KROGER QUEEN CITY CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY P&G

September 19, 2024

Ashleigh Buhai

TPC River's Bend

Quick Quotes

Q. All right, joined now here by Ashleigh Buhai after her first round at the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G. 7-under; a lot of birdies on the card today. Just what was working so well for you?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: I hit it great; putted well. That tends to add up to what it did.

Yeah, I think I was just smart with when I could attack. At the same time, play to spaces. There were a few pins out there where you had to still try to be aggressive, and the greens got a little firm and ran through, but then made some good up and downs to keep me in it.

Q. What were you able to maybe take advantage of and put yourself in positions to get those birdie opportunities on this course?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: Again, the greens are the tricky part here. The fairways are kind of firm, which is nice because running out, so we're hitting maybe a few shorter clubs in. Kind of need that, because the greens are undulating and only going to get firmer throughout the week.

So, again, I think just being aggressive when you can and even making sure being aggressive to the spaces even if you're playing away from it. Make sure you commit and don't leave yourself too long of putts.

Q. Heard it was a little bit longer in the practice rounds.

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: Uh-huh.

Q. Did it feel longer out there today? Did they shorten it up?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: They did move two tee boxes up, which I think they needed to. The greens aren't designed for the clubs we would be hitting in from back there. I think the course setup, they've done well.

It's kind of nice to have three reachables, I think for everybody in the field. I'm not long. I'm probably average out here and I could get up to three of the par-5s, which was kind of nice for a change.

So I think it is set up to go low, but at the same time, there were some pretty tricky pins out there that were front and kind of downwind and you ended up being long and I just had to take that and chip back.

Q. Lowest round of the season. With everything you battled through this year, bless your heart.

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: Yeah.

Q. Does it feel good to see all that battling come to fruition?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: It does. There has been few things happened to me this year: back injuries, broken toe. I played four weeks and I said to my coach, out of 16 rounds I had 12 good rounds. Just one round in there every week, so I took positive out of that.

And then he came out from South Africa last week. I took ten days off after that four-week stretch, which was nice, to recharge, and we did some good work and it definitely paid off today.

Q. Obviously didn't have a tournament and then had Solheim. You think having that two weeks is an advantage coming into this stretch?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: It's huge because, again, we need like a week off to decompress, especially for me in that long run, three weeks in Europe and travel over to FM Global. Some players might have taken a week; I took ten days.

Just shows that rest is just as important. I know if I give myself five days to warm up, like I say with my coach coming in, we did good work, and, yeah, it was nice to actually just see it pay off today.

Q. What did you learn today that you're going to apply to the next three rounds?

ASHLEIGH BUHAI: My goal going into this week was just to -- I know it sounds weird -- but I can hit so many different shots and I see so many different shots. The thing I try to do, my goal this week was to just hit the most simplest shot. For me that's just a little drop-off fade, unless the other one is really required and I have to stand up and hit a draw or hit a big fade.

I think that's what I did well today, and it showed that when do I that, then I gave myself maybe a few more looks than what I have been doing. At birdie, yeah.