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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 15, 2019Karl VilipsVillage of Pinehurst, North Carolina THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Karl Vilips, a winner over Brad Dalke, 3 & 1, who was a U.S. Amateur runner-up back in 2016. Carl, you've had a good stretch of golf here to get to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur. Tell us a little bit about the match with Brad. He had a lead and you took it away from him and then birdied 17 to win it all. Tell us a little bit about that match. KARL VILIPS: Oh, it was definitely my hardest match this week. You know, I was 5-under with no bogeys, and he just grinded it out, made a few birdies or I made pars, and I just did the same thing I've done the previous two matches: Get up early in the match and never lose the lead. It was definitely my most stressful match out there. Yeah, we just played really good golf. Q. And arguably you played two really good players. Steven Fisk is highly ranked and then you beat Brad Dalke, that's a tough order. How did you stay ready to do that when you had such a steep hill to climb with those two good players? KARL VILIPS: You just have to play good golf, execute the shots you need, and not give them any breathing room because they're such good players, and if they see that you're down in the dumps feeling bad about a couple shots that you've hit, they can take advantage of that. So I just have to stay positive and not let my emotions get to me, to kind of show them that I'm a little bit stressed out or something. When I headed into the match this morning with Steven, I knew he was highly ranked. I knew he was a really good player. And I mean, pars will win holes out here in any match, any guy you play against. So I just had to play the most pars, make the least amount of bogeys, and I feel like I was pretty good at doing that. Q. Three junior golfers in the quarterfinals; what does that say about how competitive you are and what does it say about the junior circuit to be able to come out and beat a lot of the guys you guys have beaten? KARL VILIPS: It's really just the tournaments we play. We play hard courses. The AJGA invitationals, U.S. Junior, tournaments like that, it really prepares you for stuff like this. We all motivate each other because every week we're battling it out for the win. We just have to execute shots on top of each other. I don't know who else -- I haven't looked at whoever made it to the quarters, but we just all tend to play really good on tough courses. I mean, the AJGA has done a great job at pushing us to do that. Q. You've had some really good finishes against non-junior competition this summer. What has that done for your confidence? KARL VILIPS: Kind of shows me that I can play against anyone. That definitely helped me a lot today, playing Steven and Brad. Just being able to place top 10 in those elite fields like the Western Am, Pac Coast, Northeast, it really just gave me confidence that my game is good enough to compete with these guys. Q. Is there a professional golfer from Australia who's kind of been like a mentor to you? KARL VILIPS: Not really a mentor, no. Q. You're not close with -- KARL VILIPS: Not really. Q. The tee shot on 17, did you have any nerves standing over that? KARL VILIPS: I mean, yeah. I was nervous. But I knew that I could -- if I just execute the same kind of iron shot I've been hitting all day, which was like a little draw, then I should be able to hit the green. It's a hard hole to birdie, so you've just got to put the pressure on him and make him hit a clutch shot. Q. What was going through your mind when you saw where it landed and where you were on the green? KARL VILIPS: Go. Once it landed, I just said, go. Because that green is so firm at that back pin, once it lands over that bunker it can get all the way back there. Q. How far away were you when it finished on 17? KARL VILIPS: Probably finished about five, six feet, yeah. Q. What led to your decision to go to Stanford? KARL VILIPS: Just the facilities, academics. I know a bunch of guys who are going to be on the team, and the whole atmosphere is just going to push me to get better in the long run. Q. You referenced the hot start today. One of the best shots I think I've seen all week was that moment on 3. It's a hard golf course to make long putts, and that took forever to get to the hole. It was kind of a cool moment. KARL VILIPS: Yeah, first of all, I hit the green with driver. I just had to hit a really high cut to get it to sit on the green, and Brad was already in for birdie. I gave it to him. I just had like 50 feet or something straight down that hill downgrain, and I really was just trying to lag it up inside of a foot, and it never really left its line, rolled end over end and had perfect speed. But if that missed even with perfect speed, it was still going to be three, four feet past the hole. But that was probably one of the best shots of the day. Q. You spend a lot of time in the States, but when you go back to Australia during a winter here, it would be summer over there, but how much of the hard golf courses in Australia helps you play a golf course like this? How similar is it, all those events you play in Australia? KARL VILIPS: Yeah, growing up a little bit on the Melbourne Sand Belt definitely prepares you for a course like this. Firm greens, fast greens, a lot of falloffs. It reminds me a lot of Royal Melbourne. Where most of the players come from the States, it takes them a while to adjust. But I guess it is an advantage because I already know how these are going to react. I've played a bunch here back in the day. But being over there on that Sand Belt, it's a lot like this, so it's definitely prepared me well for a course like 2 and 4. Q. This is your third U.S. Amateur; in what areas are you different or better today than you were those first couple years? KARL VILIPS: More prepared. Just actually putting in the time to get those extra reps in, hit shots that I might not expect to play because you know you can get them. My first U.S. Ams I really just didn't think I could make match play, being like 14, 15, and just didn't have a lot of confidence heading in. But this week coming off the hot tournaments this summer so far, I really felt like I could do it. Put in the extra work this year, and I feel like I've changed a lot as far as mentality heading into match play, heading into stroke play. I was 8-over through 10 in my stroke play, so I was just able to battle back, and if I was 8-over through 10 two years ago, I probably would have just thrown in the towel. Q. What do you think this is going to do for your Instagram account? KARL VILIPS: I mean, hopefully I just get a few more followers. I don't know. I just, like, enjoy kind of spreading the news what I'm doing. Q. Do you handle that yourself? KARL VILIPS: Yeah. I handle my Instagram. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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