WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 24, 2022

Sergio Garcia

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. A tie isn't something you look forward to, but do you take something out of the idea of how you fought back?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you would offer me a tie, a half on the 14th tee I would have definitely taken it and walk, run to the clubhouse.

No, obviously, yeah, I mean, I got in a great round on 14, 15, 16, 17 and, yeah, you can say what a shame that I just, I hit that putt on 17 just a tiny bit right in the middle of the hole and he made a great par putt, but you got to expect that he's going to make it.

But it was a hard-played match and I'm not going to lie. I'm happy with the tie, but a win would have been better.

Q. If you felt momentum changing your direction at all where would that have been on the back nine?

SERGIO GARCIA: Hard to say. I think funny enough probably 11 was a big moment for me to finally -- because I felt like I hit a lot of good putts until that hole and didn't really make anything. So to be able to make that one to stay 3-down instead of going 4-down on the 12th tee. And then winning the next, obviously, then he came back and won the 13, but then I got on my good run and I was able to come back and halve the match.

Q. Can you walk us through the approach shot on the last kind of what was going through your mind.

SERGIO GARCIA: Well first thing was going through my mind was why didn't you make a better swing off the tee. But you know, obviously I had a rock a little bit behind my ball so I knew I had to get steep. The good thing is I had an opening, so I didn't have a tree in front, so that was nice, but I had to get really, really steep with my 52. The way it came out I thought it had a chance of getting to the top and getting fairly close to the hole but unfortunately it didn't, but I actually would have taken it, before I hit it, I would have taken it where it was.

Q. What club and how many yards did you have?

SERGIO GARCIA: I had 113 yards into the wind and it was like a back foot 52 degree.

Q. Where does that rank among recovery shots that you've had, you've had some pretty impressive ones.

SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know, I mean it was okay. It wasn't super difficult. I mean, it probably, the lie kind of made it a little bit tougher, the situation probably made it a little bit tougher, but I've had a lot tougher shots than that. But you still have to get there and hit the shot and hit a good shot and give yourself a chance, because obviously if I don't hit a good shot then it's so much easier for him to go out there and hit it very close. So doing that obviously puts a little bit of pressure on him and it gives me a little bit more of a chance.

Q. Is this the kind of tournament where if you get a few results and maybe make a run to the knock outs that it can jump start the rest of your game and carry on into the stroke play stuff?

SERGIO GARCIA: Hopefully. I feel like I've been playing okay, not, I mean to my standards, not amazing, missing a couple shots here and there that usually don't hit, so obviously that is a little bit of lack of confidence, but I definitely feel like I'm not getting the results when I'm hitting the ball well. That maybe I should have. But you just got to keep going at it, keep trying and hope that things kind of start happening a little bit and kind of like it did on the last five or six holes and we'll see.

Q. Do you have any different strategy when you're playing somebody like Collin who is playing so well?

SERGIO GARCIA: No, it's simple, I mean, you know when you're playing a guy like Collin that is so solid and such a good player, you know that you're going to have to play well and you're going to have to make some putts if you want to beat him. He's not going to give many things away.

So I felt like I did that on the first seven holes, seven, eight holes, unfortunately, it just lacked the ball dropping in the hole, it was as simple as that. But I'm very happy with the way I putted, don't get me wrong. I hit a lot of great looking putts that were just burning the edge, just short, maybe just lip out, things like that. So it wasn't like they were bad putts, it just is one of those days where it took a little longer than I wanted for the ball to start dropping.

Q. With the majors season starting in just a couple weeks do you feel like your game can get back to where like when you won the Masters in 2017?

SERGIO GARCIA: It still needs to improve, I'm not going to lie. I feel like it's kind of getting there, but still needs to improve. There's still some things that I need to get better at and hopefully in the next week and a half we can figure it out.