ARAMCO SAUDI LADIES INTERNATIONAL PRESENTED BY PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND

February 16, 2023

Lydia Ko

Royal Greens Golf & Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Very, very well played. Lots of expectation on you this week and you went out and delivered straightaway on the morning session. Tell me about your round out there.

LYDIA KO: Yeah, I knew today, or between today and tomorrow was the day to take advantage of the calmer conditions.

When I came here in November the wind picked up in the afternoon, and I think this time of the year and with the forecast it's only going to be stronger and probably some of the strongest winds I've seen out here, so I knew that today with some of the pin positions I needed to be a little bit more aggressive.

All in all, I putted really well out there. Most of the opportunities I had I was able to take advantage of that, so it was that kind of a day and a nice start to the season. It's cool to see I have an officially under par round as a Mrs.

Q. You certainly do. Congratulations obviously on all that's gone before you here. It was a bogey-free round out there as well. I watched you on a fair few holes, and it seemed quite stress-free, to watch at least. Some great par saves as well. That's what you want to do round here, keep the bogeys off the card and the birdies come.

LYDIA KO: Yeah, I think there are plenty of holes, especially when the wind is calmer, that you can reach a couple of par-5s and be a little bit more aggressive to pin positions.

The wind is such a big factor on this golf course, so when it's playing to your advantage you kind of want to use that.

I think I felt really confident with the putter today, so that when I didn't hit the green I wasn't too stressed about it and felt like I could make up and down.

Q. Usually I ask players how you feel you're playing early in the season, how do you feel the form, but we now how your form is because you're hitting hole-in-ones on your honeymoon. I guess you felt pretty good about your game before you came here.

LYDIA KO: I had a few weeks to prepare for this one, but I played a lot of golf, maybe a bit too much golf, on my honeymoon. But my husband loves golf and that's something that we can mutually do together, so we took advantage of that. And actually thanks to him it made my transition into off-season practice a lot easier.

Yeah, if somebody said, hey, you're going to play eight rounds of golf over two weeks on your honeymoon I probably would've laughed at that person, but it became reality and I had so much fun.

Honeymoon is only once in a lifetime, so we really enjoyed it. To say I had a hole in one, I'm not sure many people can say that.