BUICK LPGA SHANGHAI

October 12, 2023

Maja Stark

Qizhong Garden Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Maja, terrific round out there. Bogey-free, 6-under 66. It was overcast most of the day. Did you feel it was conducive to good scoring?

MAJA STARK: Yeah. I mean, the greens are pretty receptive. Obviously it wasn't easy, but it wasn't too hard. Didn't feel like I really hit very solid shots. Kind of working on something in my technique, but obviously good enough and I made a lot of putts.

Felt easy today.

Q. First time back in Shanghai in four years. First of four weeks in Asia. Are you enjoying your time here?

MAJA STARK: I really am. I mean, got in on Monday night so haven't really got to do anything. Hopefully I'll get to do some exploring.

Q. You're a prolific winner. Six times on the Ladies European Tour, you're a winner on the LPGA Tour. Playing your first Solheim Cup last month in Spain, what's that done for your career?

MAJA STARK: It gave me so much confidence. Being able to hit those putts with so much pressure, it just makes you feel like this is the easiest thing ever, because we don't have thousands of people watch and a whole continent rooting for you, which is also weird.

When you're out here you are usually alone. Maybe a few people rooting for you. Yeah, feels so nice being able to hit good shots with that pressure. Now pressure doesn't exist anymore feels like in normal tournaments.

Q. So you talked a little bit about a change in your technique. What is that change?

MAJA STARK: So it's just keeping my hands more neutral in my backswing, because I have a tendency to like roll my wrist a little bit so the club ends up too much behind me and too much under the plane going up, and then I get steep on it going back.

Just been working on that since Friday last week, so I haven't had a ton of time to fix it, but it's all stuff that I've done before but that I've kind of -- kind of gone back to the wrong thing during the season.

Q. What was today's round like for you? You talked about confidence after the Solheim Cup. When did you feel the momentum pick up in a round like today?

MAJA STARK: Again, it felt good from the beginning.

Close to making birdie on the first one.

Birdie on the second.

Saved a par on the third.

I thought, if it doesn't get any harder than that I can deal with that.

I feel like my putting has been pretty good ever since Solheim, so I had a lot of confidence in that. That's what really made me play well today, because my irons weren't anything to really write home about.

Q. Bogey-free performance. First bogey-free round since Singapore. What does what say about the work you've been putting in? We haven't seen you since Solheim Cup. What was it like being able to refocus with the rest of the season ahead of you in Sweden?

MAJA STARK: It was pretty nice. I think it was needed. I haven't played a normal tournament in five weeks. I think I've been longing for a break like that during the season, but it's so hard to give myself a break. I don't think anyone has really taken that much time off unless they've been injured.

It's been really nice to be able to refocus and really think through what I've done during the year and what happened at Solheim, because I felt like at Solheim I was a way different player than I used to be. I moved on from stuff more quickly. I managed to figure stuff out during the round sometimes.

It felt like every putt was so important so I just tried to keep that going and keep that out here and just actually think about what it's for and not just, oh, this is for birdie. No, this is actually -- this could be the winning putt. This could be really important. So, yeah.

Q. What do you take away from a day like this as you head into tomorrow?

MAJA STARK: Just that it doesn't have to feel great to actually -- I said to my caddie on the range, because I could not hit the ball, at all, I just thought, this is going to be interesting.

I told that to him and he said, well, you've hit the ball worse than this and you shot 6-under before, so went out and did that again.

So, yeah, just to be calm even though the warmup doesn't feel that great.