DANA OPEN PRESENTED BY MARATHON

September 1, 2022

Emily Kristine

Highland Meadows Golf Club

Quick Quotes

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN:

Q. Here with Emily Pedersen. Emily, 5-under right now. The clubhouse leader. How are you feeling after day one?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Yeah, good. 5-under is always good round. I played some solid golf out there today and dropped a few good putts, but also left some out there.

Hoping to keep it going.

Q. Take me through some of the first round. When you were gearing up for this week, what were some of the things about Highland Meadows you really wanted to take advantage of?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Definitely that it's playing a bit shorter than last week in Canada, so I was practicing my wedges, the shorter irons. It's a little bit tight off the tee, so I was trying to actually step down my driving a little bit. Try and hit it -- not swing it as hard, but to try and get a little bit more straight.

So that worked out okay today, so...

Q. When you come from a course like Ottawa to here where there is a 400-yard difference, what's that like to kind of just adjust so quickly to the shorter courses?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: I think you more mentally have to -- or I at least have to -- mentally know I can't just bomb the driver everywhere. I have to lay it up places.

Q. As one of our longest hitters on tour.

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Yeah, especially because I like my driver. I always want to hit it. It's too high of a risk on many holes here.

So just I think mentally prepare that that's what we're doing, and even though it seems weird to hit a 4-iron or hybrid off the tee, that's the smart play.

Q. You saw the success there. Take me through the highlights of the birdies out there today.

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Yeah, all of them were pretty solid, like ten-feet putts, like a six-foot putt, and then a two-foot putt on 17. I reached that in two.

So stress-free birdies I would say. The longest birdie I holed was 11 feet, so it was pretty easy.

Q. It's a challenging course, but as you talked about, tight off the tee. You really have to be accurate. It's a ball-striker's course, like you said. What's kind of going to be the emphasis heading into tomorrow, being able to build off a round like today?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: I think to try and have that little bit more backing out and knowing when to push and when to layup and stuff and not be too aggressive, but still allow myself to be aggressive whenever I can.

I think that's kind of the -- be smart where I need to be, and then like set me free when I can.

Q. One of the big storylines I feel like especially for the Europeans coming back here to the Toledo area, it's been a year since the Solheim Cup down the street at Inverness. What's it like being back in Toledo for you, and have people come up to you and talked to you about Solheim since being here with the community so invested in this event?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: It's great. Obviously Solheim here was amazing. Everyone was like absolutely amazing at the Solheim, and people still congratulating on the European win is great.

We obviously have a lot of good memories from here, and I hope we can just keep making good memories this week.

Q. Thank you so much, and best of luck the rest of the week.

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Thank you.