U.S. WOMEN'S OPEN

June 3, 2021

Gurleen Kaur

The Olympic Club

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Gurleen Kaur, even par 71. Five birdies, five bogeys. How was the round out there today?

GURLEEN KAUR: Got off to an okay start and then I made some birdies on the back nine and played well overall. The wind was less, so I thought there was some manageable opportunities out there, and made good putts, made some mistakes also, but played well overall.

THE MODERATOR: How did the course play?

GURLEEN KAUR: I think fair. My first practice round I was like, Wow, this is rough. Like the rough was long, but there were some moved up tee boxes, which I thought was nice. Some attackable pins, but some tucked pins for sure.

Maybe five pins at least three paces or four paces off the edge, so just play to the middle.

Overall, I thought it played challenging but still fair.

THE MODERATOR: How did today's round compare to your expectations coming into the week?

GURLEEN KAUR: Pretty much the same. Like I felt really confident coming into the week as well. I came off of a good start -- I mean, a good ending at Grayhawk in Nationals, and of course exceeded my expectations and didn't expect to be so high up, but at the same time, I feel great and ready to go for the next couple days.

Q. Any great advice from Hal?

GURLEEN KAUR: Yeah, I actually was on his podcast yesterday. My coach is his assistant. They work together, and we talked about the course. He told me to practice like different shots, of course, especially on 4, 15, 16.

So Chase and I just worked on like draws, a lot of hooks as well, and just being able to manage the golf course, yeah.

Q. Was there anything about -- this is your first U.S. Women's Open. Was there anything that was kind of like an aha moment when you got here about the bigness of it or a gift or something?

GURLEEN KAUR: The only thing I was thinking about again is the rough. Yeah, like I was just -- the 1st hole I hit it in the rough and I was like, Okay, you can't really see my ball or anything.

Other than that, no, I feel like the golf course is playing in great shape, but not anything that sticks out to me.

I think the food has been amazing. It just kind of has the same U.S. amateur feel, but at the same time, it doesn't.

Q. How many times did you try to qualify for this event?

GURLEEN KAUR: So in college, it's been kind of difficult to play the qualifiers just because it's always during finals week and during regionals, so I didn't try to qualify the last two years.

Maybe twice when I was in high school, so this was my third time trying to qualify for it, yes.