HUGEL AIR PREMIA LA OPEN

April 22, 2021

Gabriela Ruffels

Wilshire Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Solid bogey-free start and then a nice finish there.

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, yeah.

Q. Front nine anyway.

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, it was good on the front nine. Kind of let it go a little bit on 10 but wind started picking up on my back nine.

I feel like the back nine is pretty tough, especially when the wind gets up. Yeah, I was happy with my finish for sure.

Q. I would imagine to have a couple hiccups in the middle but to finish the way you did says a lot about the mental game right now, yeah?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah. You just got to keep grinding. I feel like you never know what you're going to get with golf. Sometimes you're hitting good shots and they're not turning out.

I knew that I was playing solid and if I hit some good shots I knew that I was putting really well, and ended up making a few down the last two, so overall really happy.

Q. How often have you played this course being USC alum? Did you guys play here often?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, when it was under Coach Gaston. So I played her for one semester. We had qualifyings here, we went here on the weekends, so for one semester I played here quite a lot.

Q. Played out here under Coach Gaston?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Under Coach Gaston. So my first semester we had qualifyings and came out her on the weekends. I'm actually staying in my college apartment this week, which is kind of weird.

But I was like, I'm paying a lease so I might as well just stay there. It's 20 minutes away.

Q. Yeah, that's fun though.

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah.

Q. And are they still doing virtual classes?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yes.

Q. So you get to hang out with everybody still.

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, no it's fun. Getting to see my roommates and going back there I still feel like I'm still in college.

Q. Are they like, Hey, Gabi, what's it like out there? They ever ask you any of that, what's it like out on tour?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, I mean, some of my -- definitely my roommates have. They're all kind of juniors is seniors, so about ready to go to Q-School and everything.

So, I mean, it's cool. It's cool to be out here and it's cool to play so close to my college.

Q. Speaking of Q-School, or not speaking of, do you have any benchmarks? You played out here, this is your fourth event I think this year on the LPGA. You played a couple Symetra events. Do you have any benchmarks that you maybe worked on with your team and you're striving for to get out here full time, or have you not thought too far ahead?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: I never really kind of do set goals or anything like that. I just kind of keep going, I've always done that, and see how it goes. I feel like you can't really control that. Just every week just giving it my 100% and seeing how it goes.

Q. It controls itself by the finish, right?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, exactly.

Q. When you can have a finish like that down the stretch, and especially I feel like those two closing holes --this a crazy looking green; 17 is not easy -- when you can have a finish like that, bouncing back, feel good going into the next two days?

GABRIELA RUFFELS: Yeah, definitely a confidence booster birdieing the last two, especially in the tough conditions. And I think these are probably the toughest holes on the golf course. 17, 18, really tough finishing holes.

So yeah, definitely confidence boost for tomorrow.