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NCAA MEN'S GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

May 31, 2017

Sugar Grove, Illinois

THE MODERATOR: We are joined on the dais by the Oregon Ducks. We have student-athletes Norman Xiong, Edwin Yi, Wyndham Clark, Ryan Gronlund, Sulman Raza, joined by their coach Casey Martin. We'll get opening statements from each and then we'll take your questions. Casey, we'll start with you. Talk a little bit about today's match, maybe some of the differences that ended up happening today.

CASEY MARTIN: I think we didn't play our best, obviously, but Oklahoma played wonderfully and have a bunch of good players. We didn't seem to get a whole lot of momentum early. A few guys got up, but as I was out there, didn't seem like we had a whole lot of exciting things happen, not a lot of putts drop. So it's hard to win when you're playing a great team without a little bit of magic, which we didn't quite have today.

THE MODERATOR: Sulman, talk a little bit about your match and talk about the difficulty in having to repeat.

SULMAN RAZA: Yeah, no, it's always tough to repeat. I just kind of put myself behind the 8-ball early and gave two holes to Brad, and then after that I made a few -- mistake on 4, three-putting, and letting him get away with a halve there and tried to fight back from there, but Brad played incredible golf, and I really enjoyed the match, and congrats to Oklahoma on their win.

THE MODERATOR: Wyndham, what were some of the differences today?

WYNDHAM CLARK: I didn't play my best today, but I hung in there and Rylee played great. He's a great guy. And I just really tried to grind it out. It was really hard to get a feel on how everyone was doing because we were so spaced out. So it was hard to build some momentum off of the other guys. That was tough. But I'm happy to be here with these guys, and it was a great year for us.

THE MODERATOR: Edwin, talk about the difficulties of trying to repeat. Obviously you were part of the team last year, as well, a little bit about that.

EDWIN YI: Yeah, it's tough. We all want to win. We've been there last year, and we had pretty much the same confidence going into today. I mean, a lot of us got off to kind of a slow start, and it was just hard to fight back from there.

Q. Norman, talk a little bit about match play and the kind of experience that you gained here during this week.
NORMAN XIONG: Yeah, it was good. I felt like as though my game kind of changed throughout the weekend, and it definitely wasn't my best performance, and I think the match play aspect kind of just got the bad side of me today. But a good learning experience. Hopefully I can carry it on to good things later on.

THE MODERATOR: Ryan, talk about it, as well, you played really well this week all week long.

RYAN GRONLUND: Yeah, it was a great experience. It was fun to come out here. Like Wyndham said, I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else. I'm really happy to be here with them. Tough to sit here with the silver medal but not bad for what we thought would be a rebuilding year.

Q. Casey, obviously last year all the hard work paid off. You guys won your first national title. Can you just maybe talk about that perspective and what maybe Coach Hybl is feeling right now?
CASEY MARTIN: Yeah, he's happy right now. It's a great feeling. It was one of the best days of my life last year, that whole week, and experiencing that. Ryan is a great guy and a great coach, so I'm happy for him without a doubt. I know he's feeling a lot of joy right now and relief, and then he'll feel some expectations real quick, too.

Q. Obviously there's three guys sitting up here with you now that won't be here next season. Talk about each of them and what they're going to mean --
CASEY MARTIN: Well, Wyndham and Sulman -- certainly what Sulman has done for this program has been so clutch and battling through, and we've been through some adversity, and yet here we are enjoying an amazing moment together again. I'm excited for him and his future. And then in one short year, Wyndham really put his stamp on Oregon in a big way and certainly one of the best if not the best player to ever play here, and grateful that he chose to finish out his career at Oregon and his college and amateur career with an eagle on the last hole. Pretty cool, fitting, and big things coming for him.

Q. Sulman, as a senior, take us through the journey, last year's national championship and coming up just short this year. Talk about that whole stretch.
SULMAN RAZA: Yeah, for us last year, we definitely thought we had a shot at winning a national championship, but for us to really do it, it was definitely the highest of highs, and then to be able to sneak into match play this year after our last round stroke play, I didn't think we were going to make it into match play, so for us to sneak in, it was pretty awesome, and then to reach this moment with my teammates and having another chance to repeat, there were definitely a lot of expectations, some nerves, but I'm still so proud of these guys, and I've enjoyed every single moment at the University of Oregon.

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