Q. Polly Mack, a solid 4-under 68 today.
POLLY MACK: Yes.
Q. Good start to a grueling couple of weeks here at Q-Series. How are you feeling about your round?
POLLY MACK: I think it was a solid start. It obviously helps for my mental to go into the next rounds, but this is only one out of many rounds, so I'm just looking forward to the next couple days I guess.
Q. Last time we saw you was at Stage II. Played well enough to make it into Q-Series and now you're at Alabama, so...
POLLY MACK: Yes. So I'm still playing college golf. I had one more tournament with the team. We actually won that one. That was amazing. Good finish with that season for the team.
And, yeah, been just practicing, finishing up school for the semester, and just doing my thing. (Laughter.)
Q. So obviously this time of year is finals week. Have you had any sort of finals you've had to do this week?
POLLY MACK: Yeah, so I'm trying to finish it up all in this week or maybe beginning of next week. But it's very do-able with the tee times being early. I'll just do schoolwork afterwards.
I'm obviously not used to anything else but doing golf in the mornings and school in the afternoons, so I'm just doing what I always do.
Q. Awesome. You're one of only two players in the field without a caddie. If I remember correctly, you pushed your own cart at Stage II. Are you just a player that doesn't like to have a caddie, or...
POLLY MACK: I'm just not used to having a caddie. I'm in my fifth year of college. We've always been pushing our on carts. It worked out at first stage, worked out at second stage and I thought, Why change anything up if it works?
Once I have to get used to having a caddie then obviously I will get a caddie, but it works, so...
Yep.
Q. What advice has your coach given you about this week? Have you your teammates reaching out encouraging you from afar?
POLLY MACK: Well, I have two teammates here from Germany, and, I mean, yeah, he's been pretty much having the same mindset as me. Like I'm excited that I've got so far already and I'm pretty much just enjoying these days.
My coach and I are just, yeah, going from day to day and, yeah, just seeing it as like a marathon, as everybody says.
Q. And coming in, having a fifth year of college, how much do you think that has been helpful to you to prepare for this stage of your career?
POLLY MACK: Honestly I love it. I wouldn't have felt like I've been ready after four years of college, and I'm really glad I got to opportunity to come back one more time.
I love my coaches for giving me the opportunity, and I think they are kind of glad to have me back, too. And it's definitely helpful to have a team around that supports you. Yeah, just play college golf one more time.
Q. After a solid start today, what positives or lessons did you learn today that you'll take tomorrow to the more challenging Falls course?
POLLY MACK: I have a lot of respect for both of these courses and I think both of them are tough. Yeah, even though I played pretty good today, pretty solid, didn't make many mistakes, I think that can always happen. I should be prepared that it can happen at any point.
So I'm just going to try to be relaxed about it and know that if like a double bogey happens, it's hard to bounce back because they're not many reachable par-5s, for example, but at the same time, it is many days.
Yeah, just try to look at it as a relaxed kind of day-to-day basis.
Fastscripts by ASAP Sports...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports