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U.S. WOMEN'S MID-AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

September 19, 2019

Ina Kim-Schaad

Flagstaff, Arizona

Q. First of all, congratulations. How does it feel to be the 33 rd U.S. women's Mid-Amateur champion?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Honestly still doesn't feel real. I'm sure everybody says that but it real truly doesn't feel real yet. I'm sure it will sink in to night or maybe later in the week, but it's pretty amazing. The women I got to play with this week have been amazing. The golf course was amazing.

So it's just a pretty surreal experience overall.

Q. I think it's hard probably when you get to this final match, I've heard people say that you want to play your best but you also have to temper your expectations; it's a long week. How were you feeling at start of the round?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: I tend to get overly amped up, so I was just trying to calm myself down a little bit, just so that I don't get a little too crazy with my yardages. Sometimes I hit it like 20 yards further and it's just because I'm amped up, so I really had to try and suppress some of my excitement. But other than that, I really tried to think of it as just another golf round, which I know is really hard to do, and I don't know if I did a great job at it but that was my intent when I started the day is just play my game and it's just another round of golf, and let's just do the best that I can today.

Q. Did your husband on the bag help that way?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Absolutely. He's just amazing. He knows me more than anybody. He's able to see when I'm getting a little too overexcited. If I'm a little too mellow, he'll pump me up. If I get upset with myself, he'll call me off. He's just a really great balance for me and he knows my game really, really well, and he knows when I get tempted by trying to cut corners, and I get overly aggressive and try and sneak around corners. He'll call me off and stop me from doing stupid stuff.

Q. So early on, you had the lead pretty quick, got on top after, but were you feeling at all -- you mentioned emotions. Did you feel like you might have possibly let a hole or two get away that you might have even had a larger lead?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Yeah, I struggled a bit especially with the wind kicking up today. I think it was a constant 20 with gusts of 30, 35. It kind of got in my head, especially around the greens. You know, they have a lot of tucked pins, as you would expect from the USGA on a finals match, so with a lot of the downhill or uphill, I think I psyched myself out on the speeds and reads a lot. That definitely paid for that. Missed a lot of birdie opportunities and I think Talia did the same thing. Both of us were hitting them close and then we were missing opportunities, just by misreads or speed or something like that.

I think really it was a lot to do with kind of the wind and just cycling ourselves out too much with the wind and the incline and the roll-out because the greens run true. But they are also very quick if you're behind the pin, and it's not hard to be behind the pin on a lot of these greens.

Q. No. 8, you had a putt that just went all around the hole?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: That was a heartbreaker. I was ready to pick up the ball out of the hole and it did a total horseshoe around the cup. That was a disappointment.

Q. Obviously maybe in the end, 14 you made a really important putt to save par there. Were you trying to just block everything out? You had your led and you're not trying to protect it.
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Yeah, I don't think at any point I was trying to be protective of my lead. I was kind of telling myself I was down and I needed a playoff, and again, we were both missing putts that we should have made. So I just kept telling myself, don't be defensive; be offensive.

That hole, I knew it was an opportunity, and I had my read and I just needed to make a good stroke, and I did, thankfully.

Q. Then you made another important par-saving putt on 15, after seeing Talia go over the green and left it on the front, but much better off there.
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Yeah, it was so hard to commit. You know it's a little wedge, but it's just so straight into the wind and it's bone-hard. You know there's a false front, but the pin is tucked two feet from the edge, so you know if you get a little aggressive you're going to be in death where Talia was. I just found it really hard to attack that pin and I paid for it a bit. I gave myself a little heart attack by giving myself a long uphill putt and having a real 6-foot tester on the way back.

Q. But you knocked that dead center, and again the next hole, you made the birdie putt with a beautiful putt, so you found what you needed.
INA KIM-SCHAAD: I did. I was actually thankful on the last hole, I guess it was 16. I was pretty thankful I got the first look. I was further away, and it was a tough putt, a left-to-righter a cup out, a left-to-right slider downhill, and I was still thankful I had it first because I knew if I made it, I would make her nervous. I was just hoping I could pull it through.

Q. You did.
INA KIM-SCHAAD: I did. Surprise to me, too.

Q. -- you now have the opportunity in 2020 to play in the US Women's Open at Champions. You probably try not to think about that until the deed is done?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: I think it will probably sink in once I'm there, but it's just super exciting. I mean, the Open is kind of the penultimate golf experience for women to try to get into, so I'm very excited. It will be my first Open. I believe probably have to go to the gym a lot and gain some yardage before I get there, but I'm excited and honored.

Q. You're qualified into this championship for ten years, and the next two Women's Amateurs?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: That's great.

Q. Another opportunity that comes with this. You got the trophy green-side and you said it's heavy.
INA KIM-SCHAAD: It is heavy. Darren, the photographer, I was joking with him yesterday. I was like, "Well, I guess I made it to the quarters, does that mean I get exempt next year?"

This is a little better than that, so I'll take it.

Q. One last thing. With the Met Golf Association, you're on the board?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Of the Women's Metropolitan Golf Association.

Q. And you're also the chair of the junior program?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Yes, so I'm on the board as a junior chair. So I help, I suppose, help with the direction of what we're going to do with the junior program and I run one of the team junior tournaments every year. It's actually really fun. It's New York versus Philly and Boston in a three-way match and we get to pick the team. I get to travel with the girls for an overnight trip to do this match play tournament, and it's just super fun.

Last year was my first year doing it -- or I guess it was this year, 2019, and the girls, it just floored me how talented and impressive and mature these young girls were. I'm like, some of them are more mature than I was. It really was such a wonderful experience. Possibly more for me than it was for them. I really enjoyed it so much.

The youngest I had was 14, and the oldest was 18, so it was a good spread and just really talented and not just on the golf course, but just really smart girls, getting amazing grades, doing so many extracurricular things, helping out at hospitals and just doing music programs and all this stuff that is just so impressive to me.

Q. And you're trying to help also encourage the future of the game, right?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Yeah, I mean, if these girls, even if they don't play in college, or if they do and they get jobs and all this kind of stuff, for them to continue to love golf and have that as a lifelong passion, that would really be amazing to me.

For me, I worked for, you know, ten years out of school without pretty much hitting a golf club, twice or three times a year, if that. I regret that. I think for me personally, I needed that time away to re-find my passion for golf. A lot of these girls, if they are not, you know, burnt out or anything like that, then you know, for them to be able to play their whole life and at 25 be able to play in the Mid-Am, things like that, it's so cool.

Q. Did you always feel in that time,11 years or so, did you always feel like golf would be there for you when you could get back to it?
INA KIM-SCHAAD: Just disinterested, honestly. I kind of had closed that chapter of the book, and I kind of moved on. I was doing so many other things with my life, and then I met IA n, my husband now, and he was the one who kind of got me back interested in it. It happens very quickly, it really does. The first few birdies and then, you know, you're hooked again.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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