AIG WOMEN'S OPEN

August 21, 2020

Austin Ernst

Quick Quotes

Q. Under par, level for the championship to this point. Would you have taken that when you saw the forecast earlier this week?

AUSTIN ERNST: Absolutely. I would have been sat in the hotel and been very happy. I've been playing well. I've hit the ball well, but even putting, I putted it really well today. I had two 3-putts. My speed was a little off coming in on 14 and 16 but other than that, I made a lot of good par saves. It's not easy putting in the wind, so the whole day is really just a bat.

Q. How would you compare it, today to yesterday?

AUSTIN ERNST: Now the wind is about the same. Yesterday it was windier. We played the first few holes not quite as much wind, but then the rain picked up and it rained really hard, and then the wind came with the rain and it was brutal. I don't know which one I like more, but it was really tough playing that stretch probably from about 6 to 12.

Q. You've played in the States, returned to the LPGA, and came back last week to play Scottish. Did you feel the game was really coming into form heading into this week?

AUSTIN ERNST: Yeah, I figured a few things out the last few weeks. I've been a little rusty with the start but it's been really close to being really good. And I feel like last week helped me playing in a little bit of wind, playing links golf and figured out a few things kind of that I needed to work on and I took that the beginning of this week and I felt like at the start of this week my game was definitely trending in the right direction.

Q. You've got good energy, nice positive attitude. How crucial is that on a week like this?

AUSTIN ERNST: You have to have a great attitude. You kind of know typically with links golf, you might get a few bad bounces and you really need to be okay the ball moving a lot in the air and really just visualising your shots, because especially today, you get a lot of crosswinds so you really need to be able to commit to the shot shape and be okay if you -- if the ball doesn't quite go where you were looking.