Wegmans LPGA Championship

Wegmans LPGA Championship
Locust Hill Country Club
Rochester, New York
Pre-tournament notes and interviews
June 5, 2012

The LPGA Tour travels to Locust Hill Country Club outside of Rochester, New York this week, where the ladies will be playing for a $2.5 million purse in the Wegmans LPGA Championship.  The second of four majors on the schedule this year, the Wegmans LPGA Championship will feature one of the season’s best fields.

Rolex Rankings No. 1 Yani Tseng won the 2011 Wegmans LPGA Championship defeating Cindy LaCrosse and Morgan Pressel by 10 strokes, closing out her victory with a 66 in the final-round.  She became the youngest female golfer in history to win four major titles at 22 years, 4 months and 18 days.  She went on to win four additional tournaments at the RICOH Women’s British Open, Walmart NW Arkansas Championship Presented by P&G, LPGA Hanabank Championship and the Sunrise LPGA Taiwan Championship, taking her total victories for the season to seven.  She finished with 14 top-10s, her second consecutive Rolex Player of the Year Award, and her first Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average with 69.66.  So far in the 2012 season she has recorded three victories at Honda LPGA Thailand, RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup and the Kia Classic.    

Tweet, Tweet! This week the LPGA Tour is rolling out caddie bibs that feature players’ Twitter handles on the back along with their last name. It’s an effort by the LPGA to help make the Tour and its players more accessible to fans.

The LPGA and the Wegmans LPGA Championship are the first golf tour and golf event to feature this type of program. The LPGA expects to continue the program at the majority of tournaments on the 2012 schedule and the players all seem excited by the new initiative.

“Now we have to just Twitter on and off the golf course pretty much,” said Suzann Pettersen. “It's also a nice opportunity for us to interact as much as you want, or however you want to deal with it with them, with each and every one.  It's a very good social media thing.  And I think there are a lot of the LPGA girls quite active.  So there is no reason not to follow us now.”

Quite the process… It’s been a slow start to the season for Rolex Rankings No. 5 Suzann Pettersen, but even though she’s not seeing results on the scoreboard, she consistently seeing positive changes in her golf game. With her last win at the 2011 Safeway Classic Presented by Coca-Cola, Pettersen has only placed in the top-10 five times ever since. Although she is unhappy with her results, she is happy with the progression she has made this season.

“The thing with golf that I really enjoy, you have to look at it as a process,” Pettersen said. “If I look at my results this year, okay, I'm not happy with the results.  I'm enjoying the process.  I feel like stuff is starting to click.  It's a game of patience as much as it is hard work and kind of grinding it out every day.  That's kind of the beauty of golf.  You go through times where you feel like you play well, and you don't score.  And then you go through times where you feel like you play awful, and you shoot 68 every time you step on the golf course.  It's just how the game is and you can't be too hard on yourself.” 

Pettersen believes her time away from the leaderboard has taught her patience and confidence that her next win may be in the near future.

“You can work as hard as you want, but at the same time you got to give yourself a break and tap yourself on the shoulder even though the results may not be right where you want them, but they could be right around the corner.” 

New face, familiar name: Cheyenne Woods is making her professional debut this week at the Wegmans LPGA Championship as a sponsor exemption, but her name has long been familiar to golf fans due to her famous relative.

The niece of PGA Tour legend Tiger Woods, Cheyenne has faced an onslaught of media attention since a young age. But having recently graduated from Wake Forest, the 21-year-old is set to embark on her own professional golf career and she kicked it off in style last week. Within a 48-hour span, Woods received her sponsor exemption into the Wegmans LPGA Championship and then qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open which meant that her first two professional tournaments will be majors.

Woods said during her press conference that she’s excited but a little nervous to now be a professional. She has the full support of her famous uncle in the process and Woods said she’s appreciative to be able to go to him for advice. And while there is attention focused on her from day one due to her having the last name of Woods, Cheyenne believes that the exposure won’t hamper her game.

“The most difficult thing I would say, is dealing with the expectation and the pressure,” Woods said of having Tiger as her uncle. “But I have dealt with it for a long time and I have somehow been able to play my own game.  That's mainly what I try to think about is play my own game and just try to do my own thing and not worry about what others are thinking.

Beyond playing this week and at the U.S. Women’s Open, Woods doesn’t know what her tournament schedule will be for the rest of her summer. Her hope is to play as many tournaments as she can before taking part in LPGA Tour Qualifying School this fall, where she hopes to earn fully-exempt status for the 2013 season.

“This is the first time in my life that I'm focusing strictly on golf,” Woods said. “There is no school that's on the side that I have to really spend a lot of time on.  Every day it's golf.  Working out.  Really focusing on my career.  So I'm really looking forward to that.”

Peeking at the right time? This season, rookie standout Lexi Thompson has proven she has what it takes to compete among the LGPA most elite players. Finishing second at the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic and tied for fifth at ShopRite LPGA Classic last weekend (her last two events) has helped her move up to 21^st in the Rolex Rankings. She is second behind fellow rookie So Yeon Ryu in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race.

Thompson ranks fifth on the Tour with an average driving distance of 274 yards, but for the past few weeks she’s been practicing on other aspects of her game.

“I've been practicing a lot of hours a day on my short game,” Thompson said. “I'm learning that's extremely important out here.  So you can't ball strike it well every week, so you have to learn short game, putting and everything.  So I just been working on every aspect of my game and continuing to improve hopefully.”

Honoring the Veterans. On Tuesday, the men and women of the Monroe County Korean War Veteran Association presented a crystal plaque honoring Jeong Jang for her generous donations to the group since she won in Rochester back in 2006, prior to the tournament becoming a LPGA major.

On June 25, 2006, a local supporter of the Association, Byoung Baek, decided watch the Wegmans LPGA with hopes to persuade the winner to visit the memorial after the tournament. That day marks the beginning of the Korean War, which happened to be the day the South Korean won her second LPGA Tour victory. Jang and her family agreed to visit the memorial following her media obligations that day and she has gone back every year she’s been in Rochester ever since. 

Jang has donated to the association every year to help with the upkeep of the memorial. The memory of those who fought in the Korean War is slowly starting to fade throughout the U.S. The Association appreciates Jang’s support and will always be their favorite LPGA player.

Tweet of the Day: “New bag! @ThePCreamer don't be too jealous ;-)” --@Ryann O’Toole, who tweeted a photo of the new pink bag

Of Note…There are 19 rookies in the field this week at the Wegmans LPGA Championship. The last rookie to win this event was Anna Nordqvist in 2009 when she became a Rolex First-Time Winner…19 of the top 25 players in the Rolex Rankings are in this week’s field…Golf Channel will be on the air from 12:00- 2:30 p.m. ET on Thursday and Friday and it will feature five hours of coverage, 2:00-7:00 p.m. ET on both Saturday and Sunday.