They know what they’ve got, their product, they know it works.  But certainly if you want broader audiences to watch it and a more interesting product, you just make it more interesting, right?

KATHIE SHEARER:  There was some talk with Huntingdale and Metropolitan being side by side, just what you’re saying.  That that could ‑‑ I know Huntingdale was very keen.  They would be.

GEOFF OGILVY:  Well, there you could kind of cut the holes in the gate and you’re basically, you’re touching, right?  Royal Melbourne could do east and west in one week, that would be amazing.  A lot of places around the world you could do that.  Sawgrass, there’s three courses at Sawgrass, you could do two in one week. 

It’s one of those things maybe people just have to get used to the idea, see that maybe this is the crash test dummy, maybe this is the one that’s showing people this is a pretty good formula.  This is the best tournament in Australia by a long ways, the one that’s doing that.  I don’t know.

Q.  (Inaudible.)  Have you been asked and would you consider if you were becoming some sort of an ambassador providing ‑‑ there’s been a thought for a while that if some of the top male players (inaudible) a bit more often, it would go an awful long way.

GEOFF OGILVY:  I would certainly be happy to do that, and I know a bunch of guys who would.  There’s plenty of guys who are stuck in conservative thinking, but it’s just because they haven’t opened their eyes and watched and seen.  There’s some pretty good golf getting played out there.

Q.  Does having a daughter have an impact in that way?  Certainly having a daughter, does the world look different to a father who’s got a daughter than one who just plays golf for a living?

GEOFF OGILVY:  Maybe.  Probably.  I don’t know.  I think you’ve got to open your eyes and watch a little bit.  I always used to love watching the Dinah Shore, the one in Palm Springs, the one where they jump in the pool.  For whatever, that was always a week where you would come home, because we were always east coast, that was west coast, you would come home from the golf course, and I never watched the men’s tournament that week, I would always watch that because it just felt like the Masters on the girls’ side because it was always on the same course, jump in the water at the end, you just want to see them, watch the jump.  Now I like DVR it. 

I started watching that, I started watching the U.S. Women’s Open.  It was good to see Johnny beat up on the girls and not on us.  I think you’ve just got to watch for a bit.  I think a lot of guys just don’t, but once you do, you’re kind of, wow, this is pretty good. 

Daughter, maybe.  Open minded.  Just a golf tragic and if there’s golf around, I want to see it.  I don’t know, all of the above.  Play with a few, too.  Played with So Yeon and Su Oh, and these guys have been lucky enough through the years to play with some of the really elite golfers and it’s like wow, like envious of ball‑striking consistency and stuff.  We’ve actually got a long way to go to catch up to that consistency.  They’ve got ways to catch up in other areas, but they make us look poor in some areas.  Once I think you open your mind and your eyes to it, you can’t not enjoy it if you like the game.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Thank you as always.  Thank you for coming in.

KATHIE SHEARER:  David, it’s great to have you back.  You’re back as defending champion.  How does that feel to you?

DAVID LAW:  It’s special to come back to the event.  Last year I really enjoyed it.  Yeah, come back as defending champion’s pretty cool.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Maybe not the year that you had hoped to have after winning this, but tell us about your year.

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, I was a rookie on tour obviously and winning so soon after getting my card was quite a big change to my lifestyle really or my mindset, I suppose.  I come out here really just wanting to compete and then all of a sudden I had won, it was quite a big change.  Means pressure and stuff and I probably didn’t deal with that, you know, as well as I could have, I suppose.  It was good experience going to new courses and tournaments that I had never been to before and stuff.  I don’t think people understand how tough that is for some people.  Some people take it straightaway, but I played on the Challenge Tour for five, six years, I think, so I was used to going back to the same places.  So I find that aspect of it quite tough.  Yeah, you know, it’s been up and down, but it’s good.

KATHIE SHEARER:  But I would think that would be the same for most people.  You had four years on the Challenge Tour, you knew the courses that suited your eye, you knew the courses that when you went to them, you liked them and you liked everything, and then to start off and have every course you went to, it was new for you, I think that would be the same for a lot of people.  But what did you learn from that?

DAVID LAW:  You learn a lot about yourself really.  Your preparation has to change, and I was quite used to traveling on Tuesdays and maybe play nine holes because I knew the course before.  Now I had to go and play every week, I had to play 18 holes, see the course and just stuff like that I probably would have done differently.  I probably would have stuck to more like what I did before, maybe only played nine holes like I used to.  I just felt because I hadn’t been to these courses, I needed to see them.  This year I’ve done it differently.  I’m not over prepared for tournaments like I probably did last year.  Yeah, I mean, it’s different.  You play in front of good crowds most weeks.  That aspect of things you’re not really used to, either.  I learnt a lot.  Yeah, hopefully that can push me on really and maybe do better this year.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Moving forward from last year, did you try and play every week that you could because it was so new to you?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, yeah, there was an aspect of that.  I didn’t take ‑‑ I mean, our schedule actually works out pretty good that you don’t have to take loads of weeks off anyway.  Yeah, there was definitely an aspect of going to courses that I felt might suit me and maybe didn’t and I might not do that again this year.  Yeah, you learn from what you’ve done.

Q.  With that sort of stuff, do you keep all your yardage books from last year?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, I’ve got them all, yeah.  I keep them all.  You take notes from every week that you play, you know, where you stayed and all these sort of things.  That’s all different.  Yeah, I keep all that stuff.

Q.  When you drive up the driveway here and you see the big photo of yourself looking down, how does that sit with you?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, that was cool.  Like I say, it’s good to be back and it’s a special tournament for me.  Brings back great memories.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And what shape is your game in?

DAVID LAW:  It’s pretty good.  I’m kind of showing bits of form.  I think I played six times this year.  Result‑wise hasn’t been great.  I played four ‑‑ I think I made four of the six cuts, but I haven’t done particularly well result‑wise.  I’m not really scoring all that great, but I think the form is actually pretty good.  I’m not far away from playing well.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Maybe the great memories of last year when you see it can really come to the fore as the defending champion.

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, absolutely, yeah.  It’s two golf courses I like, that suit my eye.  Yeah, I’ve got great memories from playing well around both of the courses here.  Hope to have another strong week.

Q.  Will you be a little more relaxed given that last year it was two brand new courses that you haven’t seen and you’re coming back and it’s 36 holes, because you have a familiarity with the venue, it’s a little bit less pressure, you can ease off a little bit on the buildup to it?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, I think so.  Like I played nine holes this afternoon and then 18 in the pro‑am tomorrow.  You know, it’s nice to go back just knowing what you’re doing on this hole or that hole, all that sort of thing makes a big difference.

Q.  With your accent, you necessarily grew up playing in the wind.  When it gets nasty here, is it an advantage to you?

DAVID LAW:  I mean, I think everyone’s pretty good at playing in the wind.  We’re all good players.  Yeah, I grew up playing links golf and pretty familiar with it.  I mean, it might be ‑‑ like last year we only had one day, Saturday I think was the only day that was properly windy.  So this year I think the forecast is pretty good Thursday, Friday and it maybe gets up over the weekend.  It will be good.  I think it’s a good test.  The course is playable in the wind, but it’s definitely a stiffer test.

Q.  I guess, I mean, other people sort of go, “Oh, it’s windy;” you might go, “Yeah, it’s windy.”  It’s an advantage?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, yeah, I think so.  It certainly spreads out the scoring and spreads out the field a little bit.  You saw that last year on the Saturday.  Yeah, no, I mean, it is what it is.  If it’s windy, I’m fine with that, and if it’s not, then it’s fine.

Q.  How would you describe your relationship with Paul Lawrie and how much do you spend talking to him and what’s the best advice he’s given you the last few months?

DAVID LAW:  You know, I mean, I spend a lot of time with Paul.  We’re really close, we practice together at home and I practice at his golf center.  He came out in Dubai actually and he walked 18 with me on Saturday.  He just, he seemed to think ‑‑ I think I shot two or three over, but he seemed to think the game was pretty good at the time and that I was probably just a good weekend away from having a good week.  And I still feel like that just now. 

It’s reassuring to speak to Paul that he keeps saying, “You’re close, you’re going to play well.”  Over the years he always said, “If you keep working hard, you’ll get on tour, you’ll do well on tour.”  Yeah, Paul’s been fantastic.

Q.  What sort of things do you ask him?

DAVID LAW:  Well, I asked him a lot last year about courses and tournaments, where to stay, stuff like that.  I think that’s been really helpful for me having his experience. 

But we do a lot of short game together mainly, so he helps me out a lot with that.  At the end of last year ‑‑ we sit down every year and sort of review the year, so to speak.  Paul’s always very honest with me.  My short game regressed quite a lot over the season and he probably thought ‑‑ he didn’t think that I was working hard enough on it and he’s not scared to tell me that.  He told me, “You need to work harder on that,” and I have done and my stats are starting to get a little better.

Q.  What specifically was the problem?

DAVID LAW:  He just seems to think ‑‑ I’ve never really had a great short game anyway, but I think it’s natural you probably practice the stuff that you’re good at and the stuff that you’re not so good at, you kind of don’t want to practice it so much.  Yeah, he just seems to think that it just ‑‑ I just need to work harder on it, just go back to when you were a kid and try and get the ball in the hole.  So we did a lot of that in the wintertime and it’s definitely getting better.

Q.  Is he a bit of a psychologist as well for you?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, yeah.  I quite like ‑‑ I speak to him more when I’m struggling than when I’m playing well.  Like I say, it’s always reassuring to have someone as good as Paul telling you, just because you’re struggling, everyone struggles.  So it’s nice to have someone like that, that he’s been there, he’s obviously played great golf, he knows what your mindset’s like.

Q.  Is there a shot in your bag that’s got Paul stumped?

DAVID LAW:  I’m afraid not.

KATHIE SHEARER:  He’s not going to tell you anyway.  (Laughs.)

Q.  Going back to last year, David, how special that finish was, how good is it to know that if you are in that position, you can dig deep and produce something like that?

DAVID LAW:  Yeah, it’s great.  It’s always been something I’ve been pretty decent at.  I just need to give myself opportunity more.  That’s the main thing I speak about with my coach especially, Alan McCloksey at home, and Alan just says, “You need to get your game to the stage where you’re given the opportunity more often.”  That’s just about improving, that’s just about keeping on working on what you do.  Yeah, so it’s good to know that I can do that.  It’s obviously a special way to win a tournament.

Q.  I watched you a bit on the range at Abu Dhabi recently, you were killing it on the range.  Is it tough to take that onto the course?  You seem to have a problem with scoring like you touched on earlier.  There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with your swing.

DAVID LAW:  Sometimes for me it’s finding consistency.  I think when I play a lot, then your game does kind of regress a little bit.  This is my fifth week in a row, so it’s finding the balance between working on your game, practicing hard and obviously resting.  Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it’s two tough golf courses.  I was right up there on Saturday morning, Friday night in Abu Dhabi and I played poor the last 27 holes. 

Yeah, it’s about finding ways that you can find the levels of consistency to stay up there during the whole tournament, which unfortunately I haven’t really done in the last while.  Yeah, hopefully we can get back to some good form.

Q.  (No microphone.)

DAVID LAW:  I think so.  As long as you know that you’re playing good enough to be up there, that your game ‑‑

Q.  It’s just a case of ‑‑

DAVID LAW:  Exactly.

KATHIE SHEARER:  What do you think suits you?  Does it suit you three weeks or four weeks out and a week off?  Have you sort of identified that?

DAVID LAW:  Quite like four weeks is probably enough for me, three or four weeks and then a week off is probably not enough.  Two weeks off is about spot on.  This is my fifth week in a row and it’s a bit much for me, but obviously I wouldn’t have missed coming down here.  It’s great to be back.  Yeah, I’m just going to enjoy the week.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Wonderful.  We’ll enjoy watching you and thank you for coming in.  We’ve enjoyed your interview today.

DAVID LAW:  Thank you.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Thank you for coming in.  It’s terrific to see you again.

MINJEE LEE:  Thank you.

KATHIE SHEARER:  You’ve decided that this is your first tournament.  You’ve had a nice break, have you, over Christmas and New Year?

MINJEE LEE:  Um‑hmm.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Can you tell us what you’ve been up to?

MINJEE LEE:  We sort of went on a family vacay over Christmas and we haven’t done that, the four of us, in a very long time.  Plus my grandma was five.  It was really nice.  We got to spend it right on the bay and it was just very low key.  It was very good.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Have you done a lot of practice before you’ve come to this event?

MINJEE LEE:  I’ve been working hard, I guess, after Christmas and then over the first month of the new year, yeah.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And I saw you I think near the coffee shop and we were speaking about it and you said how much you like coming back down to 13th Beach, you like this tournament and you like the course obviously.

MINJEE LEE:  Yeah.  Being a past champion here, I think it’s a really great venue just with the guys as well.  I think it’s just something very different that we don’t get to have often.  It’s just a great atmosphere.  And all the crowds and the supporters come out and they can walk with us, so it’s just something different for everyone.

Q.  How do you do mentally every time you turn up somewhere where you’re the No. 1 player in the field by the world rankings?

MINJEE LEE:  I’m not sure if I’m the No. 1 in rankings right now.

Q.  In this field.

MINJEE LEE:  I don’t think I am.  Jeoungeun Lee6 I think is above me.

KATHIE SHEARER:  We’ve all been on holiday, we’re all rusty.

MINJEE LEE:  To be one of the top players coming into the event, I think it’s always a really good feeling and it’s just something that you hope ‑‑ like I guess it’s an excitation for you yourself to want to play well.  Obviously it’s in Australia, so I want to have a good result as well.  Yeah, that’s just something for myself.

Q.  I guess once upon a time that might have been a bit of pressure on you to perform, but now is it a weapon against the rest of the field?

MINJEE LEE:  I think it’s more motivation than a stress now, but obviously a little bit of stress.  Yeah, just a little more motivation for myself just to get my butt in there and do well.

Q.  When you sit back and look at 2019, do you go, “That was unbelievable, like I was so consistent, it was brilliant,” or do you go, “I wish I would have won another time or two”?

MINJEE LEE:  I think a little bit of both.  Obviously had quite a few top 2s, but hopefully this year I can make those ‑‑ a couple more top 2s into firsts.  A little bit of both.

Q.  So those things on the LPGA Tour, you know, the most top‑10s and all those, do they factor in your thinking at all or not at all?

MINJEE LEE:  Well, I don’t think I’ve won any of those before, but I think I’ve come close.  Once you’re like at the tournament and playing them, you don’t really have that going through your mind.  I think at the end of like the year or something, if somebody’s like, oh, you had this many top‑10s, and you’re like, “Oh, I did?”  I don’t really think about it too much.

Q.  Is it a challenge coming back after the break or have you been doing this for so long now you’re just used to it?

MINJEE LEE:  Well, this is my sixth year on the LPGA Tour.  Yeah, I’m a little bit more accustomed to sort of like the break and now starting the year.  I think there’s always a little bit of rust because you haven’t really been in tournament play and playing competitively for a couple months.  Yeah, I think it’s a little bit of both.  I’m a little used to it, but I’m not totally used to it.

Q.  How big a deal is the Olympics for you right now?  Is that something you think about more later in the year?

MINJEE LEE:  Yeah, it’s definitely been in the back of my mind since last year just because I think the qualifying, it goes by your world rankings, so I’m just going to try and keep that in the range.  Yeah, we’ll see from there.

Q.  (Inaudible.)  There’s a lot of big things for you every year, but how big for you would that be?

MINJEE LEE:  Yeah, it would be amazing.  I think just to be able to represent Australia at the Olympics is such a great honor.  Since I sort of got a taste of it at Rio, I really want to go to Japan, so yeah.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And have you got your year planned out?  Do you sort of sit down at the beginning of the year and say, I’m doing this towards the Olympics or just towards the majors?  Are you there that you plan your year around the majors or do you just sort of say, I like this week, I’m going to play this week and not that week.

MINJEE LEE:  I think I plan my year mostly around I think which events like fit in best with like how you’re going to be mentally or physically.  Obviously the majors are very important, but they seem to be very clumped together.  Like Evian and British are really close and there’s a lot of tournaments in that sort of stretch.  So I sort of go, well, am I going to be ready for those events to play well if I play these events prior to them.  That’s just how I do my year usually.

KATHIE SHEARER:  And you’re all set for this year, 2020?

MINJEE LEE:  I think there might be a little bit of change depending on which extra events that I have to play for my sponsors or things like that.  I haven’t quite set it in stone yet, but it is still early in the year.

Q.  We talked to (indecipherable) on our podcast a couple times about like sponsorships and for you and Sue and Hannah in particular, have you got any thoughts on that?  Did you listen to it?  Did you think that it’s wrong, bad?

MINJEE LEE:  Bad about the sponsors?

Q.  The lack of domestic sponsors for you.  You’re a very proud Australian and you want to represent Australia at the Olympics.  No offense to everything you’re wearing there, which I understand completely.  I’m sure you would like to see a domestic sponsor there as well if you could?

MINJEE LEE:  RAYDEL is domestic.  That’s sort of kind of a new thing for me, I only just signed with them.  But yeah, I think ‑‑ I don’t really want to be like offensive or anything, but it has come to my attention, and like you, people talk about it quite a lot.  There isn’t that many Australian sponsors for the Australian players, so it would be great to see somebody come on board and do that.

Q.  When you talk about your sponsors, you’ve got your sponsor commitments and you go and fulfill them and you do your days.  It just seems to me like that should be something that the Australian fans and sponsors should get a crack at.

MINJEE LEE:  Yeah, I think definitely, but because a lot of my sponsors are Asian, I think maybe golf is maybe a bigger ‑‑ it’s just bigger in their countries or in their worlds.  It plays a bigger part in, I guess, maybe their lifestyle.  I don’t really know.  Maybe Australia has different sports that they are more into.

Q.  You spoke before about all the top 2 or top 3 finishes that you had in 2019.  Come Sunday if you’re in contention, does that sort of play on your mind with how you might attack certain holes given you were so close?  Do you play a little bit more aggressively or does that change at all?

MINJEE LEE:  Well, I don’t think so personally.  When you go out there you’re not like, “Oh, I had so many top 2s and I really want to win.”  Like I don’t think that’s really the mentality that I usually have when I’m playing, so I usually just try and go out there and have fun, but obviously when I can play aggressively and if I need to be a bit more conservative and smart, then I will. 

Q.  Can I ask you one more Olympic question?

KATHIE SHEARER:  Certainly.  I’ll answer that for her.

Q.  Obviously you played with Sue last time and Hannah’s in the slot to play with you at the moment.  The three of you being reasonably good mates, have you talked about the potential of the three of you sort of getting there?

MINJEE LEE:  We haven’t really spoken about the Olympics too much, but I know everybody’s really excited and really wanting to go, but we haven’t really spoken about it too much.

Q.  You’ve watched Hannah do her thing last year, I’m sure you were thrilled for her.

MINJEE LEE:  Yeah.

Q.  Is that the overriding emotion or is there something that makes you a little envious as well?  How does it make you feel?

MINJEE LEE:  I’m not really like envious, like I know my time will come.  Yeah, I was just really happy for her.  Yeah, sent her a message straightaway.  Yeah, it was cool, it was cool to watch, for sure.

Q.  Have you and your brother ever played an event like this together at the same time before?

MINJEE LEE:  Oh, we did a couple years ago, but I think he played really well that year and I didn’t.  No, it was really fun.  We had a practice round yesterday, played nine holes.  Yeah, I haven’t played with him in a while, so yeah, nice to see how far he hits it.