Mel Reid dishes on a rather expensive celebration as she settles in for KPMG Women’s PGA

Mel Reid tees it up at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship this week an LPGA winner, and with her pockets a bit lighter from an LPGA fine.

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Mel Reid can’t say exactly how many beers fit into the ShopRite LPGA Classic trophy.

“That’s what got me in trouble,” she said, speaking of the fine she received from the LPGA for breaking COVID-19 protocol.

When asked if the trophy was dry in the morning, Reid confirmed.

“Dez finished that off very quickly,” she said, referring to caddie Ryan Desveaux.

With a major this week, it was a relatively low-key celebration with her partner and Desveaux. She’ll have a proper party at some point down the road.

This week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club gives players a second consecutive week of play on a Donald Ross design. Reid, who tied for third last year at the KPMG at Hazeltine, went out for nine holes on Tuesday afternoon feeling a bit different.

“I just feel like my mindset has now shifted,” she said, “like OK, what do we need to do to win this week?”

In previous weeks, a top 20 or 30 would have been considered a good result. Now that she’s a winner on the LPGA, however, that’s not enough to satisfy the 33-year-old Brit.

Statistically speaking, Reid said, players don’t often fare well after a big win. She’s doing what she can to recover as quickly as possible from the hype and drain of realizing a dream.

Reid’s instructor, Jorge Parada, has plenty of experience at Aronimink and believes that the big track sets up nicely for Reid. It’s a ball-strikers’ course, and their goal has long been for Reid to rank inside the top 15 on tour in greens in regulation. She’s currently 22nd.

“What we always talk about is I don’t want you to be a player who only wins once,” said Parada. “I want you to be a player who wins, finishes top 10 on a decent week and top 25 on a bad week.”

While Reid is a six-time winner on the Ladies European Tour, getting it done on American soil brought a huge sense of relief.

“Get little bit of a chip off my shoulders,” she said. “People (can) stop asking me when I’m going to win.

“For people who didn’t think I could do it, it’s nice to kind of stick my finger up at them. I enjoy that a lot as well.”