THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 24, 2022

Justin Thomas

Jordan Spieth

Xander Schauffele

Quail Hollow Club

Press Conference

LAURA VESCOVI: We'd like to welcome Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and Xander Schauffele to the interview room.

Guys, if you could each just start by giving some opening remarks about your matches today. Justin?

JUSTIN THOMAS: I'll speak on behalf of Jordan, my partner. He's eating dinner at the moment. It was a good day, a long day. Obviously we're bummed with how the afternoon session finished and how it went.

But I think Jordan said it best when we were driving back. It's just, I think you can easily forget what's going on, what the score is, just because of how a day ends and how it finishes.

We're still leading the Presidents Cup, and we're in great position to win tomorrow. So we all just got to put our heads down and get after it.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I had a blast today. I had a lot of fun with Justin. You can control what you can control. Seemed like when we needed something to go in, we found a way to do it. When we needed to just, you know, get by with par, we did that as well.

So I've had a lot of fun these few days. I'm looking forward to a really fun time with the entire team, a lot of roars tomorrow. The roars are really fun here. When you get around that water from 11 through 15, with the routing, it's pretty cool and will be even more so tomorrow when you have six or seven groups at one time around that area.

So I think, you know, if anything, we got to refocus, and we've got a lot of pissed off guys that want to come out really strong tomorrow.

LAURA VESCOVI: Xander, thoughts from you?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I guess I'd be one of those pissed off guys. Thanks for the tee up, Jordan. Yeah, I mean, these two boys next to me, they did their job. They got points for us today in good fashion.

Wasn't very pleased with myself personally. I can probably speak for my partner as well, who is absent currently. Yeah, we didn't get a point, and that one hurt us. So we're definitely looking forward to tomorrow.

Q. This may be a little off the wall, not that you'd not expect that. Do you remember Medinah at all?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think I was in the hitting bay. I was in college. I was in the hitting bay at University of Texas golf club, I want to say on the Sunday of the singles there. But I couldn't tell you what the score was and what it ended up being, and I don't really care, to be honest with you.

Nobody on that team is on this team.

JUSTIN THOMAS: Yeah, I was in Turkey for the World Amateur. It's pretty tough to watch that one on TV, so yeah.

Q. Xander?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: We're all the same age here. These two were years ahead of me with their progress. But, yeah, I think -- what was I? Just got to San Diego State, my sophomore year, so wasn't really watching golf when I was in school there. Much better things to do.

Q. J.T., you said something interesting just a little bit ago about you don't really need leaders on this team, that everybody knows what to do. I think that's probably important going forward for tomorrow. Can you speak to that and also just about the closeness of this team. You've been on a few now. I'm not saying this is necessarily a closer team, but it does seem like it has a lot of cohesion?

JUSTIN THOMAS: Yeah. They're all different, and I think they're all close in different ways, you know. Some of it where it's all the significant others are maybe closer. There's ones where it's kind of like it's all very close, but it's almost in, like, groups of four or whatever it is.

But it's just all of us guys, I think, get along so well. And I think what's most important is we really just respect each other's games.

I think Max said it yesterday. He's not necessarily extremely close with anybody. I mean, I would say that I'm good friends -- a lot of us are good friends with him or each other, but it's not like we're -- you know, we live in different areas. We don't hang out that often. But we all respect each other's games.

I think that's when we get in a situation and an atmosphere like this, we have belief in one another, and it's just, like I said yesterday, it's fun to be able to root for each other.

In terms of tomorrow, yeah, all of us are just going to keep our heads down and, I mean, I think we're going to be playing a little pissed off and try to go win 12 points and see what we can do.

Q. Xander, what do you play like when you are pissed off?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I usually, you know, give myself a little bit of time. I don't play very well pissed off. I play like a toddler when I'm pissed off. So I play my best when I'm focused and, you know, very present.

So, you know, use tonight, get rid of it, sit in an ice bath until I can't feel my body, and then I guarantee I won't be pissed off anymore.

Q. Can you just describe the kind of swings of emotion from the chip-in to then seeing what happened on the last?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: You know, I was dragging ass all day. I'll be the first one to say it. I'm assuming Pat said it, since he's pretty straightforward, at some point to his caddie. He never said it to me, obviously, because he's a good partner. He was carrying me all day.

Then I think that was like the second birdie I made. And then we just kind of fumbled the par 5 coming in. Yeah, it was -- we never took control of the match. We controlled our other matches. We were controlling our golf ball better, and it's easier to control a match when you can do that.

Q. I know Xander said he doesn't hold on to those things and he likes to let them go. But for Jordan and Justin, does seeing them celebrate, do you guys hold onto that? Does that light extra fire under you guys?

JORDAN SPIETH: I thought it was a cool moment for those guys on the 18th green. They had another one yesterday with Taylor before Max went and knocked it in on top. That would have happened again if they didn't make the one on 17. Sam went up and almost dunked it.

So there was a lot of great golf played. It's what tricky, right? Because me and Justin are sitting up here after our four matches. But we may have lost if we were in -- if we had played alternate shot against -- in another match, right? So it's just kind of everyone's -- some people are upset, but it's just kind of a little bit of luck of the draw, and then you got to find a way to win sometimes too.

It's all a bit tricky, but I think as we look forward to tomorrow, I don't think that -- no, I thought that was their moment, and they should be excited. And I think for us it's just getting regrouped and --

I mean, I think I said it in the cart ride on the way back in. I wouldn't pick any of their players to play against any of our players and take them by any means. You put any of our guys against any one of theirs, I'd still tell you I think our guy's going to win. It's one-on-one tomorrow. We'll see how the draw shapes out, and everybody will get ready to go.

Q. Xander, along those same lines, I think it's fair to say that you and Pat are on one end of the emotional spectrum and Tom Kim is very much on the other.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: He's 20, yeah. You don't really have a whole lot of scar tissue when you're 20 years old.

(Laughter.)

Q. What effect does some of his histrionics have when it's inside the ropes and you guys are competing against him?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: What's the word you just used?

Q. Histrionics, like theatrics.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Oh, I know the second one. Xander here, not Patrick.

(Laughter.)

Yeah, I mean, his favorite player is Tiger Woods, so, you know, I'd say Tiger's fist pumps were probably a little bit scarier, but he gets fired up. He played incredible golf. He beat us. He hit some incredible shots from, you know, all over the property.

So, yeah, he just played better.

Q. Each of you really quick, what was the high point from today?

JUSTIN THOMAS: I putted ten times today. I played two matches, and I hit ten putts. I think that's pretty absurd. I legitimately think I picked my coin up more than I hit putts. So yeah, my partner's pretty good.

JORDAN SPIETH: That was the highlight?

JUSTIN THOMAS: I mean, that was good. That means we were winning holes.

JORDAN SPIETH: I think mine would have been the selfish chip-in at the last when Justin was five feet and was going to knock it in to win the match. That's kind of fun.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: That was one of the pick-ups, huh?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, that was No. 11.

JUSTIN THOMAS: And then the putt on the back nine.

JORDAN SPIETH: Actually, I would have celebrated more. It was going in kind of hard. I didn't know if it was actually going to go in.

JUSTIN THOMAS: Nice.

JORDAN SPIETH: But yeah, that was my highlight.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I don't -- I'll just save mine for tomorrow.

JORDAN SPIETH: Xander's was sleeping in, waking up being like, oh, those guys are on No. 4.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I was watching you guys on TV. There was coverage.

JUSTIN THOMAS: Now you're watching golf.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I mean, I'm 28. Now it's part of my job.

Q. So Justin, you're the emotional heartbeat of the U.S. team.

JORDAN SPIETH: Says who?

Q. For my question. Shut up, man. Don't mess up my question.

JORDAN SPIETH: It's been a long day.

Q. You should still be eating. I asked Tom Kim, who is the emotional heartbeat of the international team, if he wanted a shot at you at singles. Would you want a shot at him at singles?

JUSTIN THOMAS: Did he say he wanted a shot at me?

Q. You answer first.

JUSTIN THOMAS: Yeah, I would love it.

JORDAN SPIETH: I think we'd like to see Billy Horschel against Tom Kim. That would be fun. I think Billy would like that too.

Q. You think?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: You think the captains are watching this in our team room?

JORDAN SPIETH: Aren't they making picks right now?

JUSTIN THOMAS: Captains, if you're watching this, please let us come back. I'm hungry.

LAURA VESCOVI: All right. Thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow.