NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP

September 26, 2026

Auston Kim

Pinnacle Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Okay, here with Auston Kim after her second round here at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G. Really solid bogey-free round from you today. Just how tough is it to go bogey-free out there?

AUSTON KIM: It's pretty tough, and I am reminded of my round yesterday, how crazy it was. Yeah, it was fun I think. It's always tough, but I just tried to keep it light and focus on what I wanted. And like golf is a lot of fun when you're trying to have fun and enjoy it.

That's what I wanted to do this week, especially after playing last week. I know I'm not at 100%, but all I want to do is enjoy and have fun and everything takes care of itself.

Q. I was just going to ask, coming off your first Solheim Cup appearance, did that represented yourself, hey, this is supposed to be fun?

AUSTON KIM: For sure, yeah. I had the time of my life with all the girls last week, and it was probably the most I've enjoyed playing golf and competing and just being a competitor out there. I know it got a little fiery on both sides, but that's the nature of the Cup. We all want to win.

I really enjoyed myself and made a lot of really good friends on our side, and know that the European players are really talented as well.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's really important to remind myself that I earned my spot on that team in the span of a year with all the points that I gathered from good finishes and good golf. It's just a matter ever staying patient.

Q. What was the process or how hard was it to kind of go from such an intense week of team and national pride and all this to now just you and your caddie back on the course?

AUSTON KIM: Yeah, definitely different. I think this Monday playing -- or this Tuesday playing a practice round I looked over at him and I'm like, wow, this is very different than last week.

But it's always fun reminiscing and talking about the week as a whole. Again, really enjoyed it and trying to have fun. You know, like this is my job and I'm very grateful this is my job. There could be a lot worse things I could be doing. Very fortunate to do what I do.

And I think playing these regular season events, like we're all individual, but getting to experience a week like that reminds me why I'm here, why I'm doing what I'm doing.

It kind of makes to feel extra special. Again, made a lot of memories that I won't ever forget.

Q. Bringing it back to this week, when you have a round like you did round one, knowing that this course is very scorable, usually a birdiefest, how do you reset your mind to attack the same course you just had a couple doubles and a bogey on?

AUSTON KIM: I am pretty proud of the way I finished yesterday, considering I did make a double on my 15th home and went back to even.

But the good things was that I played a lot of the birdies, made a lot of eagles. I knew I was scoring. It was just a matter of minimizing the mistakes. I hit two really bad shots yesterday that cost me, and it's not to say that I didn't hit any bad shots today, but just being able to minimize the really, really bad ones.

Thankfully I didn't hit a lot of those today. Just staying positive and trying to be really aggressive to my targets and make as many putts as I can. Like you can't control whether the ball goes in or not, and thankful today I was able to commit and the putts dropped.