THE MODERATOR: All right, welcome to the media center at the 2025 ShopRite LPGA Classic presented by Acer. I'm joined by two members of Team ShopRite. On the left, Cheyenne Knight, and on the right, Brooke Matthews. So happy you're here this week and presenting Team ShopRite.
We will kick things off by asking how excited are you both for this week and also excited to be a member of Team ShopRite this week?
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Yeah, I'm super excited for this week. It's a really fun week meeting a lot of people with the pro-ams and had a lot of fun with that. Yeah, to be part of Team ShopRite, I remember playing this event my rookie year, so many great former champions.
ShopRite has done so much for the LPGA Tour and the local community, so it's really an honor to be a part of Team ShopRite, and excited for the rest of the week.
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, kind of same thing she said. The energy around this event is really good. You can tell a lot of the sponsors, vendors, everybody who's a part of it is really excited. Volunteers really like having it. It's pretty clear this is one of the, if not up the longest sponsored LPGA event I think somebody told me earlier this week.
That's really cool. I'm lucky to be a part of it and excited for this week.
Q. Can you both touch on the golf course here, Seaview, and what you like most about it after playing here this past week?
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Yeah, every year it changes a little bit. I remember playing in COVID and it was really windy and firm and cold. I think it's just a really fun golf course to play. I think you need to be aggressive. It's only a three-day tournament. I think around 15-under normally wins.
Yeah, not the longest golf course so really kind of placement golf a lot of shorter clubs in. Just have to be aggressive, and you know when it's windy it gets pretty tough.
Yeah, I think if you looked -- I was just looking at the former champions. When Angela Stanford won in 2003 I think she shot 15-under, so it's always around that number, so you kind of know what to expect.
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, it's a fun golf course. Not a lot of trees, but a lot of high grass. Kind of almost a linsky-style, if you will, so you can move the ball off the tee, which is what I like to do. The main thing is you can get some crazy slopes on the greens, so making sure that your speed is good, especially come afternoon.
I think the golf course has a good mix of some gettable holes and also some holes like No. 2 that are long and you just kind of want to get your par and get out of there; then there are some holes you'll have some wedges in and a couple reachable par-5s. I think it's a good mix.
Q. Cheyenne, you mentioned the fact this is a 54-hole event. Is ya'll preparation with a Friday through Sunday event versus a typical Thursday through Sunday event, is the preparation different? Is it the same? How is the preparation going into this week compared to a Thursday through Sunday LPGA event?
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Yeah, I think it's pretty much the same. It's kind of weird on a Thursday that the tournament doesn't start until the next day. I think it's nice to be able to like play in the pro-am, the 18 holes, to see how the course is playing; that's really nice.
I know we both kind of played around the same time today, so just kind of see how the course is playing for the next day. I think just a three-day tournament, like I was talking to one of my pro-am people today. Like the only other three-day tournament we have is in Arkansas, and I think you have to be aggressive. Every day is kind of moving day.
After the cut on Saturday there is only 18 holes left, so you really got to put yourself in position and make some birdies.
Q. Going back to Team ShopRite, Cheyenne you're the veteran of the group, right? One of the reasons why you guys are a part of it is because of how much ShopRite gives back to the community. It's important to you guys. Almost as like the veteran and mentor, lack of a better term, how does that -- talk about that a little bit, being the veteran of this group with Team ShopRite?
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Yeah, kind of joked around. Man, is it because I'm old, older? No, it's a huge honor. I really try to help out the newer players on Tour and the rookies. Tour life is really hard.
Yeah, ShopRite has done so much from the local communities and the LPGA over the years. To be the veteran of Team ShopRite, I really hope I can continue that with the younger players and other people on Team ShopRite.
Yeah, the Tour changes so much every year. Just to see the new faces come out, it's a hard lifestyle. Just to help any way I can and be supportive, kind of hopefully teach them along the way as the other veterans have done to me. I remember my first year here I stayed with Austin Ernst and her father-in-law down the street.
She stayed with me the last two days. She was here for the pro-ams. She taught me so much, and to reminisce -- and she's retired now, but is just a really cool full circle thing.
Q. Same question from the -- you and Gurleen and Caley, you're the up-and-coming players. Just starting on Tour. Naturally you have Maria Fassi and Stacy Lewis, fellow Razorbacks to look up. On this internal group, especially with Cheyenne, too, how important is it for you guys to have players that you can look up to and just help week in and week out as you're getting acclimated to LPGA Tour life?
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, it's super important. What we do out here isn't easy, and the more familiar faces, the more friends you can have out here, the more people that have done it for a little bit longer than you that can help you out with the little things here and there, it really makes all the difference.
It can be tough to jump into an environment like this that's just hyper competitive and everybody is so go and wants to win. To be able to find that community, and I feel like with Team ShopRite we have that. All the girls have been so nice.
I think we got a really good group that we can not only be Team ShopRite with, but friends outside of that too, which is cool.
Q. Brooke, this is a 54-hole event and you were playing on Epson Tour last year, which are mainly 54-hole events. Is any comfortability because you've been doing that?
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, maybe, I guess we'll see. Obviously last year most of the Epson Tour events are 54 holes, so it makes that first day all the more important. There is a good balance between you want to jump out and be making birdies early, but have to remember 54 holes is still a lot of golf.
Yeah, I guess I've done it a lot so we'll see if that's going to pay off for me. But it's exciting. I like it. Playing the 18 hole pro-ams are fun. Everybody is just really excited to be out here.
Q. Coming at you with the hard-hitting philosophical questions here. Brooke, I had a chance to speak with you briefly yesterday about the Special Olympics. Asked you what it meant to you. Your answer was along the lines of this is why we play golf. This really gives us perspective. This let's us know that golf is so much bigger than any one person or anything. Cheyenne, I heard you talking about recently getting married. Also had personal tragedy in your life. What I read about that was that it strengthened your resolve; made you realize to live life to its fullest. Talk about that perspective and how you developed such a good perspective to move forward in such a positive and forward direction as you do what you do?
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, I feel like the more golf you play, it's really, really easy to get into that like my self-worth is a golf score. There is a leaderboard, there are rankings, everything. You're always seeing a number next to your name.
It's really easy to fall into that. When it's going good it's a great thing. Oh, yeah, No. 1, this is great. Yeah, that is me.
But as we know in this sport, that's just not always how it is. Having family, friends, and just different perspectives to lean on, you realize that what we do out here is really cool and we want to do really well, it's really important to us, but is it really everything? It's not. There is so much life outside of golf.
No matter how long we play most of our life will probably not be on the LPGA Tour, God willing. So just remembering that and living in the moment, you know, seeing what you can do out here, but there is just so much more.
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: That's a great answer. Yeah, I think, right, like we're all professional athletes and play an individual sport so it's really hard. You're quite selfish. You and your caddie are out there really and you got a small team around you.
But, yeah, I think for me, gosh, sometimes you get so self-absorbed out there and it's all about you. At the end of the day kind of like when I'm done playing, like, yeah, of course you want a great career, all these things. That may not happen.
Just the people that you meet along the way and people that impact -- see the young kids out there, and if you can get them into the game of golf, I think that's one the things that I would love to leave behind. Just to make someone's day. Thank the volunteers and sponsors. You might in impact their life and not even know.
Yeah, think as I've gotten older I just thought I was going to -- all I want to do is win on the LPGA Tour and do all these things. Yeah, my brother passed away when he was 20 years old and had so much life ahead of him. I think it's so important to live each day to the fullest. You don't know how much time you're going to have here on earth.
And so just impact the world around you and leave it a better place. For us that's the golf course, and just hope that we can kind of just make a difference along the way.
Q. Has the game of golf, do you think -- does the game of golf for each of ya'll give you credit for that perspective that you developed? Do you think without the game of golf and the professional, everything that have to do doing, would've forced you to have such a strong perspective, as positive a perspective as ya'll do?
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: I think golf teaches you a lot. I think about adversity. You can learn adversity from anything in life. I think, yeah, when things aren't going well it's going to reveal a lot about your character.
Life experiences have that, too. I think golf has integrity, honesty, perseverance has a lot to do with it. Golf has helped me make who I am, but it's not everything. Like Brooke said, at the end of the day, my family is great, my husband is great, and just like the people around you kind of help form you into the person you are.
When I'm done playing, like I will be so thankful for everything golf has taught me and all the people I've met along the way. Yeah, and the little girl that started playing when I was nine years old never thought I would be here.
So, yeah.
Q. Just to make you feel a little younger, neither of you were alive when ShopRite decided to sponsor an LPGA event. You got that going for you.
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: There we go.
Q. Describe how you came to be one of the ShopRite logo carrying golfers on the LPGA Tour.
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Yeah, I don't know. I guess we were just kind of lucky to be part of Team ShopRite, and I honestly don't know how it came to be or how they picked me or whatever it was. I want to do my best to put on a good face and be a good ambassador for them. I know all these girls want to do the same thing.
So sometimes you don't know how you get picked but we're just lucky and I guess we're going to make the most of it and we're pretty grateful for it.
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Yeah, kind of the same thing. Kind of like Outlyr who puts on this tournament, when they came to me to talk about Team ShopRite, I think it's just how they continue to make this event better each year. Like this year, I mean, they put us up in the hotel and continuing things to grow the game, including things like building Team ShopRite that they can continue year after year.
So I guess it's because I'm a veteran. I had no idea I was a veteran until Team ShopRite. I guess I'm getting a little bit older.
Yeah, I think it's just like what it says about ShopRite as a whole, just continuing to grow the game and grow the LPGA. You know, part of like Team ShopRite is Gianna who's an amateur. They're really caring about the future of women's golf on every level, which is amazing.
Yeah, this event gets better and better every year. There is a lot of people like to thank for that.
THE MODERATOR: Okay, thanks so much, ladies.
CHEYENNE KNIGHT: Thank you.
BROOKE MATTHEWS: Thank you.
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