HSBC WORLD MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

October 17, 2003

Shaun Micheel

SCOTT CROCKETT: Thank you very much for patiently waiting and coming in. Well-played today. You played a good match. Just didn't ultimately come off. Could we get your feelings out there on the whole match and losing at the very end.

SHAUN MICHEEL: I didn't play particularly well today. Maybe Vijay said the same thing about the way he played. Typically, I typically drive the ball pretty straight. Today, I think with the wind, maybe got overswinging a little bit just from a technical aspect. Match-play is new to me. I don't get a chance to play it very often, so you find yourself out there at a loss sometimes on how to play certain shots on whether to be aggressive or not to be.

But it makes it especially difficult if you're not hitting the fairways and if you followed me around today you probably saw a lot of wayward shots, which is pretty unusual for me. I can't really put my finger on it, but it just is something that happens throughout the course of a 36- or 38-hole match.

I think toward the end, we were both kind of just trying to -- it, was a battle of attrition, just trying to survive out there and ultimately, he went he won out.

Q. Did you enjoy he match-play experience, did you enjoy the actual format of it?

SHAUN MICHEEL: I did. Vijay and I, we're not the best of friends, we haven't played that much golf in the same group, per se, but I think we had a nice time out there. He's obviously pretty experienced in that.

And it's just golf. It just happens to be a different style of tournament. You know, the main goal is still to try to put that ball in the hole with as few of shots as you can and the first round we had three holes in a row where we both halved it with bogeys.

It happens out there. Match-play is a totally different mindset I think and trying to plan your strategy on each hole, it's different. Stroke-play, you just want to kind of play a little chess match but when -- if I hit one off-line or he hits one off-line, well, that totally changes the way you think. Maybe if I had it to do all over again I would just not even really pay attention where he hit it and I would play the same game that I always do. And I think I got a little out of my routine I suppose today.

Q. Frustrated?

SHAUN MICHEEL: Well, I'm sure he was just as frustrated in the morning when I had the lead. Throughout the course of a 36-hole match, there are going to be some lead changes. I thought I played pretty well the first 18 holes. I felt like maybe I could have been up a little bit more than I was. But that's what it's all about. I mean, it's kind of momentum.

And early in the round this morning, or this afternoon, I hit a couple of loose shots. He had a chip-in. I made a nice, long putt for birdie on one hole and you could find of feel it swinging as a player. Maybe you could feel it as a fan, too, I don't know. But I think throughout a long eight-and-a-half, nine-hour day, things like that just happen. You just kind of got to roll with it and just wait your turn and just wait to be patient. I think I lost a little bit of that this afternoon.

Q. Did the burglary mar your visit?

SHAUN MICHEEL: No, it hasn't. I didn't get much sleep, that's for sure, but you deal with things and you move on. No one is really to blame. The tournament and everyone involved has been so gracious to myself and to my caddie and to my manager, Richard.

You know, you just go on. You still have to play a match. And I think that was good for me that I was able to get out and play a match today. In some respects, maybe it took my mind off of what I was trying to do, and that can also -- that can be a benefit. Golf at times is not always that important but thankfully everyone was safe and no harm was really done. So it has not marred my view of the tournament. HSBC and what IMG are doing with this golf tournament is pretty special and I'm happy to have been invited. I felt like I had a chance to win and maybe move on and play Ernie tomorrow, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Q. Do you think fatigue may have been a factor?

SHAUN MICHEEL: I don't think so. I'm in pretty good shape. I think at some point, you know you kind of -- you just playing on sheer adrenaline and desire to win. You kind of forget about those things. I'm certainly going to be a little more tired tonight than I was last night not having to play a match, and, you know, I took Vijay to the wire. And I'm just disappointed that I didn't win because I had some good opportunities out there to do it, but fatigue was certainly not part of why I lost.

Q. What happened with the drive out of bounds?

SHAUN MICHEEL: Just out of my rhythm, I suppose, or maybe it was fatigue, part of that, I don't really know. Maybe someone that knows more about fitness than I do can look at me and tell if I was fatigued, but I don't hit many balls out-of-bounds. Matter of fact, the last three or four years I've probably only hit two or three balls out-of-bounds. It was just a bad tee shot. When there's out of bounds, I guess I deserve to be -- go out-of-bounds. It was disappointing. It was not my first poor tee shot. You know, had it been my first bad tee shot of the day I might have been a little bit more surprised, but just for some reason just was not in sync today.

You know it's kind of hard, especially he hit his ball way to the right, too, and to have to pick up and not even make it to the green is disappointing.

SCOTT CROCKETT: Shaun, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.