THE RYDER CUP

September 24, 2021

Harris English

Tony Finau

Whistling Straits

Press Conference

Friday Afternoon Fourballs

Q. Harris, your debut, how was this morning getting ready for this afternoon? How tough was that?

HARRIS ENGLISH: I kind of went back and forth of what I was going to do this morning. Obviously I wanted to go to first tee and see all these guys tee off and get a feel of the atmosphere. Went back to the hotel and chilled a little bit and kind of went through my normal routine of prepping for a round.

Man, it was awesome. The atmosphere was incredible. The adrenaline was pumping like no other. So it was easy to get up for playing golf today.

Q. And yet this guy next to you, Tony, you looked so comfortable, why is that?

TONY FINAU: I was really looking forward to being in front of our fans. I love the energy and I love that type of adrenaline and just having that energy behind us. I haven't had the opportunity to play in front of a home crowd in these international events. So I was just really looking forward to soaking that in, and we just kind of fed off them all day.

We played some great golf together. We were a really hard team to beat today, a lot of balls in play, a lot of balls on the green for birdie. We did what we had to do, and it was a lot of fun to be out there with Harry today.

Q. A lot of red on the board from early on in the afternoon session. How much does seeing that, hearing the roars, how much does that spur you guys on?

HARRIS ENGLISH: It's huge. Starting out, we saw a couple guys getting an early lead, and we got a lot of confidence in them, and it definitely helps us of seeing them play good golf and then knowing it's out there and keep making birdies and then keep doing it ourselves.

So we kind of took that and ran with it. We got off to a pretty good start. And then Tony holed a great putt on No. 1, and we were kind of off to the races. It was a great start. He played unbelievable today.

It was just a fun day. We had a great time together and such a fun arena we got to play in.

Q. The match seemed really tight, starting at 9 or somewhere around there, you guys stretched it around in a hurry. What is it like when you seize momentum like that?

TONY FINAU: I think momentum is huge in a team atmosphere like this, especially when you're playing match play. I thought Harry made a huge putt on 8 that gave us the lead. And we never looked back. I had a great look on 9 that I made and another look on 10, and we were just kind of on our way.

It's funny how momentum works. You know it can change at any given moment, and we knew in the match we had to keep the pedal to the metal. These things start to stretch out when you have the momentum, and it's easy to lose momentum.

We both looked at each other and knew just keep on piling on these birdies and keep on piling on looks, and we're going to be hard to beat. Yeah, we were able to get it done and ride the momentum in the middle of the round, but it started with that spark that Harry gave us on No. 8.

Q. I understand that you guys got inspiration or a text of some sort from Tiger. To the extent you can, can you share either what he said or what he meant or what it meant, if it had any impact?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, no doubt. We actually -- Harry mentioned to me walking down No. 9, like how cool it was that Tiger is so into it. I think that's the big thing is he's so invested in this team. He's not here physically, but you know, I think the gist of basically what he was saying was I'm cheering you guys on, I'm right there with you and go fight and make us proud.

We were able to do that, and if TW's watching, thanks for that text, brother, I think it helps us a lot.

Q. Did Steve read it to you guys or was it a group text?

TONY FINAU: Yeah, he just sent it to us.

HARRIS ENGLISH: Talking to Tony today, Tiger has given Tony a little strategy for match play in fourball, and we kind of fed off that today.

But yeah, Tiger's not with us in person, but I know he's watching and talking to Stricker a lot. We know he's got our backs, so that's really cool, and we kind of used that energy today, which we could feel it.