U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 12, 2020

Sam Harned

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort

Quick Quotes

Q. Reading your bio, kind of a late bloomer with you, with your game. You walked on to the golf team a couple years into school.

SAM HARNED: Yes, my junior year of school, and it's all worked out from there on.

Q. What made you decide to give golf -- obviously you must have played in high school?

SAM HARNED: Yeah, I played through high school. I tried getting on some teams through my first two years but just -- Jacob Wilner of Nevada gave me a spot junior year, and very thankful for that and made it all happen.

Q. Did they actually put you on scholarship?

SAM HARNED: Yeah.

Q. You originally walked on?

SAM HARNED: Yeah.

Q. By your sophomore or junior year?

SAM HARNED: Junior year.

Q. So for two years what were you doing then?

SAM HARNED: Just being a normal student. But it was fun. It was very fortunate and very lucky to kind of get one of those sides of college where I had like the college side as well as the student-athlete life.

Q. Were you much of an AJGA type of kid?

SAM HARNED: No, I didn't get in any of them, and I didn't spend the money for it, either. But yeah, no, I just played local SCGA events and First Tee throughout my high school years and just kind of played some other events through my first two years of college.

Q. So kind of a different route to this, where you see some of these kids out here all decorated with all kinds of national and international honors?

SAM HARNED: Very different, yeah. We talk about it, too. I think it's made me think about things differently. Like I've definitely taken a different path, and it kind of makes me feel kind of a little bit fortunate with working hard and all the efforts I've shown.

Q. Do you feel like a little bit of an underdog out here this week?

SAM HARNED: Yeah, we had -- it was kind of a rough first day. We battled back yesterday. Yeah, I'm playing some good golf right now, so I'm just ready to take on whomever they throw at me.

Q. Is this your first U.S. Amateur?

SAM HARNED: Second. I played last year.

Q. So you qualified, went through qualifying last year?

SAM HARNED: Went through qualifying, qualified and missed the cut by two last year. We definitely made it work this year.

Q. Were you in on the ranking?

SAM HARNED: I was in on the ranking. I was like 70 something and I got in.

Q. So you kind of climbed the ladder then?

SAM HARNED: Yeah, I got fortunate when I started getting ranked, and I just played some good golf since then.

Q. Are you done with school?

SAM HARNED: I graduated last fall, so now I'm going for a second major and going to play another year of golf.

Q. So you're going to take advantage of the NCAA's fifth-year type of deal?

SAM HARNED: Yeah, so now I'm a super senior, so I get my four years of eligibility. Yeah, my sixth year.