MEIJER LPGA CLASSIC

June 17, 2022

Paula Reto

Blythefield Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Paula Reto after her second round at Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give. Really great round today. How do you feel just after the round? What were some of the highlights?

PAULA RETO: Yeah, I feel good. A lot of putts dropped for me today, which was key. Yesterday, not so much. So that helped me keep the momentum.

So it was a lot of fun today. I enjoyed it.

Q. And you've set yourself at 7-under, near the top of the leaderboard. How does that help you going into the weekend?

PAULA RETO: Yeah, a little bit of confidence and knowing that my game plan worked today, and going to see if I can keep going with the game plan tomorrow and Sunday.

Just nice to know that greens are rolling so nice, so whatever line you see, you can just sort of commit and the ball will maybe go in or be close to it.

That's nice to know and gives me more confidence, so it's good.

Q. You said you're committing to the game plan. What is the game plan?

PAULA RETO: Well, game plan is just committing more to my iron shots. That way I have a little bit closer to the pin.

Last week I struggled with that, and just being able to do that within my pre-shot routine will help me. That way I can get some more putts going.

Q. What were some of the challenges out there on the course today?

PAULA RETO: The wind for sure. Even though this morning it was kind of early, I tee'd off at 7:15, but we still had some wind. So being able to judge that and picking some good clubs, that was key.

Q. Do you like being able to lead the field in your game? And also, you were first off the tee. Do you like those early starts?

PAULA RETO: Yeah, I don't mind. Early bird gets the worm. That's always a good saying. It was nice. Yeah, greens are good in the morning. Obviously the fairways -- I mean, the rough is a little bit wet, so I had a few of those.

But it's fine. Sort of they roll out quite a bit, but I managed around in that and it was good.

Q. Being in striking distance, just how much fun is it for you first of all to be towards the top of the leaderboard?

PAULA RETO: Yeah, well, it's a lot of fun, and I think I should always think of it as fun. Sometimes I'm a little nervous and stuff. I'm going to maybe change it up this week and just enjoy it and just enjoy what I have daily going on, which kind of makes it good. You're not thinking ahead.

But, yeah, I have my host family here, so I have a couple good people following me.

Q. More of a broad question, a lot of pros both on the LPGA Tour and the PGA Tour talk about kind of going out there and being themselves. For you personally, what does being yourself look like out on the golf course?

PAULA RETO: So I like to smile. I like to show a little bit more emotion I would say. I do play sort of aggressive, so I want to keep that going. But just having fun, smiling, talking to my caddie, and then once I'm over the shot, being able to focus on that.

Yeah, a lot of that I would say.

Q. Without going into too much detail, caddie to player it's whatever, but what do you and your caddie talk about? Some caddies and players talk about NBA finals or house renovations, weird stuff like that. What's that conversation like?

PAULA RETO: We like the food topic. We just like, what did you eat last night kind of thing. What are you going to eat today. Something we're craving. We need to change up our snacks, so I'm going to go to Target after this.

He was talking about I have these big balls that go in my trail mix, it's like caramel balls, and it's really hard to chew, so we're changing up the snacks for tomorrow and Sunday. So that was a big topic today.

Yeah, anything. Just friends all that kind of stuff.

Q. I have one question to follow up. You said you're with your host family this week. How do you connect with them or first meet them and can you tell me a little bit about that relationship?

PAULA RETO: Yeah, through LPGA I connected with them eight years ago, so I've been staying with them every year. They're members at this course, so they enjoy knowing where the ball is and all these kind of things.

We talk about it at the end of the day. They want to know the situation and how I played and how they played, so it's fun.

Yeah, known them for a long time and they're just good supporters, and it's nice to come back to a community like that.