NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP

September 25, 2026

Yu Liu

Pinnacle Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Yu Liu after her first round at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G. Phenomenal round from you. 7-under, bogey-free. What goes into a round like this when you're bogey-free and he just see birdies rolling in?

YU LIU: Yeah, I don't think I've had a bogey-free round for so long, and definitely very, very happy about how the round went today.

We came off three-week break, so just a lot of butterflies going on to be honest. Also didn't have a good stretch at all leading up to this week, so frankly I worked really hard during the three-week stretch, so glad to see things kind of pay off today.

Q. Yeah. Was there anything in particular you worked on during that stretch to kind of build momentum to this week?

YU LIU: Yeah, because my ball striking hasn't been consistent over the last couple of months, just really struggling with my approach play, which used to be a strength of mine, so me and my swing coach really worked on that part of the game. Actually the putting was what made a huge difference today, yeah.

Q. Yeah. How much confidence does a round like this kind of give you?

YU LIU: I would say it's going to be pretty huge because I didn't feel very optimistic to be honest. I knew I've done a lot of hard work off site, but as I walk onto a tournament site everything kind of changes.

So the feel, you really have to recalibrate everything. Just really glad that I was able to rely on any experience and the work that I've done.

Q. Yeah. Top of the leaderboard. It's a birdiefest at this tournament every year. How do you keep that momentum going and keep rolling in those putts?

YU LIU: Yeah, I would say I was pretty relaxed out there today. Didn't really have to have expectations because the swing felt pretty foreign start of the week, so didn't really give too much anticipation or I just really tried to stay within my game and try trust the work that I've been working on, yeah.