THE WALKER CUP

September 2, 2023

Matthew McClean

Quick Quotes

Q. 18th has been good to you today, hasn't it.

MATTHEW McCLEAN: Yeah, obviously we halved it, and we halved it this morning, so two halves, but almost felt like two wins on the 18th today, so it's a good positive. Getting two halves on 18 is always good.

Yeah, the yardage on 18 doesn't really suit me over Preston, so he sort of made my decision for me when he just hammered it on the pin. I just thought, hit it as hard as you can and hopefully it goes somewhere straight down the middle.

Q. It was a match that just seemed to ebb and flow and it just could have gone either way, so is a half kind of fair in the end?

MATTHEW McCLEAN: I think so, yeah.

Preston played great. He made one mistake on 5, and that's -- is that it? Maybe he made one mistake actually, and I made a mistake on 6 or on 16 and got away with a really bad shot, and he got unlucky. From his point of view, he might even say he probably deserved one, but there was a couple ones out there that I think a half was a pretty fair result.

Q. You've come out in your Walker Cup debut, put one and a half points on the board. You must be immensely proud of your efforts today.

MATTHEW McCLEAN: Yeah, it's obviously such a big tournament. It's not easy standing on the first tee, especially here with a player with 3-iron in their hand.

But yeah, I'm obviously very happy. I wanted to win both, but Preston played unbelievable on the way in there to sort of keep me holeless and get a half.

At this standard, I think as long as you play well and you're happy with how you played, you can go home happy with your own game, and the result can be a win, loss or a draw pretty much all the time.

Q. You'd have probably taken a three-point lead at the start of today, wouldn't you?

MATTHEW McCLEAN: Yeah, I didn't have a clue how the singles were going. Obviously the American team is so strong. They're all individually really good players, and I think we said at the start of the week, we're golfing with what we can do. Like I wouldn't want to play any of the other guys on our team, so that's pretty much the way I look at it.

It's obviously halfway, but you're better being three ahead than seven behind, so we're obviously happy with that today.

Q. That's probably the most emotion I've ever seen you show with that putt on 18.

MATTHEW McCLEAN: I know, yeah. Yeah, I don't fist pump very often, but there's something about this atmosphere and the crowds and all that sort of stuff that you sort of -- it feels a bit odd not to fist pump to be honest with you, because if you're just walking in -- you have no control over it really. I imagine it's a bit like see the guys in the Ryder Cup who are normally pretty calm and emotionless a lot of the times, they go a bit mad with the atmosphere, as well.

Yeah, just sort of gets ahold of you and it's just sort of an enjoyable moment.