AUGUSTA NATIONAL WOMEN'S AMATEUR

March 30, 2022

Rachel Heck

Quick Quotes

Q. Do you wear those headphones for all 18 holes?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, if we're lucky, for the back nine actually.

Q. Are they noise canceling? You block out the noise?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, you see me out there, you know what's going on.

Q. Obviously a great day for you today. It's been a little up and down this spring. How is the reasoning for that and also how good it feels to come out and actually put a good one on the board?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, that's just golf. It's going to be up and down. I had a good couple tournaments and a couple bad ones. I'm working through some stuff on my swing, and I'm really happy with where it's at right now. It was good to put a solid round up there today.

Q. What's the biggest swing thought?

RACHEL HECK: Just keeping it short and concise. When I start to get a little off, it just gets long, and my tempo gets off. Just keeping it nice and short.

Q. Anything you learned out there today that you didn't pick up on yesterday with the practice round and the new greens?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, it's definitely good to keep learning. It's definitely playing better than last year. The new greens are really, really firm. Just staying below the hole is key. They're pretty slippery when you get above them.

Q. I know your dad's caddied for you at different events. What's it like to have him out there in a golf tournament like this? You probably don't have your best game that you've had in the past. How reassuring is it to have him out there?

RACHEL HECK: It is. It's really special. We're walking down 18 talking about how he's been there every step of the way. I'm a sophomore in college, and I'll have two more years of him caddying for me before we move on to the next step. So we just try to cherish these moments together.

Q. Is he going to be there on Saturday with you if you make the cut?

RACHEL HECK: No. I love my dad, but that's not good for our relationship.

Q. He didn't caddie for you last year?

RACHEL HECK: No. He doesn't want any part of that. He wants to go watch his daughter play Augusta if I make it.

Q. So you had a few birdies today. Apologize if I can't remember all of it. Can you maybe explain a few highlights.

RACHEL HECK: Yeah. I had a good little run on the back nine. I was 2-over going into it. I had a really good par save on 11, got up and down from that bunker, made a good 5-footer for par on 12, then made two 15-footers on 13 and 14.

It was really good to get the momentum going because in the round I hadn't had a whole lot drop. I was feeling a little frustrated with where my score is at. It was good to have a few birdies in there.

Q. How do you keep from getting too frustrated on the course?

RACHEL HECK: I think a lot of it is just recognizing that it's going to be frustrating. This course is so challenging. Going into it knowing that it's going to be a grind, it's not going to be easy, you're not going to just breeze through it. When you do start feeling anxious, frustrated, recognize that and know that it's normal and bring it back.

Q. Do you think some of that may play into the spring you had last year where you pretty much won everything and you're starting to realize that it's not always going to be like that?

RACHEL HECK: Yeah, last year was just an anomaly, like I don't know what happened. It was amazing. Even then I knew, every time I just couldn't believe it because golf isn't like that. You don't win all the time. It's definitely been a reality check, but it's expected.

Q. Any news with ROTC or anything like that? Any fun updates?

RACHEL HECK: No fun updates really.

Q. Or any no fun updates? Any tough --

RACHEL HECK: Kind of, I don't know. Can we not put this in right now?

Q. When we talked last year, you were kind of taking everything in. What's different this year the second time around at this event?

RACHEL HECK: I think it's really nice having seen the courses before. I know what I'm getting into, and I know the pressure is going to be a lot these first two days because everyone of course wants to make it to Augusta. Having handled that pressure before is really important.

Q. You just came back from Scottsdale, two completely different settings obviously. What are you finding is the quickest adjustment that you need to make?

RACHEL HECK: Honestly a lot of it's -- not a lot of it, but I think the greens are pretty similar. The greens at Papago were really fast, so you had to stay below the hole. Having played a week with that strategy is helpful coming in.

When you miss the fairway here, you're either in the water or the rough. There's no sand. You've got to keep it a little bit straighter.

Q. As far as freshness and being rested, any sort of fatigue from coming in from that tournament with the travel coast to coast?

RACHEL HECK: It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It helped last year playing back to back and having that experience. So I spent a lot of Monday really resting. So I'm good to go.