THE MODERATOR: Please welcome to the interview area Megha Ganne who will be making her professional debut this week. Megha, how does it feel to be back at the U.S. Open?
MEGHA GANNE: It feels great. Feels good to be at a USGA event. This one feels extra special though.
Q. First time you are teeing it up at a USGA event as a USGA champion. Just talk a little bit what this win meant to you, especially now. That was your last U.S. Amateur.
MEGHA GANNE: Yeah, it's nice. I finally have one of those stickers on my locker that says I won something.
Yeah, it feels different to like come into this week with like a little bit of -- feels like I'm part of USGA history a little bit more.
Yeah, this course is absolutely stunning. I've never been here. I'm super excited to get to know it better.
Q. Bit of a whirlwind stretch. NCAA team title, up to Stanford, back here, and then to graduation. What does the next few weeks look like for you?
MEGHA GANNE: It's good. It's a little bit hectic. At the very least I can stay in California, which is really nice. And the weather is beautiful and I'm playing golf, so I don't have that many complaints.
I have pretty much not that many classes left, so I am still in school but not that crazy. And then I'm graduating next week.
Q. When you look back on Olympic Club, does it feel like that was another lifetime ago? It just seems like so much life has happened since then. How do you feel like you changed?
MEGHA GANNE: Yeah, it does feel like a lifetime ago honestly. I mean, like five years have gone by, so I would hope that I am hopefully drastically different than I was then in some ways, and in some ways I still feel like I maintained a lot of good parts of myself that I love looking back on when I was 17 at Olympic.
So I have definitely grown as a golfer, as person, ad teammate, and four years at Stanford will definitely change you, so I feel like for the better. (Smiling.)
Q. What would you tell her about what is to come if you could go back?
MEGHA GANNE: I think like it would be like your best days are still ahead of you. I thin it was such a high and I absolutely loved it, but there was so many, so many good moments on and off the golf course that I still had no idea were coming. Felt like I was on top of the world, but I guess it just keeps getting better. And this journey is long and there are ups and downs, but like your best days are still ahead. So probably tell myself that right now, too.
Q. What does it take to be successful on this course you think?
MEGHA GANNE: I think it's definitely a second-shot golf course. Placing it in the right spots and you -- I mean, it definitely favors just being in the fairway. I don't think you're necessarily always dead in the rough. If you can keep it in the fairway and just be able to have the opportunity to position yourself on the green well. It's also long so, yeah, just good ball striking.
Q. Is there anyone on Tour who you have been leaning on for advice as you enter the next stage of your career? If so, what's the main piece that sticks out?
MEGHA GANNE: Yeah, I think I try to get as much advice as possible any time I speak to anyone on Tour. I mean, Lydia is actually someone I've been leaning on more recently. She's been practicing out of Stanford, so she's been the coolest resource to have around and just a good friend to everyone on the team.
She's been great. I would say her advice is that we get to play golf with her sometimes, and we look at our golf games and there is nothing too glaring. Being a professional is about the little stuff and the stuff you can't really see, like invisible little details, and that stuff comes with experience, time, maturity, and having a good team around you.
It's like everything but the golf is common advice I get.
Q. After your missed the cut the ANWA, you've gone on to be runner-up in NCAA stroke play and went undefeated in match play. Talk about your ability to stay confident and motivated after maybe things don't go your way?
MEGHA GANNE: Yeah, ANWA was cool for me because I have not played that poorly in a big event in a long time, so I guess -- I said this in a prior interview, but there has always been a little pocket of my head where it's like, what happens when you don't play well at a really big tournament.
Maybe not fear is the right word, but just curiosity of what that would look like and how that would affect me. At ANWA I learned the answer, and the answer is absolutely nothing. Life goes on. Then you wake up the next day and go practice and do really well the next venue play.
So I think just knowing there is so many opportunities, so many opportunities to prove yourself is the main thing I learned.
Yeah, I just had such a big stretch of ACCs, NCAAs and this week to look forward that that I was like ANWA is just one little moment. You've had great tournaments at Augusta, and that doesn't takeaway from the good weeks you've had.
Q. Knowing that Stanford was going to some sort of exclusion and everything that could be in your future, was there anything the last few months where you need to stop yourself and say I need to cherish this because oftentimes it's something older people tell younger people you need to embrace these moments for as long as they last.
MEGHA GANNE: Yeah, for sure. I think the moments with the teammates are irreplaceable. Moments in the locker room, I found myself lingering after practice for 30 more minutes or trying to get more meals together knowing that me and Kelly were leaving, Kelly my fellow senior.
So I think all just the stuff of spending time with people is the thing you try to take in more, but I think we do a good job of that.
Q. I was thinking you were told about starting a side business for what you were offering your teammates, eye threading.
MEGHA GANNE: Eyebrow threading?
Q. Eyebrow threading, excuse me.
MEGHA GANNE: When I went to college, people found out that I thread my own eyebrows, and I guess that impressed them. So I started getting a lot of demand. I did it for a couple of my teammates, and Lydia was watching us do it, and she was like would you thread mine? She was like I would not touch yours. That's terrifying.
But maybe, if anyone's interested, hit me up. It's been a free service so far.
Q. I don't need any, I think.
MEGHA GANNE: Okay.
Q. You've played in a lot of professional events, but what are you most looking forward to about playing on a Tour?
MEGHA GANNE: I think it's a little bit more where you can get your bearings when you go week to week. Not everything feels as novel when you show up. When you go on Tour just with an exemption or just once, you spend so much time getting accustomed to the stuff that feels a little bit different, you don't feel like you can maybe delve into your routines as much.
So I'm excited to build those new routines and see what they look like.
Q. You finished first in the LCAP standings and have an opportunity to go to the Epson Tour next after this. How are you going to be approaching that, and will it be any different than what you kind of just said?
MEGHA GANNE: No, it will be pretty similar. There's like -- so far I've been playing on like different junior tours, then you go to college and some different stuff and some professional experience. So that idea of going into something novel is not particularly new, but I know that the Epson Tour and hopefully LPGA will come with stuff that I don't foresee.
I've been saying this over and over again, but I think just being comfortable being uncomfortable is going to be my goal for the next 12 to 18 months here.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports