DANA OPEN PRESENTED BY MARATHON

July 16, 2024

Gaby Lopez

Highland Meadows Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: All right, here with Miss Gaby Lopez, our 2022 champion of the Dana Open. How excited are you to be back here where you have some good memories?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, I'm super excited to be back. Very excited to see familiar faces. Staying with a great host family. Always looking forward to this week, it's one of my favorite weeks of the year when you have good memories.

Yeah, very excited to be here.

Q. What is it about this event that is so enjoyable? I know we have good crowds and volunteers. What are some of the things you like about the event?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, I love this event. I think the community just reunites. We get so many volunteers, a lot of young kids coming out and watch the game. I've seen familiar faces back-to-back years, so I think it's just the golf course plays really, really awesome.

I think the par-5s are really fun. You have to work your way around it to make some birdies or eagle chances.

So, yeah, it can get windy. I think it's a great challenge of golf.

Q. I know you've been on a good stretch of play, especially in the majors, last three majors. How are you feeling about your game right now? What's working for you?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, I feel that I'm trending in the right direction. Feel that I'm hitting the ball very, very solid. It's a matter of making the whole game to click at the same time. It's tough to have every single area of your game to the peak and to the max potential, but that's what we're trying to do.

Just being comfortable with being at the top and just kind of really enjoying myself out there. Got a new caddie, and just very happy with how my team is evolving.

Yeah, just super excited to be playing good golf at this time of the year.

Q. Obviously there is a lot of opportunities to score on this golf course. Just how do you plan on going about capitalizing on those scoring opportunities?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, for sure. Like I said, the par-5s are very, very gettable if you have a good strategy off the tee. You got to hit both, you got to hit a fade and a draw. Especially on 18 and 16 you just -- I mean 17 -- you just have to have really good memories and just be very strategic where you want to hit it off the tee.

I think just the par-3s you just got to be able to play smart. If you make pars on par-3s and birdie the par-5s and just kind of keep the momentum and the patience out there, you can make some damage to the golf course.

At the same time, you got to be very smart because it's very tricky with the wind. Yeah, lots of patience and be consistent, like any other golf course, and I think you'll be fine.

Q. Knowing this is one of the courses that you've won at, how does that add to the experience and do you put a little more focus on these tournaments that you won knowing you've had success in the past?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, it's awesome. Always when you come back to a golf tournament and you've won and you have great memories, you're always trying to recall those into your mind and kind of remind yourself that you're capable of doing the shots under pressure, you're capable of capitalizing those opportunities.

So I'm just really happy to have that memory kind of fresh in my mind. Playing good golf, enjoying myself out there. And, yeah, I think at the end it's just being aggressive when you can be and taking your medicine when you don't have the perfect shot.

Q. You're one of four players in this field that have won this tournament before. What is it about a tournament that you've already won that makes it important for you to come back?

GABY LOPEZ: I mean, you know, first of all, I think it's just kind of bringing back what golf has given me. Golf has given me so many opportunities to do what I love, and do it in front of amazing crowds; amazing families have opened their homes to me.

To me, just being able to reconnect to them and the tournament and the community, it's one the most important things. So every single time I've been in contention, I've won a golf tournament, I plan my schedule around those events and I make sure that I'm giving back to what they have given me.

I'm just really honored to be a past champion. Really honored to kind of lift the trophy here. Just means the world to me that the community and the sponsors and making the effort for the LPGA and women's golf to showcase our talent here.

Q. Speaking of giving back, this is the 40th year at the Dana Open. They have given a lot away to some children's charities. What does that initiative mean to you as a past champion?

GABY LOPEZ: It's huge, you know. Every single time we have an opportunity to make someone's life better, it's huge for the LPGA, for girls' golf, for us a players, and especially for the community.

Like I said, I think it's awesome that we can all come together to do something bigger than ourselves. Helping others is always a priority in this tour and in my life.

Q. You're going to compete soon in your third Olympic Games. How excited are you to have made the team again and to be teeing it up in Paris again this year?

GABY LOPEZ: Yeah, my third Olympics. It's a dream come true. I am one of those people that is very, very proud to represent their country and to wear the colors every Sunday I play on the LPGA Tour. So it's a dream come true. I'm super excited to be teeing it up in Paris among these amazing athletes.

We have this opportunity in Mexico where golf is not big, but everyone in the country can relate to the Olympic Games. So not only golf when it's playing a major championship, U.S. Open, Evian, KPMG, British Open, but we're also relating the whole country to have an opportunity to show our people what golf is like and we all can relate to a medal, right, Olympic medal.

Having that opportunity to me just to inspire the next generations not only for golfers, but for any other kid, Mexican, that can dream about playing the Olympic games and having sport as an education is exactly what I lived.

I'm just trying to make sports in Mexico just bigger and bigger, because for me it was a change in my life and me as a person, and being able to have this education of the discipline, integrity, honesty, all the values that sports gives to all these athletes, it is a big opportunity for me and Mexico.