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CIMB CLASSIC

October 19, 2016

Sergio Garcia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: Sergio Garcia in with us, your fourth visit to the CIMB Classic where you finished second two years ago. Tell us your thoughts about coming back to this golf course and what it means to you.

SERGIO GARCIA: It's great. Good fun to be back here in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. Excited about the week. Obviously a little bit of jet-lag but hopefully we'll get rid of it quickly.

Other than that, the course looks nice. The greens are a little on the slow side at the moment but the course probably looks the best I've seen it these past four years, so we're excited about the cheek.

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: It's your first event back since The Ryder Cup in the States. What have you been doing over the last couple weeks.

SERGIO GARCIA: Well, a couple corporate days for some of my sponsors and a little bit of practice, a little bit of downtime. So two weeks off, it was nice.

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: This is the start of the PGA TOUR season, strange as it sounds, but looking forward to the next 2 1/2 months before 2016 comes to a close, have you set yourself any little goals for yourself to achieve.

SERGIO GARCIA: No, just the only thing I want to do is play as hard as I can. I have this week, next week and then Dubai. So I have three weeks to finish my year, my calendar year. I'm excited about it, so hopefully I can keep playing like I played at The Ryder Cup and have a chance of winning these next few weeks, and then we can get ready for Christmas, New Year's, and kind of relax a little bit.

Q. You're a known quantity on the international scene. Is there anything that you feel that you still want to do?
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, obviously you always want to play the best you can and improve as much as possible. That's why we say that what we try to do is improve every year.

So there's obviously things that you still want to achieve or be able to achieve them, or at least give yourself a chance of achieving those goals. But nothing particular, like being No. 1 in the world or anything like that. Obviously if it happens it would be great. But it's not something that it's like the main goal like maybe it was when I was 20, 22. Just keep improving, stay healthy and play as well as possible.

Q. You're no stranger to Malaysia. You won in Johor. What is it that appeals to you about this country in terms of continually coming back?
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it's great timing-wise in the schedule. It fits nicely for me. I said I always like to come to Asia towards the end of the year and obviously playing three or four tournaments around here.

I've visited many countries around Asia and it's always fun to come back. Obviously I've done well here in this tournament before, so it's a course that I feel quite comfortable on it and I'm always excited to come back and play it.

Q. This year, what has it been like with The Ryder Cup, do you think it's been a good year or what?
SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, I think it's been a pretty solid year. There's no doubt that I would have liked to have played the Playoffs a little bit better than I did, or at least play those two weekends a little bit better to get into Atlanta.

But overall, I think it's been a pretty solid year. Obviously we won on the PGA TOUR again, which is always nice. Solid, quite consistent in most of the majors. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way the year has gone.

Q. I think there was one year where you were playing pretty well here. So what are your hopes for this week?
SERGIO GARCIA: Same thing. Play as well as possible and have a chance to win on the weekend. That would be nice. That's always our goal. You know, hopefully I'll be able to do that.

Q. Do you have thoughts on the next Ryder Cup on home turf?
SERGIO GARCIA: It's two years ago. It's a long time (laughter).

No, I'm excited about it. I'm excited because it's going to be in France. It's a great golf course. Obviously now the Americans have won it, so we want to get it back. It would be -- once it gets close to that time, I'm sure it will be very, very exciting.

But at the moment, no, there's not any thoughts about it.

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: On The Ryder Cup, Rory has said that he wants Thomas as his long-term partner. Is it going to be the same case with you and Rafa?

SERGIO GARCIA: That would be nice for sure. We have a great relationship, Rafa and I. We are good friends and we gelled nicely at The Ryder Cup. The couple of matches we played, we felt very, very comfortable and played really good golf together. Hopefully it would be nice if we could both make the team and if we both do that, then probably we might play some matches together.

Q. What do you think you need to do to get the cup back?
SERGIO GARCIA: Get 14 1/2 points. It's as simple as that (laughter).

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