Q. Here with Bailey Tardy. Finally. Finally an LPGA Tour card in hand. You put the hammer down today; 7-under, bogey-free. What are your emotions right now knowing you finally have that card in hand?
BAILEY TARDY: Yeah, I'm ecstatic. Just a lot of hard work and it all paid off the last two weeks. I don't know, it's kind of surreal right now. I think it'll hit me a little bit later.
But I can finally say I'm an LPGA member.
Q. That round today, what was going through your head? You played really solid; had a lot of the birdies in a row there in the middle of the round.
BAILEY TARDY: Yeah, I mean, I just continued my ball striking. I think I really relied on that all week. I hit a couple close ones on the front nine and had pretty easy birdie putts.
Just kind of kept the ball rolling from there. Took advantage of the par-5s on the back nine. Yeah, just glad it added up to a really solid round.
Q. I saw your family came in. They weren't here originally, were they?
BAILEY TARDY: No, they weren't. Yeah, my parents came and they brought my dog. I actually -- we had a couple waits on the back nine so I actually tracked them. I knew they were here, so...
I didn't know they brought my dog, so that's a big surprise. He actually has cancer, so being away from him is hard. Right now he's with me, so I'm happy.
Q. Dogs are pretty smart. I think he knew you had an LPGA Tour card. I feel like that was the first person you greeted; just to have that moment, what was that like?
BAILEY TARDY: It was great. I was honestly just trying to make sure he didn't make any noise for the girls putting. He's a bit of a whiney baby and kind of cries whenever I'm not with him and he knows that I'm around.
Yeah, hopefully he's away from 18 right now so he's not distracting the girls.
Q. Let's just kind of talk about it, you've had a heck of a time for lack of a better word. The last three years have been brutal by anybody's standards. To persevere and be that resilient, what did that teach you about yourself?
BAILEY TARDY: Really that I'm good enough to be out here. I think I really proved myself on Epson Tour this year, and even these past two weeks. And I've also learned the talent on the Epson Tour is insane. I think if you are consistently in the top 15 there, then you can survive on the LPGA Tour, especially from what I've seen from some of the girls out here.
I mean, just gives me all the confidence in the world that I'll be able to survive on the LPGA if I continue playing the way I do.
Q. Still a few players out there right now. Let's just say hypothetically if you told yourself at the beginning of this year that you were going to finish second in LPGA Q-Series and have a tour card, what would you have said?
BAILEY TARDY: I actually told my caddie just walking down, I think 15, and really anybody close to me knows that I wasn't even going to sign up for Q-II. I think I signed up 15 minutes before the deadline, and that was because my coach told me to and was like, this is your opportunity, you can't give that up.
And I didn't want to come to Q-School at all. Even at the beginning of the year I told everyone, I'm not going to Q-School. I'm not doing it. That's not what I want to do.
And I'm so happy I did. (Laughter.)
Q. And then finally, just to hear Bailey Tardy, 2023 LPGA Tour rookie, what does that mean?
BAILEY TARDY: It means the world. It's something that I've always dreamt of and it's here. I can't wait to start next year. I want to start tomorrow.
Q. And how do you plan to celebrate?
BAILEY TARDY: I don't know. I'm driving back to Atlanta. (Laughter.)
I don't know. Definitely no golf for a while. Take a break, and, yeah, go back home and relax and hang out. Maybe some margaritas.
Fastscripts by ASAP Sports...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports