U.S. WOMEN'S AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 5, 2020

Rachel Heck

Woodmont Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Nice round today. Talk us through how this course suits your game.

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, well, it's a beautiful course. I think it's in perfect condition. Even after the rain today, I was surprised how well it was playing. Yeah, it's pretty tight, so we were focusing on hitting fairways, hitting greens, not trying to do anything crazy, and that's kind of been my game plan and it's worked out well so far.

Q. A little weird with the off-day yesterday. Just talk us through your routine and what did you do yesterday?

RACHEL HECK: Well, I slept in super late. I ate some food. I took another nap. I ate some more food. That's about how that went. It was nice. It was pretty nice.

Q. Just talking to your mom walking down 18, I was asking what the last couple months have been like, completely turned upside-down, and she said the break could have been almost good for your game because you got a lot of rounds in at the club and can got to practice. Can you talk about what you learned about your game the last couple of months and how it prepared you for this?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, so I think before quarantine, when I got to the course on the weekends, I would practice for seven, eight hours. I didn't really play that much. I don't know why; I just didn't.

So I just started playing with this group on my course every single day and they are all very good players, so I'm playing a competitive round every single day. So when I started tournaments again, when I played the North & South, I just didn't know how my game would be.

I had not played tournaments, but I came out and played solid and confident and I was playing well and I realized that I should have been doing that the whole time. I should have been playing competitive rounds at my course every day.

Q. Competitive rounds from course one to two, the course is water-logged. What have you learned about the course and to kind of help you prepare for your game plan going through match play?

RACHEL HECK: Kind of like what I was saying before, just hitting the fairways, the rough can be really thick and you can get some nasty lies in there.

Yeah, hitting the fairways, and match play should be fun because you probably go for more pins, a lot of my game plan, stroke play was aimed at center of the greens because you would rather be putting than have a hard bunker shot or be plugged in the rough next to the green, especially with it being so wet. I think match play might be a little more aggressive, which will be fun. That's what's fun about match play.

Q. What do you need to work on?

RACHEL HECK: I need to work on -- toward the end my irons got a little off and so I might hit the range now. But we got the water on 17, wasn't quite as confident. But overall I'm feeling really solid. Rest up.

Q. Women's Amateur, long week, but a lot of people just have that first checked box which is make match play. What is the whole week? How do you break up your goals and what's the change of mind-set going into tomorrow?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, so stroke play, you're not thinking about match play. You're thinking you have to make the cut and really from then on, no matter what you do, you're going to have a touch match. Are it's Women's Am. I don't care if you're first or 64, you're a great player. From now, take it match by match and shot by shot and see what happens.