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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

December 14, 2019

Melbourne, Australia

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Gary Woodland, Matt Kuchar and Tony Finau. Gary, if we can get some comments on your match, please.

GARY WOODLAND: It was nice to go out early. Tiger told us this morning we were going to go out first and we needed to go out and change some momentum.

DJ and I played great today. It's nice, DJ and play a lot of practice rounds together. We have very similar games and it was easy to club off. We got off to a rough start the first round, so we wanted to get something back.

It was nice to get red on the board early and hope the guys behind us ride the momentum, which they did.

JOHN BUSH: Matt, you came away mighty impressed with Tony's play today. If we can get some comments on your match, as well.

MATT KUCHAR: It was quite a battle. They played some great golf. They did some amazing scrambling. It was one of those unique match-play events, where you think you've got them, but you've got to know that you're playing against some of the best players in the world, and their likelihood of scrambling, of saving par and of making putts is high, where they were fantastic at converting those opportunities.

It was one of those battles. Tony and I went the distance twice today, and it was two well-fought matches. Part of us are disappointed not to get full points, but at the same time, played really well and able to come away with a point from the two sessions.

TONY FINAU: It was a great experience. Going the distance with Kuch, had a lot of fun with him out there.

That first match was pretty fun, making those two putts, getting some momentum going into our second match. Man, we played some great golf. And like Kuch said, any time they needed to make a putt, they made it, and you know, luckily for us on that last hole, Ben finally missed one and we were able to at least get a halve.

Overall, I think we were pleased with getting a full point out of the two matches.

Q. Which team has the momentum going into tomorrow?
MATT KUCHAR: What did he say?

GARY WOODLAND: Who has the momentum going into tomorrow.

I don't think it matters. Everybody is going out to play. We know all of us played pretty solid this afternoon, which was nice. We're looking to go out, get off to good starts. Momentum means nothing because we're all going to go to bed and wake up tomorrow and everybody is going to play differently.

I like where we're at. I like our team. We fought hard today because it could have been really bad, so for us to get back within two points, I think is a good momentum-shift for us, but that's not going to matter. We've got to tee it up. It's going to be 0-0 when we tee it up in the morning, and we've got to go out and win matches.

MATT KUCHAR: There was a point today where it looked like it may be 9-1 Internationals, and for us to be sitting here at 10-8, certainly feel good. Any time you're in a tournament, you want to be a leader and have the lead.

We'd rather be in the International position right now, but for us to be staring at 9-1 as a potential position to now be at 10-8, I think the guys in the locker room feel awfully good about what we were able to do today, and excited for tomorrow's singles.

TONY FINAU: Spirits are definitely high in our team room.

Q. Given your history in team sports, how important was it for you to get that confidence from Tiger to go out first and get a point on the board and win?
GARY WOODLAND: It was huge. It was nice, he trusted us to put me in the anchor match the first match and DJ and I went out and got rolled.

It gave me a lot of confidence that he put me again there with Rickie yesterday, and then today, you know, sitting this morning, he came to DJ and I early in the day and told us we were going to be first out. So he instilled the confidence. He's been unbelievable. He's been positive.

So that was huge, knowing that he's trust me to put me in some pretty key situations. And DJ and I went out and responded, which was good.

Q. Given the pressure that clearly was expected from your team, having such a great position on the OGWR, are you surprised at the performances of Pan and An and Joaquin Niemann? They have been quite impressive so far.
MATT KUCHAR: We've seen these guys a lot. Listen, anybody here is a great player. It's the game of golf. It's not tennis where the 1-seed is always going to beat the 10-seed. The game of golf, we've seen these guys play. They are legit, quality players, top to bottom.

We knew it was going to be a battle. We knew we'd to have play some really good golf to come out with a victory, and it's showing just that.

Q. A lot of us were really surprised today to see that Tiger didn't put himself in the line-up for this afternoon, and then strangely it turns out it's the best session the Americans have had. Did you think it helped to have him fully in the captain role, and if yes, can you explain how that would be?
GARY WOODLAND: No. He's playing so good right now, I mean, I don't think it ever helps to have him sit.

You know, he wasn't feeling ready to go. He needed a day to rest and he rested. We had to go out and step up for him. He told us all that; to pick him up, and we went out and tried to flip the script and luckily we did that late. But any time you have Tiger Woods playing, I think that's a good thing.

Q. I watched you putt from the back fringe of the 4th green today. I wanted to ask you about what that's like when you get out of position at Royal Melbourne, and do you see the comparison because it's a Mackenzie course with putting at Augusta, because it looked like you putted it 90 degrees to the hole. And Matt, what you think as well?
GARY WOODLAND: I'll credit Kuch to that. I saw Kuch hit that putt in a practice round, which was good to see. I actually wanted to chip it, and Dustin Johnson talked me into putting it. We saw Kuch hit that putt numerous times in the practice round.

We were trying to hit it close to a tee from that exact same spot, so I'll credit Kuch on that one, and luckily DJ talked me into not chipping it and the putt came off perfectly. We don't see that in the States. You don't hit shots almost backwards to catch a slope. That was a big momentum shift, because we lose that, we're 2-down early, so that was nice to kind of halve that hole there.

Q. I couldn't help but notice early today, you signal a goal. Wonder what the inspiration was that brought that into play?
MATT KUCHAR: I got the first part, sorry, can you repeat the second part.

Q. Wondering what the inspiration was behind the celebration.
MATT KUCHAR: I've been coming down to Melbourne for years now. Love it. Big fan of sport, Melbourne being the sporting capital here. I really, really enjoy the culture. I enjoy the people. The golf is fantastic.

But I was actually here in Melbourne over honeymoon, and I had a caddie at the time, an Australian guy by the name of Bussy, who organized me to get with some of his friends and put on all the cricket gear, the pads and everything, and have some friends bowl it to me, and then actually play some Aussie Rules footy just to learn how to play and have a kick-around. Also organized me to be here for Melbourne Cup which was quite an experience. That was awesome.

I've got some history here and love the sport, and just I think it's an awesome little maneuver that the umpire, referee makes. You know it's a goal. You know it's a success. I thought, man, if I could bring that out in Australia, might get a few fans on our side for a minute, knowing how much we relate to their sport.

Q. Two years ago at Liberty National, it was a pretty anticlimactic Sunday. Just wondering, going into this time, even though it's a lot closer and you guys are behind now, do you kind of get those competitive juices flowing that maybe you guys didn't have on Sunday two years ago because it was so one-sided?
MATT KUCHAR: We're all competitors regardless of kind of the score going into Sunday. You get out there in a match, and you don't want to lose. I don't care what the score is. We're out there as competitors who come here and even if the thing was fully decided, nobody wants to put a loss by their name. Everybody wants to get a win.

It doesn't take long; once they introduce your name on that first tee, you're there to play and you're there to play to win. We dug ourselves a bit of a hole here early, and everybody's got a huge amount incentive, whether it's for the team or for themselves to play well and get a win tomorrow.

Q. Just wondering if you can give an insight into how Patrick Reed is going? He's had a week where the crowd's shown a fair degree of animosity towards him that's overflowed today with his caddie. How is he this week given everything that's happened?
GARY WOODLAND: P-Reed, he'll be just fine. He relishes that moment. I think it's been tough, but I think he expected that going in. If anybody can handle it in that situation, P-Reed will be just fine.

Q. That was exactly my question. How is Bryson doing? He hasn't played much. Is he doing okay?
TONY FINAU: Yeah, he's doing fine and he'll be ready to go tomorrow for the singles match.

JOHN BUSH: Thank you for your time and best of luck tomorrow.

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