DOW CHAMPIONSHIP

June 27, 2024

Kelly Tan

Matilda Castren

Midland Country Club

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: I'm here with Matilda and Kelly after the first round of the Dow Championship. We've seen you a lot up here during this tournament. What do you love about this course and the partnership you two have when you come back every year and get to play together?

KELLY TAN: I think for us, it's about playing together. We have such a close friendship, and we just cherish that we get to team up and play together. The format is so much fun, and being able to play with your best friend, I think we're just so comfortable with each other that whenever I hit a bad shot, I don't feel bad because I know she's going to bail me out, and I know it's vice versa. It's kind of exciting.

MATILDA CASTREN: Yeah, we just have really nice memories here. Our setup is great. We have a great host family that we spend time with now three years in a row.

It's just a nice kind of relaxed -- a little more relaxed week to come to. Alternate shot, you're only hitting every other shot, so it goes by a lot quicker.

It's a lot of fun playing together, and these formats are always nice to kind of break up the year, just do something different.

Q. How do you shift the mindset to the different format tomorrow?

KELLY TAN: I think at the end of the day we're still playing our game, but tomorrow is best ball, so I think we can be more aggressive. If I get to hit first, I put it on the green and she'll probably go for the pin after me. It looks like it's going to be like a birdie-fest day, so it'll be exciting.

MATILDA CASTREN: Like she said, just stay aggressive. A couple holes, par-5, different strategy, but at the end of the day it's just golf, and you're trying to hit some good shots out there and make some birdies.

Q. You had the same team name as last year. Talk about why you chose that name, why it came about, and the walk-up song.

KELLY TAN: I'll go with the team name and you go with the walk-up song. We're not very creative.

MATILDA CASTREN: We did not come up with it.

KELLY TAN: We kind of didn't know what we were going to name ourselves, so we put it on Instagram, had a poll, and our followers started giving us suggestions, and we ended up going with FinAsia because it just sounds good because she's Finnish and I'm Malaysian, so it sounds nice.

MATILDA CASTREN: Yeah, we were struggling with our team song. We couldn't pick one song. It's just so hard to -- I feel like it's a big decision to name a song and hear it here. Yeah, we picked Pitbull/Ne-Yo "Give Me Everything." It's a nice pump-up song, everybody knows it, good vibes. Nothing more significant to it. But just a good song.