RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup
Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa
Phoenix, Ariz.
Second-round notes and interviews
March 19, 2011

Angela Stanford -12, Rolex Rankings No. 25
Brittany Lincicome -9, Rolex Rankings No. 23
Cristie Kerr -7, Rolex Rankings No. 5

Rolex Rankings No. 25 Angela Stanford maintained her lead following a 6-under par 66 going into tomorrow’s final-round at the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup. A four-time winner on the LPGA Tour, Stanford carded seven birdies and one bogey during the second round of play at Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriot Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Ariz. Stanford, who is looking to record her first victory since the 2009 SBS Open at Turtle Bay, is playing for a charity near and dear to her heart, The Angela Stanford Foundation. The Angela Stanford Foundation focuses largely on supporting families whose loved ones have been diagnosed with cancer.

Three-time tour winner, Brittany Lincicome, is chasing Stanford for the inaugural RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup crown. Lincicome, who is looking for her first victory since the 2009 Kraft Nabisco Championship, shot a second-round 68 to go into Sunday’s final round three strokes behind Stanford. Closely trailing Stanford and Lincicome is the duo of Mindy Kim and Cristie Kerr. Kerr, who is known for her final round charges, overcame an eight-stroke deficit at the 2006 CN Canadian Women’s Open to defeat Angela Stanford by one stroke.

The entire $1 million purse of the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup goes to charity, half to the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf program, half to the charities chosen by the top-10 finishers. Here are the charities for the top 10 after the second round:

1: Angela Stanford, The Angela Stanford Foundation
2: Brittany Lincicome, First Tee of St. Petersburg
3: Mindy Kim, Make A Wish Foundation of Central Florida
4: Cristie Kerr, Birdies for Breast Cancer/Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Foundation
T5: Seon Hwa Lee, American Heart Association
T5: Karrie Webb, Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
T5: Mina Harigae, Japan Relief Charity TBD
T8: Paula Creamer, Japan Relief Charity TBD
T8: Sun Young Yoo, Japan Relief Charity TBD
T10: Stacy Prammanasudh, Special Olympics of Tulsa, Oklahoma
T10: Sandra Gal, Barevn sv?t d?t (The Colorful World of Children)

Cut…76 players survived Saturday’s cut at two-over-par 146.

Of note… Yani Tseng, No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings and four-time winner worldwide in 2011, shot a second consecutive one-over-par 73 to move into a tie for 63rd at two-over-par 146 …Karrie Webb, who has won 27 times on the LPGA and is the last player to win in the Phoenix area (2009), shot a second-round five-under par 67 to go into Sunday’s final round six shots off the lead... Mindy Kim recorded seven birdies in Saturday’s second round including five consecutive birdies in her first five holes.

ANGELA STANFORD, Rolex Rankings No. 25

THE MODERATOR: Angela, welcome back.
ANGELA STANFORD: Good to be back.

THE MODERATOR: 66 today to match the one from yesterday. Just talk about the round.
ANGELA STANFORD: Surprised, to be perfectly honest. I didn't feel quite right this morning. I had kind of a weird warmup session. So you know, sometimes it's better for me because I go out there, and I really have to focus on each shot because I didn't have a very good warmup session. So I'm surprised, to be perfectly honest, but very happy to be here.

THE MODERATOR: Can you expand on weird practice session?
ANGELA STANFORD: Just didn't get a very good rhythm going. Just kind of hit some shots that I haven't hit yet this week, and errant shots, so just had a hard time getting in the rhythm for some reason.

Q. So the wind is up and the greens are too hard. How did you do that?
ANGELA STANFORD: Well, fortunately for me I've always played release. I'm not one that spins the ball a whole lot. So it doesn't bother me if my ball releases 5 or 25. So I think for me that's good because I expect it already. I think people that spin the ball a lot, they may not be used to seeing the balls bounce and release like that. But I've seen it my whole life. So it doesn't surprise me. And I'm from Texas and the wind blows there.

Q. As it stands now, you've got a sizeable lead in this thing. Does that force you into any kind of a different strategy for tomorrow, and you know, if the pairing was right now, you'd be with Cristie Kerr. And do you guys have a rivalry?
ANGELA STANFORD: Well, first off, I'm not sure I'm thinking somebody will get to double digits in the afternoon. I expect that. I'm ready for it. For me it doesn't change what I'm doing tomorrow because there are a few holes out there that can give me problems. I'm not real comfortable on all of the holes, so I know that there is I might have some issues out there. So for me, you know, I'm going to stay as focused as I have been the last couple days. So I'm not worried about that. Kerr, no. I mean I don't think in my mind, even though we're the same age, she's been out here a little bit longer. So I don't know, I think because of the age or because of the years she's been out here on Tour, I think of her as the older veteran. (Laughs). So there's not really much of a there's not anything there, no.

Q. I guess maybe what he was alluding to a little bit, in '06 Cristie came back in Nashville to beat you and then she came from 8 back to beat you in Canada. What did you take from those, learn from those two? Had to be very tough losses.
ANGELA STANFORD: You guys have really good memories. Did you have to pull that up? Did you research that or do you remember that? You know, I learned a lot in those two losses, and people say you learn more in a loss than a victory. So for me I have to stay aggressive. I think I not that I played scared, but if there's a pin tucked left, the first day you're probably going at it. Well, if you have a five, six, seven shot lead on the final day, you may go at the middle of the green. For me, I've learned that when I did that, it wasn't very successful. So I learned that I have to keep hitting golf shots. You can't just say I'm going to go out and make 18 pars and hope I win. So you know, that's I think I was still maturing as a player at the time, and I didn't know what it took to win. I was still learning what it took to win, and to win you have to keep hitting your shots. You have to hit golf shots and you have to make birdies out here.

Q. Would you be playing harder tomorrow if you were going to cash a check or is it and is it the same I mean Juli Inkster mentioned in here yesterday it's different not playing for money. What do you think about that?
ANGELA STANFORD: You know, my golf instructor at home has said this, and nobody's ever said this to me, but he's like he said I'm one of the few people that he's seen that can play for nothing and really play like it means something. I play with my guys at Shady Oaks in the 1 o’clock, and I'm out there trying to beat them, and they're out there to enjoy the weekend. So it always matters to me. I don't care if it's for money. I don't care if it's for money for my charity or for the LPGA Foundation. I don't care what it's for. If you tell me it's official and I have a chance to compete and I have a chance to win something, I'm going to show up. So yeah, you want the money, you want the check or whatever, but that's not why I started playing this game. So for me this week wasn't anything different. I got to show up and I'm going to get to play and compete and maybe have a chance to win.

Q. What is your charity? Can you name it since you are the most likely person at this point?
ANGELA STANFORD: The Angela Stanford Foundation. We just started it was started in January of 2010, so it's brand new. It would do wonders for my foundation. We could help a lot of kids a lot faster than I thought we would. So I think there is a lot on the line in that respect.

Q. You have a much different, much better golf swing now than you had in 2006, and in fact, you started to learn to win when you did those swing changes. I mean you must have an entirely different confidence level going into a final round now than you did at that time.
ANGELA STANFORD: Well, Ron, you should know, golf is like one big circle. It's always one big circle, and I think in '06, because I just started working with Mike Wright in '05, at the end of '05. So it was still pretty new. I kind of knew what was going on, but I hadn't played with it a whole lot. So now I've seen and I get really good and the swing was really working in '09 and then I kind of had a dip last year, so I had to figure out what made it work before. So it's been really good for me actually to kind of have the ups and downs of golf. And I feel like I am kind of making a full circle. And you know, I think I figured out what I was doing in '06, and I kind of lost it at the end of '09 and going into '10. So that's why this week's been so fun because I think I found what I was doing in '06, and now to have those five years of experience behind it helps.

Q. If it does end up being you and Cristie, you mentioned, you know, that competitive side of yourself. Would you relish the chance for maybe a little payback in that situation?
ANGELA STANFORD: I just want to win. So whether it's her or anybody else in that group, because they're trying to beat me. That's for sure. So I'm trying to beat her. And I would be upset if she were not trying to beat me.

Q. Just one other follow up to that, to the charity question. You mentioned that you could help a lot of kids in your foundation. What sort of stuff are you doing? What kind of work is that at the foundation?
ANGELA STANFORD: Well, we have decided after my mom had breast cancer, in '09 she was diagnosed; and then we actually lost a board member last September to liver cancer. And her daughter is actually here this week. We decided that we would help families that (Chokes up.) I'm sorry. That kind of caught me off guard. I'm sorry. Wow. I didn't expect that. We decided that, you know, cancer is a ripple effect through the family, and I've always wanted to help kids in some sort of way. So we decided that if we could help fund some scholarships, so you know, if a mom or a dad find out they have breast cancer or prostate cancer or whatever type of cancer they have, it could be a grandparent, that if they have a junior or senior in high school, all of a sudden the focus goes to the patient and the medical bills, you know, everything all the money goes towards that. So we would like to give kids scholarships to just kind of lighten that load. So that's our focus, and we could help a lot more kids. I figured we could help five to seven kids going into this fall on a small level. But I think that we could it would be kind of fun to readjust our goals and our numbers.

QUICK QUOTES FROM BRITTANY LINCICOME, Rolex Rankings No. 23

“I had three amazing saves today, just putting lights out. Driver kind of let me down a little bit today. Yesterday I drove it amazing, so I must have used them all yesterday. Putter saved me three really big times, huge momentum swings if I would have missed or started doing rough in the beginning. Especially this putt on 18; there’s not that many people out here, but you still want to go into tomorrow with some positive thoughts.”

On chasing down Stanford Sunday: “Do the same thing I did yesterday and today, put both rounds together. I need to drive it like I did yesterday and putt like I did today. Hopefully we didn’t use them all today. There’s still a few more out there tomorrow. I haven’t had an eagle out here, which I normally have at least one per tournament, so hopefully those will come out tomorrow.”

CRISTIE KERR, Rolex Rankings No. 5

THE MODERATOR: Cristie, thanks for coming in. Do we have any questions? Just general impressions.
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah, I played very well today. You know, I controlled the golf ball really well. You know, it's starting to play a little tougher out there. The greens are a lot firmer than they were yesterday, even though I played in the afternoon yesterday. An iron downwind is releasing over 20 yards. So it's kind of hard to get the ball close to the hole, so anything in the 60s I think is a good round.

I had some putts that could have gone in, but today was very, very solid. I've been working really hard the last couple weeks and starting to see the turnaround in my game. And you know, my family is doing well. I had some family issues, health issues with my mom and my dad, and everything's doing better, so everything's starting to turn around a little bit.

Q. You look like you put a lot of work in your conditioning program in the off season, too. Are you looking for a big year this year?
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah, of course. Always want to be top American, want to be top player in the world. And you know, I changed the way I went back to eating the way I ate when I lost all my weight. I cut out bread completely, processed carbohydrates, eating oatmeal and granola now in the morning and fruits, lots of fruits and vegetables and lean proteins. I'm feeling a lot better, not getting as many migraine headaches. Cut down on the wine. That's hard, but you know, I've trained a lot.

And part of it's stress, too, with a lot of the stuff that's gone on with my parents and even with my dog. My dog's had two surgeries in the last four weeks for his eyes. So it's been kind of stressful, and you know, I just feel like I'm in a lot better shape, and it's nice to be able to tuck my shirt in again.

Q. Do you feel a little safe there when you're on the course there, from all those stresses that you were talking about? When you're between the ropes is a little bit of sanctuary from that?
CRISTIE KERR: Yeah. My golf has always been the thing that I love to do, and it's a different kind of stress inside the ropes than outside. I think for me problems with family or health issues or whatever is a lot more stressful than hitting a 6 iron right of the green.

Q. You five back of a good player, Angela Stanford, going into tomorrow. 18 holes, is that doable?
CRISTIE KERR: Oh, yeah. It's doable, and if you don't know the history that I've had with that, I mean you can look it up. But you know, I've come from eight back to win tournaments, and seven back, and you know, anything can happen on Sunday.

It's a different feel when you're playing in the last group, especially with the lead because you tighten up and you try and protect it. And you know, I can stick with my game plan. It depends on the pins and the conditions tomorrow, but sure. I mean, you know, anything five and in is doable.

Q. The diet that you were talking about, was that prescribed by a dietician or nutritionist or just something that you worked out yourself? Were you supplementing it with vitamins, mineral tablets, et cetera?
CRISTIE KERR: Yes. (Laughs). I saw Billy Crystal last night, and I think that's what he would have said. Yeah, I just got back on the wagon.

RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup - Second Round Notes and Interviews

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