Q.  So, certainly not the finish you wanted, but you’ve got to be proud of how you handled yourself in the weather the last two days?

SO YEON RYU:  Yeah, for sure.  After I finished my first round I didn’t expect I was going to be in a playoff or I was going to be in contention because I was quite far back off from the leader.  The leader was like 8 under or something and I was only 1 under.  Considering that, I finished pretty strong. 

Then the weather was pretty brutal yesterday and today, so I feel like I was very patient out there and then I was very creative with the ball.  Then once again just feel great to be in contention, I really missed it.

Q.  Walk us through 17 and 18 where you had the birdie and then the bad tee shot on 18.

SO YEON RYU:  Yeah, 18 was definitely disappointing.  Maybe that’s the only one regret I really have right now, but I did my best.  At that moment I did my best to hit a good tee shot, but it ended up ‑‑ maybe it’s meant to be, who knows. 

Also, even if I was going to hit it on the fairway, I probably wasn’t going to make a birdie or like I wasn’t going to make a par.  That one’s like never know.  I don’t want to blame myself too hard because I know like sometimes I need to blame myself and need to learn something from that, but I had a tough season last year.  So, considering that, I feel like I played much better than that, so I don’t want to be hard on, myself about that.

Q.  How aware were you during your round of how things were going, that you were getting toward the top of the leaderboard?

SO YEON RYU:  So I cannot remember which hole it was, but probably it was hole nine, I made a bogey at that hole.  Then I looked at the leaderboard and the leader was still 12 under.  Is that right, 12 under?

Q.  About that point, yeah, because she didn’t fall off until later in her round.

SO YEON RYU:  So, I felt like okay, I’m grinding for finishing top‑3 or something, top‑5 or something.  Then probably hole 13 like all of a sudden my name was on the top.  I was like, what?  I was quite nervous at that point, but I feel like I still really enjoyed it.  I really enjoyed being in contention.  I really enjoyed all the talk with my caddie, you know, how I’m going to hit the shot, what could be the option, so I really enjoyed every single thing.

So I really appreciate how I played.  And then I’m not going to say I’m not disappointed, but I think I have bigger things to appreciate than only one thing disappointed.

Q.  And out of this you’re going to do a lot for giving back to the community here. 

SO YEON RYU:  Yeah, Australia is ‑‑ I feel like even though I’m Korean and even though I spent a lot of time in America, I feel like Australia’s like my second home.  I have a lot of Australian staff; my coach is Australian, my physio’s Australian and I’m surrounded by a lot of Aussies.  I came to Australia quite a lot to do winter training since I was 18.  I love Australia, you know, food, wine, coffee, but most importantly people are so nice.

I feel like without having like experience in Australia, I couldn’t be who I am these days, so I always really think about what Australia has been giving to me.  

Then I saw what happened in the bush fire, I was like, I want to do something.  Then I was thinking like what can I do.  I just had to like promise myself like I’m going to play really well and then I can ‑‑ I already like promised myself I’m going to donate half of the prize money, whatever, but I didn’t want to say anything to other people because I don’t want it to be like have too much pressure.  But even though I already made the decision, kind of like tough to doing it, but now I’m saying that because I still want to do it next week. 

So, that was my motivation to playing well, to donate more money.  I think the second‑place prize money is going to be I guess good enough money to donate it.

This is not just about me.  I hope I can be the inspiration to other people because it already has been almost a month, maybe people might forgot about it, so hopefully people keep thinking about this and keep willing to help Australia.

Q.  This will help your world ranking with the Olympics.  Is that on your mind?

SO YEON RYU:  Well, when I played I didn’t think about it, but right now if I think about it, yeah, it will help.  Then definitely playing the Olympics is my goal for 2020 season, but I think most important thing is I just need to live my life.  I feel like just golf became my everything last year and then I just lost a balance.  Even though I just kept saying I want to have a balance between golf and personal life, I think I was ‑‑ I think I was sort of like pretend to be like that but I didn’t really do it.  But this offseason I really felt like I just lived my life, and because I’m a professional golfer, I do my work and then I do my thing, then you feel much better.  So hopefully this mindset, I can keep this mindset and then hopefully this mindset going to take me to the Olympics.