Read a transcript of the post-Round 1 interview with Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho.
Read a transcript of the post-Round 1 interview with Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho.
Q. Day one, 13 under, what was working well for you guys as a team?
AKSHAY BHATIA: Yeah, I feel like she hit it really straight for most of the day. She capitalized on all the par 5s pretty much off the tee. And she went first on every putt and I felt like once I saw the line, I had a pretty good idea of what the putt was doing if she didn’t make it. Besides 18, thankfully I didn’t have to hit that one.
Other than that, we really enjoyed just trying to get to know each other. It’s going to be a fun couple days and we’re in the 59 club now, so proud of that today.
Q. How did this pairing come about and what did you know about each other’s games entering the week?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: I’m not actually sure how it came about. Do you know?
AKSHAY BHATIA: The only thing I understand is she went to Wake Forest and my hometown’s Wake Forest and I think they tried to put two and two together. Other than that, we never met each other. Obviously I’ve known of her and her success. Yeah, we met for about five minutes at the cocktail party on Tuesday, so not a lot of chemistry yet.
Q. After one round, how have you guys kind of complemented your games, seen similarities to complement each other?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: I think he’s a really great putter, hence why I was going first on all the putts. I keep it in play. He does too, he was hitting a lot of great drives, a lot of straight shots as well. Just I’m very consistent with my ballstriking, I’m a really good ballstriker, that’s just where I’m comfortable and I think those two things really complemented each other.
Q. How much fun is this event for you guys to be able to see these two tours collide? Like you say, you guys don’t really get a chance to hang out as much, so to be able to bring everyone here together this weekend?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: I think it’s just, I mean it’s really exciting. I don’t know very many PGA guys, so it’s interesting just to hear him and his caddie talking out of the fairways or through every shot. It’s just different I would say than definitely how I think. It’s just interesting to see what they’re doing. It’s exciting to see our tours together just for the growth of the game as well.
Q. You met for the first time at the cocktail party. Are there any nerves coming into an event where you’re going to play alongside each other and you don’t know each other at all?
AKSHAY BHATIA: You know, you just don’t want it to be awkward. Yeah, I mean, I feel like any tournament we play in is important whether we’re playing a team event like today or just mini tour events, it doesn’t matter. There’s always nerves. You want to get off to the right foot and you want to mesh really well. I feel like we meshed really well. Our personalities, our caddies, we all had such a good time.
Jennifer and I were texting yesterday trying to figure out like a team name. That didn’t work. Just trying to make things light and enjoy this week because this only comes once a year thankfully. This event’s amazing, so super blessed to have the opportunity with Jennifer and it’s a fun week.
Q. So you didn’t actually play together before today?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: No.
Q. Did you watch each other on the range or anything or was it the first tee the first time you really
JENNIFER KUPCHO: We hit on the range next to each other today, but otherwise, no.
Q. Jen, I know obviously playing here at the CME, did it help to have a little bit of local knowledge today knowing where to hit it and guide Akshay around a little bit?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: I didn’t really give him any info, he knew what he was doing. It was fine.
I think it definitely helped me be more comfortable playing well this year at CME. I haven’t played well here in the past so it was kind of good to see that a couple weeks ago and take that into this week.
Q. Have you figured out any shared interests? I know Jen (unintelligible) off the golf course. Have you talked about anything interesting you maybe have shared?
JENNIFER KUPCHO: I don’t think we’ve gotten that far yet. He asked if I’ve gone skiing when I was younger and that was about as far as we’ve gotten, so yeah.
