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WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 27, 2019

Justin Rose

Austin, Texas

Q. Good day for you?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, absolutely. I guess I was 3-under par, which would be somewhere on the midrange on the leaderboard on a day like today, if we were playing stroke play. Some days you're going to lose at 3-under par, some days you're going to win.

Obviously today was a day -- actually Emiliano and I played solid golf. He just didn't make the putts when he needed to. That's kind of key in match play. I was just saying to the guys, I think 15 was the key hole, and I made a 12-foot putt for par, Emiliano three-putted it eventually. And looking like going back to 1 and I'm dormie 3. That was a real big turnaround.

Q. How enjoyable is match play?
JUSTIN ROSE: It's kind of stressful, constantly stressful, to be honest with you. You're 3-up and you're cruising and all of a sudden you feel like dormie two, the match isn't over, especially playing guys like this. Sometimes if you have a two-shot lead, that's one thing, it's down to you, you can kind of par in. But sometimes parring in isn't good enough in match play, because you have an opponent that can obviously throw some birdies at you. No match is ever safe.

Q. Justin, reflections on today?
JUSTIN ROSE: Job done I guess is a reflection. It was a decent day, not my greatest day, but good enough, which is all you need in match play. From that point of view I can build on it hopefully tomorrow. I have one round of match play under my belt. It's a format that maybe takes a day or two to get into the groove of it. I made a couple of key putts at the right time today and kept my nose in front.

Q. I was talking to a couple of other English guys and how much do you take from your amateur career, growing up with playing match play? Do you fall back on that saying, I learned a lot, I know how to do this?
JUSTIN ROSE: Not really. The quality you're playing now is so different to those days. They're fond memories, but there's so little of it being done in the last sort of 20 years total that it's really almost like a lost art. Obviously we do it every couple of years in the Ryder Cup and what have you. But that's a little different, I feel, doing it as a team. But each guy is out for themselves this week.

Q. Nice getting off to a good start. Comment on the key to the win today.
JUSTIN ROSE: A win is a win. Obviously what you need on day one. At this point it doesn't mean much, but it's better than the alternative. Obviously you've got two more days to try to get a couple more. It keeps you kind of upbeat about the week, obviously winning on day one.

I did enough. I did enough today. I was probably 3-under when I won. So that's probably a score that's going to win matches but also lose matches out there. But the key is you've got to do enough to win your match on a given day.

The key hole I guess was 15. I lost a bit of momentum around 13, 14. I was cruising at 3-up, got back to 2. Looked like losing 15 to only be 1-up with three to play, made a 12-foot par-putt and Emiliano missed from short range to be dormie three. So that was the one key hole I felt that got it done.

Q. Talk about the format change.
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, two wins are good enough at times, but you weren't to win all three. So that's it, you want to win each match to get out of the group.

So, yeah, there's many permutations, I guess. I can't remember them all. But just win, win, win is what you need to do.

Q. You're not playing next week, what are you going to be doing instead?
JUSTIN ROSE: I'm going to prepare for Augusta. I'm probably going to practice maybe -- I'm going to do a couple of things Monday, Tuesday, then I'll have Wednesday, Thursday relaxing at home and I'll spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday really working on my game. Just short game is what I want to focus on. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to do that, if I'm going to go up to Augusta early to try and practice on the same grass or not or just stay home. Obviously at home is Bermudagrass. It is a little different than what I'll face in Augusta.

Depends actually how this weekend goes. You never want to make a plan to go anywhere else than be here on the weekend. We have a couple of days to see what goes on on the weekend.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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