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THE RYDER CUP

October 1, 2016

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to the 41st Ryder Cup. Pleased to be joined by Ryan Moore, J.B. Holmes, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar. We are going to open it up for questions in a moment. I'm going to ask for one comment per match or per pairing, so I'm going to start on my immediate right with Matt. Maybe could you talk about your match today.

MATT KUCHAR: It was so much fun playing with my big brother, Phil Mickelson. We've talked about it for years, almost joked about it during rounds of golf in regular PGA tournament play. We came to the conclusion, we might even have too much fun; it might not be good to put us two together.

But going out this afternoon, Phil pulled me aside beforehand and said, "Hey, Matt, listen, I play my best when I'm having fun. Let's go out there and let's mix it up, have a good time." We did just that.

I got off to a good start and then what a finish Phil put on. It was fun to watch. I told him that I'd witnessed a lot of great golf out of him, and this certainly is one that I'll always remember seeing him cap the match off the way he did.

JOHN DEVER: Patrick, could you address your day, your full day today, please.

JORDAN SPIETH: I'll be addressing this for our team. We had a great day today together. We played phenomenal golf this morning. We didn't miss many shots. We made a couple bogeys in a row that let the other guys back in the match. Out of character finish for us. As you see, it was certainly out of character for my partner over here, because we were then left in the same position this afternoon, and Patrick took over.

I mean, what a front nine he had with five birdies and an eagle on his own maybe on the front nine. And then on the back nine, he came through on 14, 15, with kind of what really closed the match, really birdied 16, as well, and probably would have birdied 17, actually, if he had to.

We wanted Rose and Stenson again. They wanted to play us again. We split yesterday's two matches. We wanted them in this best-ball format, and so we were very pleased to get the call to go back out for our fourth match of the week.

I guess Patrick, with some fatigued legs, plays his best golf, so maybe he can take that into everything that he does, I don't know. But it was really fun to be a part of. What an incredible atmosphere out there, and you know, we've got obviously a job to do tomorrow. But we're very pleased with today.

JOHN DEVER: Could you address your 1-up victory this afternoon?

J.B. HOLMES: Yeah, it was a great day for us. It was a battle back and forth all day. So it was coming down to the end, it was big -- I kind of left Ryan hanging out to dry on 17, but he came through and hit some great shots. We were able to come through and get a victory at the end.

It was an awesome day. Crowd was great and just the atmosphere here at The Ryder Cup is unbelievable, so it was great to get a point and help the team.

Q. Why do you think, unlike some people, that you can play so well when adrenaline is pumping threw your veins?
PATRICK REED: Good question. I don't know. I just feed off it for some reason, and for some reason the ball doesn't seem to go that much farther than most times.

It's interesting, because the only time I feel like I actually have to play for more distance is at 16 at Waste Management. Besides that, for some reason, the ball just seems to go its normal distance.

Q. You mentioned wanting to be against Stenson and Rose again. There are players who enjoy winning points and there are players who enjoy beating people. When you say you want a piece of those guys again, do you fall under that category of you enjoy beating people?
JORDAN SPIETH: Probably both. We know how stout that team is because they had not lost a match in Ryder Cup play together until this week. And we love that challenge. We hadn't lost a match in Ryder Cup play together until this week, so we thought, why not throw us against them.

We won our first match against them. Henrik pulled a Patrick yesterday afternoon, and Patrick pulled a Patrick this afternoon, for us to kind of better them.

To answer your question, it's probably both. I mean, sure, whoever Captain was going to put us with, we're fine. We didn't know we were going to be against them. We didn't even know if we were playing again this afternoon. But when we saw it, we were definitely pleased about the challenge ahead, that we had split 1-1 and neither one of us had lost before that. We just went out and kind of did our job.

Q. How much fun is it to watch Patrick emoting out there and what does he mean, as far as being the heart and soul of this American Team?
JORDAN SPIETH: You're American. Are you rooting for us?

Q. I'm travel on no passport this week. I'm an impartial observer.
JORDAN SPIETH: Well, I assume that deep in your heart, you're rooting for us. That's how much fun it was for me, too.

16, he hit his approach shot with that 5-wood, 4-wood, from like 269 into the breeze with the ball below his feet off a downslope. And after he struck it, and you could kind of tell, before it even reached its apex, with the scene that was around us, the most amount of people that either one of us have ever seen on a golf hole; before it reached it is apex, we were both screaming. That's how cool it was. I screamed, "Let's go, Patrick" and I don't know what he screamed at that point. He did his signature whatever it was that he's been doing, the let's-go fist-pump.

Just what a shot he pulled off there. And that hole was so cool walking up and just hearing, he was getting everything that he deserved for what he did this afternoon against, again, historically the best team that they've had. They hadn't lost a match.

What a performance it was. Yeah, it was a lot of fun to be a part of that team.

Q. Obviously there were a few unsavory incidents around various matches, and suggestions that you were trying to calm the crowd down and get them to keep quiet at various points. Were you annoyed at the minority of possibly spoiling it for the majority?
JORDAN SPIETH: You know, I think that we just wanted to make sure that everybody could play their game. You know, there were times where it would quiet down and then you would get a fan or two that would just yell and single people out maybe.

We wanted to just hush them down so that they were able to hit under the same conditions we were able to hit under. I think that's fair. Obviously just like when we play over there, there's going to be cheers when shots are poor for the opponent, and then extreme jubilation when we do something well.

But we wanted to beat them at their best and we thought it would be fair to make sure that we did our part in, I guess, giving them the opportunity that we had when we were hitting shots.

Q. You touched on this earlier, talking with Phil about wanting to play together for months. Patrick or Jordan, and/or Jordan, just wonder if you can speak to maybe Phil's fingerprints or influence on this team, in particular.
JORDAN SPIETH: You want to get that, Patrick?

He thought you were talking to Kuch.

Phil's fingerprints on the team? Yeah, sure. He is the leader of this team. You know, Phil, I think we all believe that. Phil, Matt, Zach, the elder guys on the team, have taken a role in keeping our heads focused amidst all the noise.

Phil has some great ideas. He's so positive, and he can really make you feel like if you're off, that you're on. And that's a great thing to have in the locker room, and it certainly has helped our team this week. And we've really enjoyed, you know, having him on the team, obviously contributing the way that he's contributed, which is what we've seen him do for decades to help get us in is this position and in a cool spot for tomorrow. But off the course, he's really providing for our team, as well.

Q. When you walked up to the 18th green, did you really think in your mind you were walking out of there with a win? And to the group as a whole, if you had your druthers, who would you like to play tomorrow?
RYAN MOORE: It's hard to say. Any putt is hard in those circumstances, to make a putt to try and square up the match on the 18th hole. He had missed a putt on 17, a little bit longer.

But obviously we were trying to birdie the hole and not make it an issue. But you know, you just never know. We were sitting on the green with, you know, not knowing what was going to happen, and it worked out for us.

J.B. HOLMES: I mean, I didn't want to think that we didn't have a chance until -- once I missed my birdie and Ryan didn't make his chip, I thought he would make the putt, so I was definitely surprised when it didn't go in. But it was in the shadows and it was downhill, so you know, it definitely wasn't a gimmie. So we fought hard today and was happy to get a point.

And as far as who we play tomorrow, I'm just going to go out and play my game and do the best I can and not really worry about who I'm playing.

Q. You're the only one that was at Medinah. Is there any type of advice or anything that you can say to the guys that weren't there about protecting that lead tomorrow?
MATT KUCHAR: We all know the deal is to do our job. We go out there to win our match, not worrying about how many points the team needs to close it out or win. There's no total. We're going out there to do our job, to win our match. We'd like to win all 12 matches. That's our job for tomorrow.

JOHN DEVER: Gentlemen, thanks for your time. Rest fast. Thank you.

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