DOW GREAT LAKES BAY INVITATIONAL

July 21, 2023

Kelly Tan

Matilda Castren

Midland Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Here with Kelly Tan and Matilda Castren, Team Fin-Aysia back in the press box today. Another pretty solid round, but it didn't get off to probably the start you guys wanted. How did you sort of turn it around after that? Kelly.

KELLY TAN: I think we just keep playing our game and give my partner a chance. I think she was doing the same for me.

Eventually we made one and got the momentum going. Especially the back nine really.

MATILDA CASTREN: The putts were really burning the edges. We knew that eventually they would drop, and they did. Then we kind of got off on a better streak, so...

THE MODERATOR: Still in a really good position for tomorrow. Second place. How happy were you with your first two rounds to just maybe help even things out today? Either of you.

KELLY TAN: Again, I think we're in a good spot. I felt like we've played really great the last three days. That's why we're where we are today.

We're just going to really try and go out and have fun tomorrow. It's best ball, so we're going to make birdies and hopefully we'll see where it puts us at the end of the round.

THE MODERATOR: How are you going to make birdies tomorrow? Matilda, what's the strategy there?

MATILDA CASTREN: Hit the fairway, then hit the green, then make the putt.

No, just stick to our game plan and just try not to put too much pressure on ourselves and hit some good shots. Like, try to stay in the present and just kind of let it have a good flow.

THE MODERATOR: Last question from me before I move over. You guys enjoy this event a lot, I can see. You guys play so well here. It has to be meaningful just to see your name up at the top again for another year in a row. Can you tell me about that?

KELLY TAN: Yeah. Like I say, I think this is one event on the calendar year that I look forward to, and I think we both look forward to together.

It's just such a fun atmosphere, I feel like, compared to a normal event. You know, the week before we flew here we call each other and figure out outfits and then we start from there.

Then we get here, and we have Monday through Saturday outfit picked out. So it's just so different than a normal event because I would never call her and ask her what she's wearing.

Yeah, I think we look good out there, and we have a lot of fun together on the course. Yeah, just love coming back here.

THE MODERATOR: Whose outfit choice was this today? Who contributed to this one? It's great. We love it. We can see you from everywhere on the course. It's fabulous.

MATILDA CASTREN: We just kind of picked which ones of the same outfits we have at home. We chose six of them.

I think I chose to wear this one today and leave another color for tomorrow. Yeah, we have a lot of the same stuff, so it was quite easy to come up with the outfits.

KELLY TAN: I wanted to say I usually wear this top with orange, and when she texted she's, like, yellow. I was, like, you know, that's different. I'm going to go for that.

MATILDA CASTREN: I always wear it with yellow because it has a little bit of yellow.

THE MODERATOR: Go ahead.

Q. You were talking about the event and that it's a unique event that you look forward to. One of the unique things about it is a walk-up music to 18. You a very popular song, "Party in the USA." Whose decision was that? Why did you go with that song?

KELLY TAN: I think it was both ours. We were just looking through our play lists, and we wanted some upbeat music that the crowd knows because in the past years we've chose some music that we like, but it was just kind of calm, and the crowd just wasn't really partying with us. I think that's why we chose this song.

MATILDA CASTREN: Yeah. It wasn't any specific reason for that song. We just wanted to get the people going, and everybody knows the song. So I hope they got some dance moves going on.

Q. How does the walk-up music, would you say, add to the atmosphere of this event, creating kind of that fun environment that you guys were describing? How do you think that that little niche type thing, how do you think it adds to the atmosphere of the whole event?

KELLY TAN: I think it totally does. Like we say, picking the right songs that the crowd knows definitely helps because there are songs that we like. We've listen to do it, and we are just, like, we really like it, but we just don't think it would get the crowd going. So I think we chose a good song.

MATILDA CASTREN: Yeah, it just makes it a lot more fun. We hear it from the other holes too, and we're, like, oh, I wonder what this team is going to pick and just kind of get in a good groove when we hear a song that we like. It just makes it a lot more fun and kind of easy-going.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much.