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ANA INSPIRATION

March 30, 2018

Jessica Korda

Rancho Mirage, California

Q. Very busy checking Instagram, not scores right now. Not stressed out about the weekend for good reason. Colorful opening nine, you started on 10. What was the difference between your first nine and your second?
JESSICA KORDA: I mean, I just had a little bit of a hard time breathing today. It's very dry out. My dad was like, "Yeah, there's only 7% humidity. For a Florida girl that's not enough." So it just took me a little bit of time to get used to it. As the temperature dropped it got a little bit easier for me.

Q. I have to give Judy Rankin props for helping me with this. I did not realize you're the number one putter this season on the LPGA Tour. That's quite an improvement, especially when you look at last year. But when you go back to the season prior and the season prior, what's been the difference for you on the greens?
JESSICA KORDA: Just been holing some putts and it's been really nice. I'm not going to give up my secrets just yet. I'm not ready.

Q. What are your thoughts going into the weekend? What is the focus?
JESSICA KORDA: Same thing. Just go out there, stick to the game plan, try to hit some more fairways than I did today, and just drain some putts, be patient.

Q. One of the few low rounds of the afternoon with a 68. How are the conditions out there this afternoon?
JESSICA KORDA: Tough. They definitely have a lot of new pins today. It was pretty windy as well. Windier than yesterday, and I think this morning, so I really had to think about where we wanted to position the ball. I didn't really do that great of a job in the beginning, and started to get into a bit of a groove later on in the round.

Q. When you see someone like Sung Hyun Park go out and post a number like that early, do you pay attention to that at all and does that change your game plan at all?
JESSICA KORDA: I was watching the coverage this morning, and I wanted to see what the greens were like. I know Nelly and I talked about it a little bit and she was saying they were a little bit more firm in the afternoon, and I definitely saw that today. But, yeah, she was playing some great golf, and a hole out always helps.

Q. Did you guys get a chance to catch up at all after she finished because she went out in the morning?
JESSICA KORDA: No, well kind of we just saw each other, and she said good luck. I said great playing. And I said are the greens fast, and she said, "They're faster." They're not as fast as I thought they were going to be. Maybe I won't get so much advice from her.

Q. You're just 4-back heading into the weekend. How do you feel being in that position?
JESSICA KORDA: It's great. I was happy to make the cut. My goals were set kind of low because of how I've been playing in majors before. I'm taking it one day at a time. Like loving the position I'm in so far.

Q. You went driver off the deck again?
JESSICA KORDA: Yeah, why not? I can't get there with a 3-wood. My sister hits a 3-wood way lower than I do and gets more roll out. And I hit mine a little bit higher and I knew I wasn't going to get roll out. To that pin I definitely didn't want to be 20 yards short in the fairway.

Q. Where did you end up with that?
JESSICA KORDA: I was just short of the bunker. I had a little bit of an uphill lie. So I was like, okay, it's going to obviously go left. Yeah, honestly, I was just trying to make solid contact.

Q. How important was it to finish that way?
JESSICA KORDA: I mean, honestly, at the beginning of the day I was like okay, even par is a good round out here. These pins are tucked. It was tough. It was a tough day. The greens were rolling out way more than I expected and trying to guess the bounces on the greens was also a little bit more difficult than in the morning yesterday. I feel like I could have been more aggressive yesterday than I was today. Yeah, I'm honestly just happy that it came to an under-par score.

Q. People always talk about you have to be more patient at majors. I'm wondering if you feel like you're a more patient person because you know your game is in a certain place where you don't have to make things happen? Does that make sense?
JESSICA KORDA: I know what I'm doing. I'm sticking to my process, and it all depends on if these putts are going to drop or not. That's the difference out here. I'm just being patient on dropping them, trying to get the speed right and hopefully getting the line right. We struggled a little bit on the front nine trying to figure out which way the putt was going to break, and we misread a couple out there. But at the end of the day, we made more than we missed. So that was good.

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