WALKER CUP

May 8, 2021

Cole Hammer

Seminole Golf Club

Golf Channel Interview

Q. Cole, another point for the American side, but you said joking with a smile on your face, "Man, I made it difficult on myself." You were 5-up at one point. How do you define how difficult it is to close out one of these matches?

COLE HAMMER: You know what, at the end of the day golf is pretty hard, and you can't play perfect golf all day long. I got off to a hot start, hit it tight on 1 and birdied 2, so 2-up through 2, and kind of got on a heater on 6 through 9 and got to 5-up and kind of felt like I was coasting at that point. The next thing you know I make bogey on 10 and he's kind of right back in it. Luckily I was able to make a nice 10-footer on 15 for birdie that really kind of set up my last couple holes and had a good up-and-down here.

Q. It's been a wild couple of days for both teams. From the player perspective, we're going to talk to your captain in a couple of minutes, but you're one of the leaders of the American side. What message have you given the guys to stay up in this down moment with all the sickness?

COLE HAMMER: I'm not going to lie, it's been hard. We were kind of dropping like dominos there for a second and no one knew who was going to be next. It was hard. We fought so hard for the last two years to make this team, and to have some guys not be able to play because they're sick was tough. But we rallied around each other and told ourselves that we were going to put out the best guys, and we're going to do our best to get it done. Obviously it's not the situation we wanted to be in, but I feel like we made the most of it.

Q. We know how talented you are, but after the tests you guys have had the first couple of days here in this area and the sickness and the game and the golf course, trying to learn it, and the pressure of trying to win a Walker Cup, what does it say about your mental fortitude?

COLE HAMMER: You know what, I think it gives us a lot of confidence. We've handled adversity well this week. We've been thrown a bunch of punches from different directions, and we've handled it pretty darned well, and I think it's going to help us a lot going forward, and for us to kind of perform the way we did on the course today shows a lot about each and every one of the guys on the team, and I'm super proud of the guys. It was a great day.