U.S. WOMEN'S AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 5, 2026

Clairey Lin

The Honors Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Clairey, good two rounds of stroke play. Pretty safely beneath the cut. Can you just talk about what today was working well for you and just the round in general?

CLAIREY LIN: Yeah, I've been hitting it really well. Yesterday, too. Hitting my irons really good. Just hitting a lot of greens.

Just getting myself in play and keeping it in play has been like what I've been doing.

Q. Obviously last time we saw you you were winning a USGA Championship. What have you been up to since the Girls' Junior win?

CLAIREY LIN: I have taken some time off. I celebrated at home. I played golf with some friends. I've chilled. It was nice to be back home. But I'm really excited to be back out here again.

Like I said before, this is my first U.S. Am, so coming here and kind of coming to this championship that I've never been to before, it's an honor and I'm just really excited.

Q. Obviously see the Stanford ball marker. Made the commitment a few weeks ago. Can you just talk about that decision and how it feels to be going to Stanford?

CLAIREY LIN: Yeah, I've wanted to go to Stanford for as long as I can remember. Probably even before I started playing golf. Like I just love the school. I love the place. Amazing coaches, and some of my best friends are on the team.

I actually had this ball marker since I was maybe like ten years old, and I took it off the hat because I didn't think it was fitting. Now since I've committed I put it back on. It's pretty cool and surreal to go to somewhere I've wanted to for a long time.

Q. That's awesome. Last couple days you obviously got to play with Aphrodite who won the Girls Junior last year and Rianne who won both these championships couple years ago. Do you ever have a second where you looked around and got to appreciate the other two that you were playing with and what you three have accomplished?

CLAIREY LIN: Yeah, I mean, they're amazing players. They're amazing people. I've known Aphrodite for a while. She's my teammate and going to be my teammate at Stanford.

It's just been a lot of fun these few days. Lots of great golf and it was a good group, so we had a lot of fun.

Q. I know you mentioned you're kind of on a USGA roll right now. Girls Junior, learning a lot here. What's the biggest thing you learned over the few stroke play rounds? What's the biggest thing you learned about being able to have success and take it now that you're going to be in match play?

CLAIREY LIN: I guess kind of sounds cliche, but just enjoy it. I mean, not getting too far ahead of myself and not being scared of anything. Like there were a few lines today where probably me a few years ago would've been like, oh, I'm scared of this. I'm scared of this pin.

But today just like going at it, reminding myself this isn't different from any round back home or any round at the U.S. Junior. So just giving myself faith and giving myself the enjoyment of being here.