THE ASCENDANT LPGA BENEFITING VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA

September 29, 2022

Emily Kristine Pedersen

Golf Clubs at The Tribute

Quick Quotes

Q. Here with Emily Pedersen. Emily, pretty solid day out there. Five birdies, two bogeys on the card. Finished with two birdies. Just walk me through the last couple holes.

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Yeah, I was just kind of trying to stay patient. I made a few mistakes on the last couple holes, but saved it with some couple putts that kind of kept me in it.

Hit a really good bunker shot on 17 to get up and down, and then 18 I wanted to go for it, but it's a sucker pin so we were trying to be just like, all right, just give yourself a putt and then I ended up holing another one.

So it paid off being smart.

Q. Those are always fun. This golf course is pretty short. Not a lot of par-5s out here. Tricky today. Windy conditions, tricky pins. What was the strategy out there knowing you don't really have a whole lot of scoring opportunities with very few par-5s?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: I was really trying to stay patient, and whenever I made a mistake, trying to just get back into play or play to like a safe zone to not take on too much.

I feel like especially with the pins and the green areas here you can really, really hurt yourself if you're trying to be too aggressive, so I was trying to constantly be on the smart side.

And then I played the par-5s pretty good. I got up around the green area and got up and down most of the time. And then holed a good one on the last, and, yeah.

Q. How much of an advantage is your distance off the tee when it's windy like this?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: I would like to think it's -- because I don't have to always hit my driver, I can kind of play down the wind, and I feel like I can control it pretty good into the side winds and into the wind and downwind.

Obviously hitting it longer makes it easier to get spin, so especially on those shots downhill I can get somewhat stop on them. I would like to think it's an advantage.

Q. Having this good of a round to kick off the week, what's the confidence level going into the last three rounds?

EMILY KRISTINE PEDERSEN: Yeah, good. It's always nice to start off well and always nice feel like you got a good score in difficult conditions.

Hopefully I can keep it up. I know I holed some good ones out there, so hoping to keep that up and try and get some more chances over the next couple days.