T-MOBILE MATCH PLAY PRESENTED BY MGM REWARDS

April 3, 2024

Danielle Kang

Shadow Creek

Quick Quotes

Q. I'm here with Danielle Kang after her first round at the T-Mobile match play, 5-under to start the tournament. How did your game feel out there today?

DANIELLE KANG: I played well. I had some really good putts. I executed really good shots, prepared well. I get to be home this week, so I'm really happy to be here. It was actually my second week at home, so I'm actually really excited about that. Just seeing familiar faces and having my family and friends come out is really fun.

Q. What do you like about this course?

DANIELLE KANG: This is my home. It's my home course. It challenges you a lot. I've heard that people have complained about the greens are too firm and they wanted it softer and they commented about the format and all that, but all MGM Resorts wants to do is keep you happy and make us happy and do whatever we want.

At the end of the week whoever plays well is going to be happy with whatever condition and whatever has been thrown at us. With that said, I'm just really thankful for my sponsorship and my sponsor really backing up women's golf year after year and even bringing in their partner, T-Mobile, into play. I think it's been really awesome.

Q. What do you like most about Vegas, calling it home? You've lived here -- Alison talked yesterday about what all it has to offer. I didn't know if you feel the same way.

DANIELLE KANG: For me it's mostly my family. My family and friends all moved with me, so my home is where my family are. It could be anywhere around the world. I just need them. They all live within one mile of me.

Q. You made a long putt on the last hole. What kind of momentum does that give you headed into tomorrow's round?

DANIELLE KANG: Absolutely probably nothing since the round is ended. I've got to go work out now. I have my UFC Performance Institute that I have to drive from here. I get to see my trainer, my physio, and I get to go home, plan dinner, go cook, go walk my dog.

It is what it is. Whatever happens each round. Sometimes I don't even know the point of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, unless it's Sunday. Anything that happens with golf.

All I can do is stay in the present and play my game and execute the shots and execute the way I normally do.

Q. Can you talk about what the putt on 9, how you were reading that? Because I was watching it and thought, this could easily go off the front edge.

DANIELLE KANG: No, it wasn't going to. I know they slowed the greens down a little bit, so if I gave it enough speed up on the left side, I knew it was going to slow down, and with that, I knew it wasn't going to pick up speed coming back down.

Plus I've played here a lot, and I try and gauge if I go low where the ball is going to end up and if I go high where the ball is going to end up. If anything I was just trying to get it as close to the hole as possible with speed because two-putt is crucial there.

I executed really good off the tee, really good second shot, but the golf course is tough, so sometimes it's going to leave you a really challenging putt.

Q. Given the format with such a good start for you, does that change strategy at all?

DANIELLE KANG: For me each shot and every hole, every day, honestly just doesn't really mean that much as it used to. Like who cares. I shot 5-under today, and then end of story, right?

Until you get a new story tomorrow. Then you get a new shot tomorrow and then a new play tomorrow. For me, I'm just really happy to be home. I get to go home. Traveling is the biggest difficulty that I've been facing, and a lot of people have asked why I haven't played a lot. I'm really happy to be home.

No matter what happens, it really doesn't matter. I played a really good round today. I know I got some people excited. There was a huge cheer. As long as I made some people happy today, we're good.

Q. Can you talk about your season just kind of overall. It hasn't been up to what people --

DANIELLE KANG: It really doesn't matter, does it? I shot 5-under today, and that's -- then like I said, no offense, but end of story, right? You play good, you play bad, you play bad, you play good. You play great, you win and then you lose. That's just kind of the game of golf. That's kind of my perspective on it. Going into details on what's bad versus what's good I think is just being negative.