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U.S. AMATEUR FOUR-BALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 24, 2016Ben BaxterAndrew BuchananMamaroneck, New York Q. Let me start first, Ben, with how excited are you to have two match-clinching putts today? BEN BAXTER: Yeah, it's been pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be there without my partner. He's been playing really consistent and hitting a lot of fairways and greens, and I've just been trying to pick him up when I can. It's been pretty sweet to -- the first one was a joke, but this one we had a little bit better read and it was a little bit more makeable. It's been pretty sweet, though. Q. Andrew, how about the excitement of getting to the semifinal round? ANDREW BUCHANAN: Yeah, I mean, definitely. Coming into it, we were just excited to be here, happy to -- it was like a no-lose attitude. But the whole, I don't know, like Winged Foot West and the East both, Ben and I were both saying, I don't know how East could be as good as West. Like it turned out -- we both like it better. I get why the match play has been over there. We were thinking how can -- like every match we advance, we're like, oh, one more free round at Winged Foot East. It's been an absolute blast. We played in the NCAAs last year at this time, and this year, I mean, obviously we weren't allowed to play, and so to have this, like there's definitely been more -- I've felt way more pressure throughout different rounds out here than I have at any NCAA that I've played. Like it's been awesome. Q. Also about taking out the top seed here, you may be familiar with those guys -- ANDREW BUCHANAN: I had -- they were the top seed? Q. Yeah. ANDREW BUCHANAN: Yeah, Brandon, I believe, absolutely kills it off the tee, so it made sense that -- that's cool that we took off the top seed. Q. How about the way you feel about taking out the top seed in the quarters? BEN BAXTER: I mean, I feel like in four-ball, anything can happen. I mean, there's just so many times where if you have -- you can have one guy go in the hazard, one guy go OB, and then you have your partner hit it to 10 feet and make birdie, so I feel like it's almost hard to distance yourself a little bit. We had no idea that they were even the top seed, so we weren't too worried. It's a four-ball, so you keep making pars and birdies you'll be okay, I guess. It's hard to like really run away with it almost. Q. Coach is one down up there. What do you think of him making a run like this? What's that been like? BEN BAXTER: Good for him. ANDREW BUCHANAN: Yeah, it's the most him thing in the world. He like lives for little matches, and ever since he stopped playing professionally, like he hasn't really ever had anything to play for, and so I know that he's put so much into this. He'll just always do stuff for fun with us, like all right, guys, like let's just have a closest to the pin here, and you can tell that he always wants a little extra juice or something. I'm sure that he's having -- I know that he was down early in his morning match, and I guess he came back and won; is that right? Q. Yeah, they were 3-down. He holed this bunker shot here. Ben, tell me about 17, what you hit in there. BEN BAXTER: I parred on 17 today, but yeah, I mean, Andrew hit an awesome shot with a 6-iron just to the front edge, but I knew he was going to have a tough putt, and I didn't hit my best shot in there, but I at least gave myself a chance missing on the right side, and actually Andrew and Duane had the read from this morning and Andrew missed it slightly on the low side, so they gave me the perfect read. We talked about it, I trusted it, and then just stroked it right in. Q. How about your birdie at 7? BEN BAXTER: Oh, 7, that was awesome actually. I pulled my drive, and I was over there in the trees, had like 189 to the pin, and I had to flight a low 6-iron, and I was really just trying to get up there on the left side so I had enough room to chip, and I drew it in there and got a couple nice bounces and rolled up there to about eight feet and drained the left to right curler. Q. Andrew, your birdie at 10, tell me about that one. ANDREW BUCHANAN: Yeah, just a good 2-iron off the tee, had good looks on that hole the whole time, and had, I think, 117 flag, hit just a flighted 50-degree wedge up there. Same thing as this morning. Came back to a little bit higher up position, and just really didn't feel any nerves over the putt. Like I knew it was a big putt match-wise, but I don't know, I just felt very calm over it, and it was probably about two cups of break, and that was it. It was a good feeling to make one. Q. What was your expectations coming into this event? ANDREW BUCHANAN: I don't know. We'd never played in one of these. We didn't really know that many people because a lot of them are obviously mid-ams, and I don't know, Ben and I have been working pretty hard leading up to this once we got done with school. I know that we're both finance majors, and we put a lot of time into school, but it was nice -- I texted him about a week before, and I was like, honestly, we're going to win the four-ball, and it's just been kind of a lot of that positive mentality. Today we really didn't have our swings at all, and short game-wise, I don't know, it just kept us in there. But we've been saying the whole time, we're going to win this match. Before the week we were going to say, we're going to win the four-ball, but now we just take each match like we're going to win this match, we're going to win this match. It's been a blast. One more day. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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