THE G4D OPEN

May 15, 2025

Daphne van Houten

Mixed Zone

Q. How proud do you feel to be coming back to Woburn to defend your championship?

DAPHNE VAN HOUTEN: I am very proud. I am very proud that I won it last year. I hope to do the same this year. It's a beautiful course, and that's only making it more exciting to be here again and trying to defend my title.

Q. What's it like in terms of the overall feel of the championship? Because obviously it's the second time you've played in it now. In terms of its presentation and the atmosphere, how smart and does that feel about it?

DAPHNE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah, it's a very big field, 80 players, so etc. Nice to see all of them. You see many friends, it's very busy. It's nice to see like the professional side of it, as well. Like with the caddies, with the spotters, with the starters, with the live scoring. Everything is like a higher level, which is very nice to see. I hope that many more tournaments will be like this one.

Q. And are you pleased to see that last year there was 11 women playing and this year there are 18. Is that a good sign going forward?

DAPHNE VAN HOUTEN: I heard that there were 18, and I was very, very proud and happy that so many more women are playing and that now a big part, as well, is women within the 80-people field. It's not only mostly men. It's nice to see many women around and I hope it can continue to grow like that because then we will have our own tournament with women. That would be perfect. That would be the ideal scenario.

Q. What worked well for you today?

DAPHNE VAN HOUTEN: For me, I've been struggling two years now with long COVID and therefore, I cannot train that much. I don't have the energy to train. Coming to a tight course like this made me very uncomfortable on the course and very uncomfortable with my swing. And then I didn't get well the first tee and it kind of spiraled from there, and not feeling fine.

Normally, you train and you know what you can do and what is your level. I now just go on the course and see what I do. It can be 90. It can be 74, like last week, I shoot 1-over, I don't know. But on a course like this, you can get very intimidated if you are not very confident within yourself, and I was a bit unlucky during like, I think, almost ten lipouts. If you can't half of them that will go in, then it's not as bad as of a score.

Q. Can you bring your best game tomorrow?

DAPHNE VAN HOUTEN: I hope so. I hope to have a good sleep and feel more relaxed tomorrow, and also because I played today and how I know to kind of hit the ball. But it does also give me a bit less confidence today because I wasn't very sharp off the tee.

So I need to find something in my sleep and my dreams that will put my driver straight again and then we'll get back on track.