PURE SILK CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY VISIT WILLIAMSBURG

May 21, 2021

Jessica Korda

Kingsmill River Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Jess, a 4-under 67 on day two at the Pure Silk Championship to currently sit tied for the lead after your round. Let's start with the two eagles. Start on No. 7, the eagle there. Take us through what happened.

JESSICA KORDA: Front nine, so that one I hit a really nice drive down there and I only had like 150, I think 8 pin. With how firm everything is playing I actually got hit a 9-iron to the right side of the green basically where the pin is going to be tomorrow and made a nice long putt.

I had the speed pretty okay the last couple of days, so hopefully just continues. And then the other eagle, what hole was that?

Q. 15, the Aon Risk Reward hole.

JESSICA KORDA: Thank you. Yeah, so I really wanted to hit -- go for it in two, but they put the tee so far back with how firm it is there was no reason to even try to take on that pin.

So I laid up and Kyle and I were like it's just a hard half shot and it landed exactly where we wanted and it turned straight into the hole. I was like, Sick. So unexpected, but very welcome.

Q. What was the distance there?

JESSICA KORDA: Damn it. What hole was it?

Q. 15.

JESSICA KORDA: I had 86 pin.

Q. Nice.

JESSICA KORDA: Yeah.

Q. Firm and fast. You like this kind of setup as opposed to what you had in Asia where it was very soft?

JESSICA KORDA: I didn't play Asia.

Q. As opposed to Florida where you may have had maybe a little softer.

JESSICA KORDA: No, I honestly wasn't prepared for this. This golf course is always super pure, overseeded, soft, not what we are playing right now.

It's actually really tough to gauge wedge shots because the ground is so firm that it's just bouncing off of it. I've made -- I made a couple mistakes with some wedges in my hand, but it wasn't like it was a bad shot or anything.

Then the greens in the afternoon get very slippery and the wind swirls like crazy inside these trees, so a lot of the time I was posing on a shot on 2 and I finished like 15 yards short of the green. I thought I had hit a perfect shot, because when we felt was downwind but what was actually by the hole was into the wind, and you have no way of knowing.

So kind of like Augusta but not really.

Q. It's not like a lot of people were making a move this morning. The fact that you did so well puts a little more emphasis on what you did and how well you played.

JESSICA KORDA: I just try to put myself in the right positions, and luckily I was able to have a good amount of birdie opportunities and saved a good amount of par putts. Obviously the eagles help. If you take those eagles away I would've shot even par today, so eagles always help.

Q. For those of us who are never going to have two eagles in one round, what's that like for a professional golfer?

JESSICA KORDA: It's nice. I don't hole-out from the middle of the fairway too often, so that was really exciting. Just hitting a really good putt on the 7th hole was nice. That could have got away from me really quickly. That pin is really tough.

Q. You've now had 55% of your rounds this year...

JESSICA KORDA: I knew you were going to say that.

Q. 55% of your rounds this year have been in the 60s, obviously contributes to scoring average and all those fun stats. But was there any emphasis going into the season on lowering that number, or is that just been how good the game has been?

JESSICA KORDA: No, honestly, I've just tried to figure out how to be consistent, keep my body healthy. That's really about it. Just trying to make my swing more consistent. Just try to simplify everything.

I think the longer you are out here the more you can overcomplicate things and chase stuff, and sometimes it's good to go back to basics and just make it simple.

Q. Is that what it is, that you just feel healthy now and so you're not concerned about health at any point?

JESSICA KORDA: Oh, I'm always concerned about health. There is never a day I'm not concerned about health. But it's nice to be able to play somewhat pain-free. I just know how to manage it now.

Q. We talked about the difference of the course from years past. Was there any nuances or differences from yesterday afternoon for you to this morning?

JESSICA KORDA: Oh, yesterday the wind was insane. It was so hard to gauge just about anything. And again, like I said, especially when we have wedge shots in. Like I'm not used to having this many wedges into these greens.

Because I'm able to be way more aggressive, the rough was so penalizing here in years past that you had to hit the fairway. So I was almost taking less club, and now I almost feel like Bryson, I'm just firing it out there and then kind of figuring it out from there.

Q. If you were the superintendant and you saw temps in the mid-90s this weekend...

JESSICA KORDA: I would water the crap out of this golf course. I'm not even kidding. If you go look at some of the tee boxes, I'm very glad I'm not slipping on them.

Q. Yeah.

JESSICA KORDA: Yeah, it's very, very -- it's almost like a British if I had to kind of like -- but the golf course shouldn't be playing like a British. It's not made for that.

Q. Yeah. Thanks, Jess.

JESSICA KORDA: Thank you, no problem.