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EURASIA CUP PRESENTED BY DRB-HICOMJanuary 17, 2016Darren ClarkeMatthew FitzpatrickSoren KjeldsenShane LowryIan PoulterLee WestwoodDanny WillettKuala Lumpur, Malaysia PAUL SYMES: Congratulations, start with you Ian. You led from the front, I expect Danny knows who you are now. IAN POULTER: It was good fun out there actually. It was nice to get off first and nice, obviously the boys put a lot of blue on the board straight afterwards. I had kind of a bit of a laugh on the last green with him and kind of said my name and said thanks, and he kind of laughed. We had a good match. I played well and obviously all the lads did a great job this week. PAUL SYMES: Søren, you spoke outside about the positive impact the likes of Ian and Lee have had on the team this week, if you can just expand on that. SØREN KJELDSEN: I thought early on in the week, Darren and Lee and Ian standing up in the team room, talking about the importance of this event, and you felt like they brought that fire, that Ryder Cup fire they brought to this tournament. And I think, well, I'm going to include myself in the young guys. I think it sort of lifted all of us to feel the importance of this event to those guys that have done it all a million times before. A big credit to them for lifting the whole team. PAUL SYMES: Another emphatic victory for you today, Lee. Are you feeling justified getting a captain's pick this week? LEE WESTWOOD: Well, yes, I guess three points out of three is justifying it. Wasn't privy to Søren's comments about being young and counting himself as one of the rookies, but obviously Darren and myself and Ian brought a bit of experience, and I think we tried to impart that in the team room, and as well on the golf course. I think it was a good team performance all the way through. Look at the score, and it's going to be incredible scoring from the whole team. It was nice to be a part of it. PAUL SYMES: Danny, doesn't matter who gets the winning point but nice that you managed to get Europe over the line. DANNY WILLETT: Yeah, I think it was going to come down to somewhere near five, six or seven, Westy polished off nice and then came back to No. 2 -- taking my time I guess. Been a fantastic week and a fantastic group of lads. We've had a good laugh, and I think to enjoy it, we've really shown Europe's true colors and European spirit and a pretty outstanding win. Q. How much of this is a statement of intent to the Americans watching all the way across the world? SHANE LOWRY: I'm not sure, obviously a lot of us on the team, 12 on the team in September, and a lot of us here will tell you that we really want to be there and we really want to go over there. It's just we wanted to come here and treat this as the EurAsia Cup and nothing towards The Ryder Cup at all and just try and win this tournament. You know, we went out and we did our job and we did it really well. All the lads have been great this week and all the lads have played really well. Everyone has just kind of contributed a lot to the team room and on the golf course, as well. So it's just been -- overall it's been a great week. If times get tough at The Ryder Cup in September, and a few of us guys are there, maybe we can kind of think back on this week and it might give us a boost that week, as well. Q. How much did you learn from somebody who was absolutely not physically fit, but just wanted to give his heart and soul for the team? MATT FITZPATRICK: Yeah, it was exactly that. He didn't shy away from my pins. Every shot he hit, he was going for it. I think that's his game generally, but he put everything on the line for it to try and get that point for Team Asia. Obviously he made a lot of birdies doing that, but also sometimes he struggled and obviously physically he wasn't 100 percent. Q. The sensational play, how important is having that rich heritage of match play, whether it be The Ryder Cup or the Walker Cup, did that give this team a competitive edge over the Asians since they don't have that sort of an exposure? DARREN CLARKE: Most definitely. I think when you grow up playing a lot of match play as we in Europe, all of Europe we do, it's an art of the game. These guys all sitting up here, they have learnt that art of the game. Maybe a few of the younger guys have picked up a few more finer points of that game this week, but it is something that you learn, and you only learn it through playing it more and more. And this is match play at the highest level of the game. This is professional match play, where margins are so fine. So you've got to understand what you need to do to win. Doesn't matter how you play; you can play awful, doesn't matter. You've just got to play slightly better than your opponent. Look them in the eye and play better than him, and these guys up here know how to do that. PAUL SYMES: Congratulations again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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