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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 25, 2005

Stewart Cink

CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA

STEWART CINK: Adrenalin carries you, sort of like a surfer riding a wave. You just sort of carry along with your adrenalin, and when you get finished you have a chance to be tired.

Q. Who usually drives the ball longer, do you or does Davis Love drive the ball longer?

STEWART CINK: Davis Love.

Q. Is that an advantage or a disadvantage today for you to probably hit second most of the time?

STEWART CINK: Well, I hit first, because he was farther. It's a disadvantage because well, it's an advantage to hit first to the green because you can put pressure on. But he's got a 7 iron and I've got a 4 iron, so that's not an advantage at all.

Q. He won 7 and 6 this morning, so he's probably pretty rested. You guys were pretty even most of the match. What was the turning point?

STEWART CINK: I'd have to say the turning point was one that didn't fall in my favor. It was almost a dagger. I made a mistake on 16, I three putted. I had trouble with the speed because we were the first group out and they had rolled the greens, they didn't cut them, they just rolled them. I was hitting the ball past the hole the whole day, and I was giving myself four or five feet. So I was making them all until 16 and I missed it and gave him a hole there.

He came back to even and he birdied 17. Without me making the clutch putt on 18 to make birdie, forcing the extra holes, that was the turning point. But luckily I was able to dig deeper.

Q. How long was your putt on 18?

STEWART CINK: It was about 15 feet.

Q. And how did you win it?

STEWART CINK: Davis drove it longer, and he went for the green in two and missed left. I had to lay up. So I hit my layup shot and hit it 15 feet. It was an easy putt, straight uphill. The way his ball finished up, he didn't have much of a chance to get close. He hit it out of the sand and hit a little past the hole, about 20 feet and was not able to make his. So I had a free run at it straight up the hill, and it went right in the center. It was one of my best putts.

Q. Who do you play tomorrow?

STEWART CINK: DiMarco.

Q. Another guy you know pretty well. I'm sure you know Davis pretty well?

STEWART CINK: I know Davis, Fred Funk and Tom Lehman. I play a lot of American guys.

Q. The whole Ryder Cup team?

STEWART CINK: Well, I would like to add Chris DiMarco to the feathers in my cap because he's a great player but also a good friend. In these matches a lot of times you do find yourself playing against friends. But we're professionals. We'll leave the friendship on the side, and in between shots we'll chat.

Q. You just continue to get more confidence. You won NEC last year; you're playing well this week. The world class golfers are here, and you're not only competing but winning. Does it give you more confidence?

STEWART CINK: It does. Every time you win a match here you feel more confident, and winning certainly breeds winning in this format. You feel like let me back up. In the first match I was 2 down with five holes to play. And I won I almost won it on 17. So you never feel like you're out of it when you have a result like that.

When you're 1 down, 2 down and you go in and lose 2 down, it doesn't bring that confidence. But I've been able to pull out a few matches that have been close, and I don't see why not tomorrow.

Q. This is like playing a new tournament every day?

STEWART CINK: Every hole almost because momentum means so much. This morning I was 3 up on Tom Lehman and had a real short putt, maybe four feet, to go 4 up with just six holes to play, and I missed. I bogeyed the next hole, and suddenly he got back in it, and he almost carried the day.

Q. What's the key here?

STEWART CINK: Keeping it in play is a big key here, because the rough is deep. But just like in all tournaments, stroke or match play, you have to manage your game well and stay emotionally detached from the golf, because you can get wrapped up and you start getting some butterflies and some tension built up, and it's important to stay mentally I mean, emotionally detached from the golf and just remember what brought you here.

Q. You say detached. You mean like take breaks between

STEWART CINK: I mean don't let your emotional the way you feel the way you want to perform on a shot or whatever, the way the particular point of the match is affecting your shot. You can't let that really dictate how you go about planning your shot and your swing. You just have to stay in the present.

Q. When you're a couple down, doesn't that dictate you have to go more for pins and stuff like that?

STEWART CINK: You would think so, but the way the course is, it's not that easy of a golf course. So you really have to play the smarter shot and the best shot you can, no matter what the score is. Sometimes it changes your strategy a little bit. But really you just try to you try to make the best score you're going to make on the hole, no matter what. Taking risks is still not a real logical thing to do.

Q. What was your best shot today?

STEWART CINK: I'd have to say that putt on the 18th hole was the best shot, because I had to make it. If I didn't make it, he was winning. So I made it and went on to win.

Q. The other side of that for him, for example, he had to go on and continue playing. Does that kind of deflate you a little bit?

STEWART CINK: Well, he's played enough matches, and he was expecting me to make it. And that's just the way you have to approach that. He was expecting me to make it.

Q. That's what Tom Watson said, expect your opponent to do the unexpected, basically?

STEWART CINK: That's true. And he might have been a little bit deflated there, but he didn't look very deflated when he hit it about 325 right down the center.

End of FastScripts.

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