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WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 30, 2019

Matt Kuchar

Austin, Texas

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: Welcome Matt Kuchar into the interview room. Matt, a long but rewarding day, starting with a 4 and 3 win over Tyrrell Hatton, and then a victory over Sergio Garcia. Give us your overall comments of your day just now.

MATT KUCHAR: Certainly when you make it through pool play, you know that you're possibly in it for a long couple of days. You hope you're in it for a long couple of days. It's amazing the adrenaline that kicks in. And I feel after two rounds, still feel pretty good. This afternoon's match got exciting, Sergio made a great come back. For us to flip like we did on 16, I thought for sure I was going to finish the match, misjudged my approach shot. Sergio hit a couple of incredible thoughts, made birdie, I made par. I thought this was quite a match we've got. I was glad to finish it out on 18.

Q. Could you walk us through the situation on 7, what the ruling was and kind of what the fallout was after that?
MATT KUCHAR: I kind of made a mess of things with the hole. Ended up making about a 15-footer for a bogey. Sergio had about a 10-footer, I think, for par. I made my putt, walked to the back of the green. Sergio I saw missed it. And as I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one. And I saw him off the green, I said, "Sergio, I didn't say anything, I'm not sure how this works out." I didn't want that to be an issue. So I asked Robby Ware, I said, "Listen, I don't know how to handle this, but I didn't concede the putt, Sergio missed the putt." Sergio said, totally his mistake. He knew he made a mistake. I said, I didn't want that to be how a hole was won or lost. And he said, "Well, you can concede a hole." I'm not sure I'm ready to concede a hole. And just the rule played out with Robby stating how the rule works. It's not a -- certainly I don't use any gamesmanship, it's not a match play tactic, it's not anything. It was just one of those mistakes that Sergio made. And I said it's kind of one of those tough deals in the game of golf.

Q. Sergio potentially suggested you conceded the hole?
MATT KUCHAR: I apologized. I said, I don't like the way this was played out. He said, "You can concede a hole." I thought about it and said I don't like that idea, either.

Q. What didn't you like about it?
MATT KUCHAR: What didn't I like about it? It's hard to say other than I kind of just stuck to what the rules official said the rule was.

Q. With the temperature change today, how much did that affect your game, either this morning or this afternoon? Of course the winds picked up this afternoon. How much effect did that have on your game?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, it played awfully different lip. Listen, I was warming up this morning, I had a sweater on, I took it off thinking I wasn't going to need it, and about the 12th hole I was regretting taking it out of the bag and putting it in the locker after my rain session. I did not have it. It changed much more abruptly than I think any of us were prepared for. Made the course play a lot differently. It was about the 13th hole where the wind was howling. We took out umbrellas. And on the 13th hole I found myself in the middle of the 15th hole. It was quite an interesting change of events.

It was interesting just how different holes play. For instance, the 16th I think at best I tried to hit 3-wood in there, and today I tried to hit 6-iron in there.

Q. I'm sorry to go back to this, but did the idea of conceding a hole, did that come up on the 8th hole when he had a 7-footer, is that when it was broached?
MATT KUCHAR: Just as we walked off the 8th, yeah.

Q. The whole thing is weird. I mean, I'm not sure, I tried to look at a replay, Sergio didn't really look up at you, isn't that how he does it? When he misses, there's a quick glance, there is a bam, bam play?
MATT KUCHAR: Typically. Typically there's an acknowledgment. I understand how the concession needs to be vocal and we're given these rulings in all our cup events. And I try to do a really good job. I hate when guys kind of mumble something. I try to always be very clear, very vocal. This is one I was on the back of the green. It happened so fast. I knew I hadn't conceded it. But it was never a tactic or anything. And as I told Sergio, he said, "That was my bad. I know I screwed that one up."

Q. The thing I wanted to get to, when you had that incident happen on 7, he broaches a concession idea on 8 that you don't like, et cetera. Is it awkward to get your head in the match at that point?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah.

Q. When did you get your head back, if you did?
MATT KUCHAR: The rest of the match -- you know, there are a lot of rules in golf that are sticky. And you kind of never like to see a situation go funny. I mean, we had Rickie Fowler with a situation in Phoenix this year, his ball rolled back in the water. I was in that group, I watched it. It was one of those it's an awkward thing. You don't like to see things pan out that way. But the rules are rules. Rickie had to take his penalty. And Sergio knew he missed the putt and lost the hole.

Q. I guess what I was getting at, whatever frame of mind you're in, does it take time to get back into that?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, it is. It's a hard deal, because I don't like to see that. Similar with Rickie, I'm going, wow, I can't believe he had a four or five-shot lead through ten holes or was at the 11th, through 10 holes and there was, I can't remember, made it a quadruple bogey, and all of a sudden it's a one or two-shot lead. I can't believe how things have turned. And it kind of takes you a minute to digest everything. And certainly it took me the rest of the back nine to digest it.

Q. Even two holes later it sounded like cameras caught you guys still talking about it or him bringing up the idea of you maybe conceding a putt. When did things actually normalize between you guys?
MATT KUCHAR: That was probably the 10th, just made sure we were on the same page. I would say I would try to make sure we were just on the same page.

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: Talk about your match again, Lucas Bjerregaard tomorrow in the semifinals. Lucas taking down Tiger Woods earlier today.

MATT KUCHAR: I don't know Lucas very well. But certainly if he's taken down Tiger Woods -- he took down Rory McIlroy. That's an impressive feat. Anybody in the semifinals is playing some terrific golf. I'm sure he's playing some really solid golf and I expect him to play great tomorrow morning.

Q. Having won this before, what's your mentality tonight going into tomorrow? How does your night and morning play out?
MATT KUCHAR: I can't remember, I have say 9 something tee time, I think. That's a pretty reasonable morning. It's not too out of the ordinary. Do we have basketball on tonight? There will be some watching of basketball and ordering in and a nice night. We're staying over at a friend's house. And it's been great. We watched the sun go down over the river. Been firing up the hot tub at night. We've been having a really good stay here in Austin and it will be more of the same.

Q. As a Georgia Tech grad, could you spell Lucas's last name?
MATT KUCHAR: I don't know. We're a math school.

CHUAH CHOO CHIANG: Matt, thanks for coming in and good luck tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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