NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP

September 25, 2021

Maria Fassi

Pinnacle Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Good playing today. (Indiscernible.)

MARIA FASSI: I mean, yeah, I think this is a golf course that has seen a lot of under par scores in the past, so I mean, I think if you're playing on Sunday you definitely have a shot. Just excited for the opportunity.

Q. Cookie is camera shy.

MARIA FASSI: Excited to be in Arkansas and contending on Sunday.

Q. This week you started your foundation. Your first event, Fassi's Friends. Tell you how excited you are about the future.

MARIA FASSI: Very excited. It's been something that I've been dreaming about for six, seven years now. To see it come to fruition and see how excited people are about the future of Fassi's Friends and the Maria Fassi Foundation, just really proud of everything that has happened this week.

Very excited that I got to share with my cousin Josefina, who's the inspiration behind the foundation. So thrilled to see that, and definitely something extra that I have to play for every week from now on.

Q. At the beginning of the week when we talked you said with the foundation and everything that's going on you were going to have maybe a little bit of extra motivation. I think it's certainly showing in these first two days. Just take me three what the first two been since the launch of Fassi's Friends.

MARIA FASSI: Yeah, it's been so good. I mean, like I was saying earlier, it's a lot of work that has been put in to make this happen. On Thursday afternoon we had over 50 kids come and they had a blast and we had a blast.

It's so special, and actually Randy, he's the CEO of the First Tee and he made me some golf balls with the Fassi's Friends logo this week and I been playing with them. Funny enough, on the first tee on Friday I put my ball down without really thinking much about the logo or anything.

As I'm looking down on the ball I can see the logo right there, so it was a pretty cool reminder to just kind of play for the kids. I'm going to be donating for every birdie and eagle that I make for the rest of my career. I'll be doing a pledge for the foundation. So definitely my golf is going to help them.

And I've always liked to play for something bigger than myself. I think with this it's been pretty cool to see and happy to see that the golf is also coming along.

Q. How free do you feel at a course like this that you feel so comfortable at and seeing the work you been putting in coming in display on the leaderboard here?

MARIA FASSI: Yeah, I'm of course very fortunate. I live 20 minutes from here. Last few months, especially with that big break that we had, I spent a lot time here. I saw a lot of putts that maybe look one way and go the other, or hit shots that made me feel a lot more ready for the week.

So it's huge. Then when you have course knowledge on top of the amazing fan base that we have here, it doesn't get much better than that.

I love playing in front of my people and I'm happy we get to do it every year.

Q. What's the mindset as you head into tomorrow? These 45-hole competitions, it's just go out there and be as aggressive as you can I want to say.

MARIA FASSI: Yeah, I think we have a great game plan. Ivan and I just know what to do around this golf course. We both know it very well. I think we have a great game plan for every day. I mean, I don't think it's going to change a whole lot.

Of course you want to go maybe at some more pins and stuff. Like I was saying before, I trust what we have and I just got to keep doing it, and hopefully we can post a low one tomorrow and wait and see what happens.