Women’s Olympic Golf Competition

Tuesday, 3 August 2021

Saitama City, Saitama, Japan

Kasumigaseki Country Club

Alena Sharp

Quick Quotes


Q. Your thoughts on representing Canada for the second time here at the games and then your overall Olympic experience coming back.

ALENA SHARP: Well, I've very honored and proud to represent Canada again. I'm just very excited that we are here, being delayed a year and I just can't put into words how I feel. It's like last time at Rio it was almost surreal, like it still doesn't feel like it actually happened. It's amazing to be here with Brooke and represent Canada and really looking forward to playing this week.

Q. You had a chance to see the golf course, nine holes yesterday, 18 today. Give us your thoughts on the golf course.

ALENA SHARP: I think it's a great golf course. I mean you got to be cautious off the tee, the rough is kind of nasty, you can get some pretty tough lies out there. Have you to have some luck if you're missing the fairway. A lot of bunkers and deep ones, so practicing high bunker shots is what I've been doing the last few days, trying to get them to land soft. One good thing about the toughness of the course is that it's a little bit softer so you can be a little bit more aggressive when you have wedges. But I think for us we're going to have a mixed bag of irons coming in, like there's a lot you have different lengths in the holes, so I think you use all of your bag and it's definitely a second-shot golf course. Have to have a premium on how far you're hitting your irons and hit the right quadrants of the greens, because they're so big.

Q. Is it unique obviously coming in the week after Corey and Mac played, Coach Ingram, did you get a chance to pick their brain a little bit? I know you walked and followed, is that beneficial having a team environment?

ALENA SHARP: I think definitely having a team is helpful and watching the guys play on Friday I think that helped me out to see how the course is playing, even though they do hit it a lot higher and spin more than we do. Then I asked them about how they hit it out of the rough and how it was playing, because that was my one main concern. But their tips were really helpful and Derek sent us an e-mail with a lot of information on it that I haven't looked at yet, but I'll look at that tonight and get ready for tomorrow's practice round and then maybe read it again before the night of the first round.

Q. Now you got here a little bit early, spent a day, two days in the village just to experience it, was it just to get a sense of what it feels like to be an Olympian again, kind of remind yourself? I know you guys are staying off site.

ALENA SHARP: Yeah, I mean it was nice to come in a little bit early. I didn't really want to go from Europe back to North America to here. Jet lag is not my friend as I get older. So it was nice to be here a little bit early, kind of take a few days off, got the village experience, got to trade some pins, ate some food in the dining hall, saw some friends that I met in Rio. So it was a nice way to spend the two days in the village.

Q. Now one of the things that obviously dealing with you COVID there's protocols and whatnot, one of those protocols is the absence of fans, but just as much the absence of family. With Sarah, being able to do this together as a family, how special is that knowing that so many other Olympians are sort of missing that first hug or that first sort of shoulder for support, how important is doing this together as a family and as a team?

ALENA SHARP: Right, it's really important to me. I mean she helps me so much to stay positive and she works so hard at doing whatever she can to make me play my best. I wouldn't want to be here with anybody else. And then Brett's here as well and I see him as a family member too. So the three of us, we're in it together and I'm really happy that they're there at the end of the round, that I can go and give them a hug and move on to the next day.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
111040-1-1044 2021-08-03 00:44:00 GMT

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