HONDA LPGA THAILAND

February 22, 2024

Madelene Sagstrom

Siam Country Club Pattaya, Old Course

Quick Quotes

Q. Madelene, nice little day to start off your Thailand week. Overall how you feeling after day one?

MADELENE SAGSTROM: A little tired. No, but it was good. I think that -- it's only my second tournament of the year, so you're still not really sure what's going on and what's in there.

I felt like I had good preparation. I was a bit worried about the walk of 18 holes in the heat. I've only done nine, nine, nine the past few days. It was more about maintaining and figure out, pace myself a bit.

5-under was probably the best I was going to shoot today. It wasn't anything fancy, but I hung in there. Then the last shot was really nice, and that was like, yeah, get a little bonus on the last.

Q. Take me through one of the last holes for you.

MADELENE SAGSTROM: Yeah, no, I hit a really good drive off the tee. I mean, if you dare to be a bit aggressive, I mean, the left side is quite a flat-ish lie there, which is nice.

There are some tough short pins too on that hole, but that's probably the toughest green on the golf course. It's kind of messy around there. So we agreed that, okay, let's come in from the right side, and if it stays right, that's fine, you can chip it up. It landed perfectly, just short of the ridge. They are quite firm on the bounce. They're not crazy fast, but they are firm on the bounce. It bounced up to the top ridge, five feet for eagle, thank you very much.

Q. For you just overall coming back here to Thailand, this year is a little bit special. Got your brother with you. What's it like showing him the ropes? I know he was at Malaysia and now back here. What's it like bringing him all over the world?

MADELENE SAGSTROM: I think it's -- it kind of becomes a little bit more than just golf when somebody comes. He was kind of bored in Sweden. I was like, you want to come to Thailand? There are direct flights, so it's easy. First day we took a walk, were hanging out. Probably going to hang out by the pool today, bring a book.

Just spending time together. I don't get to see him basically often living in America so it's -- I always thought he didn't like watching golf. He was always complaining. Now he's like, oh, it's kind of fun.

Shane has been like, why don't you stay at the hotel? He goes, no, I want to come out. No, it's been great. He plays too and he tried to play professionally. Gave it up a few years ago. He knows my game better than anyone. He's a lefty so we've been standing watching each other's swings our whole life.

It's kind of good to get his eye on things and being my -- well, Shane is my first eye, second eyes on the golf course, so it's good.

Q. Nice. You talked a little bit about only playing nine holes practice-wise, not going the whole 18. The heat is the heat every year here. What's it like preparing for that, and is it different than how you prepare for maybe tournaments back in the States?

MADELENE SAGSTROM: I think -- I mean, I think the biggest key is that you're never going to drink enough here. I think that's probably the hardest part is maintaining, like make sure you get hydrated enough. And also probably drink more than just water. Having hydration, a lot of salt and stuff. That's probably the hardest thing.

Once you start going downhill it's too late. Once you get thirsty it's too late. That's the bigger adjustment. It's like sneaky hilly here. We're playing in a valley. It gets quite tough.

I've been trying to do a bit more cardio overall for my golf just because I tend to get a little bit tired. I mean, these weeks get a little bit tough because it's early wake-ups every day. It's not crazy far to the course, but still, this morning my alarm was 5:00. Latest tee times is 10:00-ish. It's all early days. It's figuring out how do you recover as quick as possible.

Q. Going into tomorrow, what do you take away from the ups and downs of today?

MADELENE SAGSTROM: Overall it was really nice. I like how I kind of like stuck in there and just kind of did my thing. I had a couple chances in the beginning and then it wasn't really anything happening. I wasn't really making any mistakes but wasn't really getting too much going.

I think just that and try not to overdo it. I said, let's not go practice. Even though it's fantastic, let's go rest. Let's do that. So I think it's finding the balance of how can I improve for tomorrow and how can I have as much energy for tomorrow as possible.