INVITED CELEBRITY CLASSIC

April 20, 2023

Pudge Rodriguez

Las Colinas Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: All right, Pudge, thank you for joining us here at the Invited Celebrity Classic. Thoughts on being here this week.

PUDGE RODRIGUEZ: It's great just to be here obviously on a golf course that I was a member for a long time. Almost ten years, Las Colinas.

Good friends, good memories. Good friend that he's going to play in week. Joel Edwards, which he is the head pro here in Las Colinas.

Looking forward. I think the course is in great shape. Being here and playing is always nice. We going to have this, and the Rangers are a also in town. It's not that I'm going to be -- I'm going to be playing golf, and I got to got to the ballpark and do some stuff after golf.

But it's always nice to be here for the weekend and hopefully the weather cooperated, good weather, so we could have a good tournament.

Q. I guess unique format, celebrities and Champions Tour players. Are any celebrities you're looking forward to meeting or have met or Champions Tour players?

PUDGE RODRIGUEZ: We been doing this for a lot of years obviously. Basically there is some new guys just playing for the first time. There is so many new ones.

But we know each other well. Obviously it's a tournament that all the celebrities are playing very competitive.

It's going to be fun. So you play two pros and two celebrities it's going to be exciting. It's going to be a little different, but at the same time, it's going to be great watching all these professional golfers hit the ball and have a good day.

Q. How excited are you to see the hot streak the Rangers are on right now?

PUDGE RODRIGUEZ: We're playing good. Rangers are playing great. We did a lot of work in the off-season. Just to see the Rangers, the way they play right now, that's the reason that we work hard.

And so guys are taking one game at a time, play hard, they're staying healthy. Obviously hopefully what happens to deGrom the other day is nothing serious.

But at the same time, we are playing great. We're playing small ball. We have a lineup every day on the field that they can bunt the ball, move the guys over, hit and run with them.

They're going to run, and so what I like so far is the aggressiveness they have on the bases. Running first to third in base hits and that's how you win games.

So we going to have a good starting rotation all year long. If all those guys stay healthy. So bullpen is doing great.

Again, we got to continue to go what we are doing, play the game, focusing on us as a team, and we going to have a good year.