Christina Kim is making her seventh appearance in the U.S. Women’s Open this week. She missed the cut the past three years, but is better known for shooting a USGA record 62 in a U.S. Girls’ Junior, which has since been broken. She shot even-par 73 Thursday and shared her thoughts with www.uswomensopen.com this week.

My tee time was at 7:33. It’s one of the earliest mornings I have had to tee it up in a while. But I felt great. Still had a little bit of sleep stuck in my eyes, but I felt great.

I love this championship. Especially a place that’s so filled with history as Interlachen. It’s unbelievable the sheer number of people that are out here for 7 o’clock on a Thursday morning. You can tell these people are huge sports fans and huge fans of the LPGA and women’s golf and they support it. It’s just fantastic.

I also felt great because of how I’m playing. I came off a good week last week, tied for sixth. Another top-10. So I’m having as good a year as I’ve had in my entire career so far throughout the first half of the year. So I felt great. It was just really excited to be coming back out here. Just seeing all the people at the USGA and just getting those U.S. Open jitters.

This course really sets up well for me. One thing I like about this course it’s not strictly a putting contest; you’ve got to make the shots happen. You can’t get around here hitting straight shots on every hole. You got to curve it, you’ve got to draw it around trees, fade it around trees, you’ve got to work your way, maneuver around the par 5s. I think that it’s a true test of golf.  You don’t just have to hit it high and straight in order to be successful out here, and it’s just you have to have a little bit of course knowledge and … have fun.

I got it to two under par today, but I gave it back. I had several opportunities that slipped by me today. But everyone’s going to say that in a U.S. Open. I putted decent; I didn’t putt well by any means. One of my birdies was a two-putt at my ninth hole: the 18^th and then chipped in on my 10^th hole, the first. And then it’s just a good place to be. I didn’t lose any shots from the start of the day. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow and also sleeping in.