ARAMCO CHAMPIONSHIP

April 3, 2026

Lauren Coughlin

Shadow Creek

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Lauren Coughlin after her second round at the Aramco Championship. 3-under may not seem like a lot, but it was quite a lot today. Take us through the round.

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah, I started off with I think -- yeah, I made a couple -- let's see, it was a long day. I'm trying to think.

Yeah, I mean, couple good pars to start. Had a really good up and down on 4 for birdie. Really good save on 2 for par.

Kind of made two really good saves on 2 and 3 and made birdie on 4 to get the day going.

Missed one on 6.

But kind of then from there I kind of started to play really, really good. It was really difficult out there. The wind was kind of swirling at times and a lot of crosswinds, is it hurting or helping. Very difficult. The greens firmed up as they do in the afternoon, especially with the wind.

But, yeah, really, really solid round. Had a lot of fun out there. Looking forward to the weekend.

Q. How much do you think playing match play here has maybe helped? Obviously different formats, but with the wind, knowing where to kind of place your shots, how much has that helped you this week?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: I think two years ago when we played stroke play here and it blew kind of similar to this was probably the best prep than even the match play, just because I knew what it would be like. In my mind already I kind of had an idea. I watched the scores a little bit this morning and could tell, yeah, it's playing really difficult.

Yeah, this is my fourth time playing this course, so I think I know it super well. I've play it a bunch, especially given how many times you can play it in match play. I think this helped a lot.

Q. The putt on 8, how far was that and second of all, what was your thought process when you went to hit it?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah, I mean, I think it was easily 60 feet. I really only stepped down to where the shelf was because that's really all I wanted, to get over that shelf.

So I didn't think about it too much after that. Had to be close to 50 feet. I felt like I hit a pretty good shot there. The wind should have been kind of in and off the left and I kind of want to err a little bit left, and the wind just didn't really take it at all.

Because of that I missed that backstop that's behind the pin so I had obviously a pretty difficult putt.

Yeah, soon as it went over that ridge I was like, that looks pretty good. Pretty much the whole way kind of went like this a little bit, but it went right in dead center.

Q. And you had couple bogeys on the back side and one putt on 16.

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Uh-huh.

Q. How valuable was that as far as just getting back to where you wanted to be?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah, for sure. I felt like I hit a really good drive, really good hybrid up to there. I've been pretty fortunate. Hit the ball solid this week and haven't had to chip a ton. And the green was way firmer than I thought; obviously released way more than I was excepting.

At least I kind of had an uphill putt which was nice, so I could be a little bit more aggressive on it. Yeah, definitely kind of helped smooth things out there towards the end. Felt like I was playing good, especially those two holes before that.

I think the easiest way to describe this golf course, especially when it gets windy, it's so easy to make bogey. One little thing and you're making bogey; maybe even worse.

Whereas like most courses -- last week I would say was really easy to make par. This course is really easy to make bogey.

Q. What are your expectations tomorrow from a conditions standpoint?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah, probably pretty firm again and just try to hit my spots as best I can again. And there is a lot of golf to be played. As you can see, you can make big numbers really easily. So just try to stick to what I've been doing the last two days and see what happens.

Q. Lauren, your previous two victories came at a couple of venues that aren't the easiest on the LPGA Tour, Shaughnessey, and Dundonald Links. What is it about difficult conditions and golf courses that brings out the best in your game?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: I just really like it. Like I hit my iron shot on 9 today and it was blowing pretty good in. I executed it like pretty much perfectly, exactly what we were talking about.

Just like this is so fun. Like guessing correctly and having a feel right and not only guessing correctly and executing, like that's so fun.

I was just having a lot of fun out there.

Q. Does it scratch any competitive itch in your brain, maybe an intellectual itch in your brain that really makes you lock in and focus when it's that difficult?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Probably. Yeah, not that I need anything extra to motivate, but like I think one of my strengths is my mental side of the game, how I just feel like I'm really tough and I can hang in there and I'm not too afraid of bad conditions or anything like that.

I'm just going to keep going and see -- shoot the best score I can.

Q. You look really settled on the golf course right now. Caddie change, iron change.

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah.

Q. How good does it feel to get into a rhythm and play the golf you know you're capable of?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: Yeah, I think my husband, John, and I were driving up here from Phoenix and kind of talking about it, just like how last week I felt like I had finally figured out my driver. I had got my irons figured out the week before; I had gotten my driver figured out last week.

And then now I just need to figure out how to get my putter to start working. I had tried this other putter the last two weeks and obviously I didn't really like it and went back to my one I was using most of the year last year, really like the last two years.

So that's been nice.

Just to kind of get over that hump again and make some putts again and see them go in. So just finally getting everything going all at once.

Q. You had the bogey, bogey stretch towards the end. Mentally when you know the scores are what they are, how do you try to tell yourself, pick it back up and finish this strong as you did?

LAUREN COUGHLIN: I think it's more just like, yeah, you're probably going to make bogeys out here. It's kind of inevitable. I would say like if you probably -- if you had less than two bogeys out there you probably had a really great round I would think.

And so I mean, I wasn't too -- I felt like I hit some pretty good shots and hit it in the bunker on both of tee shots. Felt like I hit a really great hybrid out of the bunker on 15 and it just -- I kind of had to make sure I hit it farther than that.

I couldn't err short, so I felt like I was hitting really good shots and it is what it is out here. You're going to get good bounces and you're going to get bad bounces.