THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 23, 2022

Davis Love

Trevor Immelman

Quail Hollow Club

Press Conference

MICHAEL BALIKER: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here this evening at Quail Hollow. We will get started with our pairings for Round 3 foursomes.

At this time, I'd like to turn it over to John Mutch from the match committee to conduct the pairings.

JOHN MUTCH: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Round 3 pairings for the 2022 Presidents Cup at the Quail Hollow Club. Tomorrow, Round 3 will consist of four foursomes matches. 8 of the 12 players will be selected to play off each team.

The international team will select first in Match 11. Trevor, your selections, please.

TREVOR IMMELMAN: Sungjae Im and Corey Conners.

JOHN MUTCH: The international team has selected Sungjae Im and Corey Conners.

Davis, your selection?

DAVIS LOVE III: Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

JOHN MUTCH: United States team has selected Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

Davis, you will pick for Match 12 first.

DAVIS LOVE III: Cameron Young and Collin Morikawa.

JOHN MUTCH: United States team has selected Cameron Young and Collin Morikawa.

Trevor, your selection for Match 12?

TREVOR IMMELMAN: We'll go with Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama.

JOHN MUTCH: The international team has selected Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama.

Trevor, you will pick first for Match 13.

TREVOR IMMELMAN: K.H. Lee and Tom Kim.

JOHN MUTCH: The international team has selected K.H. Lee and Tom Kim.

Davis, your selection for Match 13.

DAVIS LOVE III: We'll go with Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns.

JOHN MUTCH: The United States team has selected Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns.

Davis, you will select first for Match 14.

DAVIS LOVE III: We'll go with Tony Finau and Max Homa.

JOHN MUTCH: The United States team has selected Tony Finau and Max Homa.

Trevor, your selection for Match 14.

TREVOR IMMELMAN: Si Woo Kim and Cam Davis.

JOHN MUTCH: The international team has selected Si Woo Kim and Cam Davis.

The first tee time tomorrow is 7:12 a.m. The international team will have the honor on the 1st tee.

The weather forecast is a low of 50, high of 80. Winds 12 to 15 miles an hour out of the southwest.

Thank you and good luck tomorrow.

MICHAEL BALIKER: Thank you. We'll take a few quick questions for our captains.

Q. Trevor, just what are some of the tougher situations in your own career where your back's been up against the wall and how you might be deliver that to this team as you sort of pep them up tonight?

TREVOR IMMELMAN: I think there's been many of those occasions for the majority of the players from this team. All of us have grown up outside of the U.S., in a lot of cases having to fight our way through the ranks to eventually make it to the PGA TOUR. So we've all experienced some of that.

We've just got to keep fighting, man. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. We feel like we've played some pretty good golf, some solid golf tee-to-green, particularly the last couple of days, but we have absolutely been out-putted. No doubt about it.

Hat's off to the Americans with the way they've putted. It really has been impressive. I spent a lot of time today with that final match. And just looking at Billy Horschel making about a 12-footer for birdie to tie on 16, Homa making about a 10-footer on 17 to win. And then backing it up after Pendrith makes that clutch birdie, Homa makes another one there. That's impressive stuff from that pairing to win that point.

We feel like that's been the difference right now. So as you said, back's up against the wall. Going to have to dig deep, but it's going to have to start with making some putts for sure.

Q. Christiaan was just in here before, and he said that playing for the shield is maybe more prevalent than it ever has been. It used to be maybe playing for nationalities or whatever. With the deficit so big, is there an element of maybe victory is going to be really tough, but we're at least playing for this new shield, this new identity?

TREVOR IMMELMAN: We're absolutely playing for the shield. I'm so proud to hear him say that. That really has been our goal is for young kids all over the world to grow up and fall in love with the game of golf and dream to play on this team. So it makes me extremely proud to hear someone like him say that, coming from my home country in South Africa.

But I wasn't very good at math in school. I think there's still 20 points available to win so we're going to fight.

Q. Davis, has anything happened over the last two days that's made you change your game plan at all? And maybe specifically about sitting Xander and Patrick after how they played the last two days?

DAVIS LOVE III: No. The plan is just -- as we said yesterday, the plan is to try to figure out who to sit out. We've got so many guys so it's spreading it around a little bit.

You've seen it in what we've done the last five or six teams. We don't just hide people or make a guy sit out two days in a row or all day in the Ryder Cup. So it's mixing and matching and making sure everybody gets in the game and keeps the momentum going.

But we have really, really, really simple goals. It's like put the four best alternate shot teams we can out tomorrow and then put the four best best ball teams we can out in the afternoon and try to win every session. We're just blessed with a whole lot of good players.

And we have guys that say, hey, I'll sit out in the morning, and we'll let those guys go play. We have no selfishness. Nobody's mad to sit out.

I mean, you can imagine having conversations with Billy Horschel all week about, by the way, you're not going to play on Thursday, and make him wait another day to play. Then watch the exuberance of him -- he hung in there great today, and Max made a couple great putts at the end. That really wasn't the plan was for Billy and Max to play together.

So we have a good group and a great plan. We'll come back tomorrow afternoon with the other guys that sat out and a few others to round it out.

Q. Question for both captains. I ask this with respect, and I know it's not your foremost thing you're thinking about right now. This has been a lopsided historically event. America was the big favorite coming in. Now we have an 8-2 score heading into the weekend. The fact that it is such a lopsided margin, I'm just curious for your perspective on what that means for the perception of the event.

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, we say this when we're behind too. Trevor's right. There's a whole lot of points left. We're not sitting there going, oh, yeah, okay, this is great. No. We're trying to put four really good teams out tomorrow.

We've seen a lot of big leads lost. Just like his team, we're going to try to be motivated to play tomorrow and not really talk about the outcome till the end.

But to his point earlier, we've gotten some gifts from their team that have ribbon with the shield on it and all kinds of stuff with the shield on it.

I thought about it last night, that Carminita and Trevor and Ernie and Liezl have done an incredible job making an identity. I started thinking everything we have has a flag on it, right? It didn't hit me until the gift last night with all the ribbon on it, I said, she even made ribbon with the shields on it, and then they came out with their shirts today.

So, yeah, we're thinking about protecting our flag, and they're thinking about protecting their shield. It's far from over. We both know that we both have to say something different to our teams tonight, but they're still going to want to play the rest of the weekend.

TREVOR IMMELMAN: The score means we've got to get better, and we will. Plain and simple.

Q. Trevor, you weren't there when probably Ben Crenshaw talked about what he was talking about in '99, but this seems to be a little different situation. First of all, how do you find a way to get the pairings you want? Because you've now seen two days of your team not playing as well as you'd like them to play, certainly not putting as well as you'd like them to putt, yet you have to find a way to get four groups out there. How tough is it to try to find those four groups, first of all? Second, what is your message, and how is your message different than what it was last night?

TREVOR IMMELMAN: All the hard work was done in preparation, creating the partnerships and doing that kind of work behind the scenes, understanding what we thought would work best. So we run the system that we run, and we've just got to hope that the guys perform better when they get to the greens. That's just, for us, where it's been separated right now.

As far as me saying something to my team, you know, I don't need to say much. I don't need to say much. These guys are hungry and motivated. The score line may make you think differently, but these guys are hungry and motivated, man. They want to be here. They want to compete. Not much needs to be said.

Inside our locker room is a great place to be. It's a great place to be. We have got an incredible group here, and I'm talking about not just players. I'm talking about our spouses and partners. I'm talking about the caddies. I'm talking about our back room staff. We have an incredible group here, and we have had a blast from the minute we touched down in this great city.

Would we like the score to be a little closer right now? Absolutely. But there's two days left, and we'll be playing as hard as you can play. Promise.

Q. Davis, after the way that Max kind of hounded you for the past year about getting on the team, what did you make of the way he came through this afternoon?

DAVIS LOVE III: No surprise. He's been playing great. He's gotten some great wins.

He described to me this morning at breakfast his whole Sunday round at Fortinet, and what he told me impressed me so much that I'm going to have him tell the whole story all over again to my son so I can hear it again.

No, it's no surprise. Actually, Drew followed them around today, drove the cart in our group. And he said every time he needed to hit a good shot, he hit a good shot. Every time he needed to make a putt, he made the putt.

That's what he did last week and last year in Napa. He's a strong player. But he plays with a lot of passion. Like Trevor said, he's a great guy, great human being, as he says.

Q. Trevor, I hate to ask, but what did you make of Greg Norman's well wishes on Twitter?

TREVOR IMMELMAN: Look, any of you that have known me for the longest time know that I'm an extremely open and honest person. I pretty much say it exactly as I'm thinking it. What I said was exactly what I was doing when I read that tweet. I was laughing out loud.

I learned long ago that lying is dangerous because you've got to have a good memory. So I'd rather just tell the truth.