THE MODERATOR: All right, Su Oh, welcome back to Grand Rapids. You have such an impressive record here at Meijer. T2 and T4 in 2019 and '17. How do you feel about being back?
SU OH: Yeah, I really enjoy it here. The weather is always nice. I guess they made some changes to the golf course, but I think it still looks the same. It just looks much neater, cleaner, I guess. Just tidied up quite a lot of things.
A little bit different with the run-offs around the greens, but still feels pretty good. I played yesterday and I was like, I don't know how this course was so low. I had a lot of long irons. I'm hoping because was it windy yesterday -- I was kind of talking to Hannah and I was like, Mmm, doesn't seem as easy as like 22-under par or whatever it was last year or 2019.
Hopefully keep it going and have another good week.
Q. What part of the course do you think really aligns with your game?
SU OH: I don't know. I mean, you obviously have to putt well and I think I can read the greens well, here so I guess that's been quite helpful.
Q. And also, just being back here at Meijer, what does this event mean to you in general?
SU OH: I actually - all the other years it's one of my favorites events because of the Grand Taste, but unfortunately it's not on this year.
But it's just got really good atmosphere. I think the community really embraces the event, and I think that's when a tournaments is always like a really good event, when the locals come together. I guess all the kids come out on Father's Day, Sunday as well, so just really good atmosphere.
And I think this is one of the first events where we have quite a lot of people coming out, so hopefully we'll fill capacity. That will be nice. And I have a really good host family here, so it's pretty good.
Q. Going off the host family, will they be out here supporting you this week at all?
SU OH: Yeah, she actually just retired last year, and we didn't play last year obviously, so she's going to come out and watch.
Q. And a huge part of this event has always been Meijer's big heart in terms of donating to Meyers Simply Give. A new tradition this year will be that whoever wins, Meijer will donate on their behalf $25,000 to local communities, in their local community. How much would that mean to you to help out your local community?
SU OH: I assume it wouldn't be my local community.
Q. Yep.
SU OH: In Australia?
Q. Yep.
SU OH: Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Q. It's a new tradition this year.
SU OH: Yeah, right. I just assumed it to be U.S. based. Yeah, no, that will be really cool. It would be a good thought to which community to do it, like which food bank or community to donate to. I'll have to think about that hopefully at the end of the week.
Q. When is the last time you were home?
SU OH: First event was Kia, so March. So I was home after U.S. Open last year and then like three months, but I won't be going home until end of the year. We still have to do two weeks quarantine and just there is just a lot to think about when I go home.
I'll just stay over here.
Q. It was kind of recent, end of May was your birthday.
SU OH: Yes.
Q. How was that and what did you do? How did you celebrate?
SU OH: I actually missed the cut at Kingsmill, but then I went over to Vegas early, so it was a Sunday so Hannah was there, and she got me these like cute paper flowers. Because if you get flowers you have to throw them out, but I could like get it back to my U.S. base in Orlando, like the Golf Australia house.
So we just have it there. I think it was like one of the first weeks where we can eat outdoors, dine in, I guess, so we got good food in Vegas. It wasn't too bad.
Now that I'm 25 I can save some money on rental cars. (Laughter.)
Q. Going off that, the last couple weeks, you mentioned Vegas, how has the last couple weeks been like and what have you been working on to get ready for this event?
SU OH: Well, this year I actually haven't felt like I was like playing bad, but just couldn't put a score together and then a whole week together. So even last week I played well first two days and then second -- on the weekend wasn't as good.
Hopefully this course will give me some good vibes again and I'll be able to put together a really good week. It's not easy putting four rounds together, four really good rounds together. Hopefully you just get it done.
Q. You mentioned your host family. Take us through what her name is, and what she did. You said she retired.
SU OH: Yeah, so Donna Micklin (phonetic) is our host mum. She's awesome. She is a really good cook, so she made us steak and veggies and was really good last night. Especially now we're so strict with dining, it's just so good to have home cooked meals.
She used to work long hours so she was really upset that she couldn't come out and watch as much as she wanted to. This year she's going to bring a couple of her friends and come watch us from Thursday morning at 7:30.
Hannah is a staying together as well. Luckily Hannah and I are on the same side of the draw, only half an hour apart, so she's going to come out and watch both of us.
Q. You mentioned the course changes. They were pretty significant that they went through. Do you almost have to -- is it a new game plan you have to implement with the changes or is it not entirely different?
SU OH: It's not entirely different, but I also notice some different tee boxes out there as well. I think the golf course here, like you just to have score really well on the Par-5s because you can get them in two.
Like so you just -- par is not going to be good on those holes. Get the par-5s, and I think the greens are quite receptive, even yesterday. Coming from San Francisco though I feel like this week is really short and I only got to play yesterday. I feel like I haven't spent a lot of time on the golf course.
But we'll see how it goes out there.
Q. One the par-5s is the 14th?
SU OH: Aon.
Q. Which is the Aon hole.
SU OH: Yeah.
Q. How do you strategize for that hole in particular?
SU OH: Well, that hole is off the back and it was driver -- I think took out a tree on the left so it was like driver and then this really awkward second shot, because if you -- it's quite tight there and if you miss the second you're stuck under a tree for your third shot on a par-5.
I think they put the tees up this year and I got driver, 3-wood on the green. It's a tight driving hole with a water on the left and the bunker on the right. But if you hit a good drive you can go for the green.
But the green is pretty like hilly, so you just, you know, hopefully hit it on the green and hole the putt. (Laughter.)
You just have to hit it well off the tee, yeah.
Q. I was going to ask you too, you're a good friend of Hannah's, a fellow countrywoman. Hannah has talked about she's going home to Australia after KPMG and not playing again until the Olympics.
SU OH: I know. I'm going to miss her. I've been giving her a lot of crap about it. I understand she's going home to prepare for the Olympics. We were like, Let's all get to the top 15 so we can all go. I have a little bit of time, but I'm a bit far out.
But she's going home after KPMG and she's leaving me here all by myself. So if you're watching this, I hope you change your mind. (Laughter.)
Q. How challenging has it been -- you did mention you went home to Australia.
SU OH: Yep.
Q. How challenging is it when you have to make a decision like Hannah is to be able to go home and set aside time to get into the country properly and see family?
SU OH: Yeah, it's been really hard because I always went home -- the last couple years, I got to go home four times a year at least probably. But they're very strict. No exemptions for anybody, vaccinated or not.
So it's just you can't -- like I can't really take five weeks out of the schedule middle of the year. So even if we could quarantine at home for less than two weeks, you know, I would just go home and see the family. But it's just not quite like that.
And my family can't come over either because it's quite hard to leave Australia and then go back. It's the same situation. It's been a hard two years almost for everybody. Hopefully end of the year we can go back home without hotel quarantine. But we'll see. It's not looking too good at the moment.
But I mean, it's still nice to be back out playing. It's not too bad.
Q. Hopefully sooner than later. Do you have any family here in the U.S. or close by?
SU OH: No.
Q. All back home?
SU OH: Yeah, closest family would be host families. Yeah, but we have Golf Australia does -- they started this Golf Australia house in Orlando that John and Jill King, they just support -- they rented a house. We didn't quite get it a couple years ago when it started, but through COVID and like 2020, 2021 it's been great because we don't have anywhere to go.
So any Australians that's floating by like us.
Q. Just golfers?
SU OH: Yeah, yeah.
Q. Or athletes in general?
SU OH: No, just golfers. They can just use that as a base and go there for a day or week or two weeks. So it's come in very handy, a home away from home, which is good.
Q. Going off that, do you talk to the other golfers and have you played with them and how much has that helped, if anything? Did it help your game?
SU OH: Like other --
Q. Like just talking to other golfers and working with them?
SU OH: Like Aussie golfers at the house?
Q. Yeah, at the house.
SU OH: Yeah, no, it's been good. I guess it's just nice to have some other Aussies around. Like at the moment there is a few from Symetra Tour and there is a couple who just turned pro who came from Australia a couple weeks ago.
There is a European Tour guys and PGA TOUR guys that stopped by, Korn Ferry Korean. There are people are all different tours, so it's nice to get together and see how their year has been or how different it is for them.
So, yeah, it's been -- and just good to play golf with other people that's not on the tour but are also pros. So it's just like a good hanging out spot, yeah.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks so much. Good luck this week.
SU OH: Thank you.
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