THE PRESIDENTS CUP

October 20, 2000

Ken Venturi

KEN VENTURI: I said the answer to that was I just put the horses in the gate, they have to run. I have nothing to do after I put them in the gate. I think that Greg Norman said it best, well, you do it to us, you do we do it to you, now you do it to us.

KEN VENTURI: Yes, we've altered.

KEN VENTURI: Not much. Paul and I have been here since last Friday and we took every scenario you could find. We went over and over, redid it, redid it. In fact I've been doing it since after the PGA when the team was selected, I started in just checking around and seeing how many times I could compare the same groups together all the time. And after a while I was pretty much set right what I wanted to do.

KEN VENTURI: Yes, because I said what happened to the International Team is that it was -- they were desperate and you do different things, and you come out loaded for it. If you take the cushion -- I said when we started this morning, I said don't -- we are not 5-0, we're 0-0. Don't say, well, we have five points to play with. And the play of my team this morning compared to this afternoon was like night and day.

KEN VENTURI: The pairings will be here any minute. But the two players that will not play tomorrow will be Loren Roberts and Paul Azinger.

KEN VENTURI: Can you? (Laughter.)

KEN VENTURI: I can't, because we never play that. 9-1 is absolutely phenomenal. It's just -- because they'll play best ball when they play Nassau's. But I never see anybody going out and playing alternate shots. No, it was just amazing to me. It was just -- I thought we'd have a better chance at the four-balls than we did the alternate shots and it just turned upside down.

KEN VENTURI: I think that is -- the depth of the team, and the planning and the pairing and looking them over and getting to know them. As I said before, I have a great, great advantage over -- I'm not saying Peter Thomson -- but of someone else of a U.S. captain, I see these guys all the time, 19 weeks a year. I go on the practice tee. I have dinner with a lot of them. And I get to know -- there's just certain things you do. What looks good on paper, but then you look at it and you don't feel the instinct to it. Even when I played golf, why would you play that kind of shot? I don't know, I just felt that's the way I wanted to go, and that's the way it was.

KEN VENTURI: There's no doubt about it, that having hands-on and being able to watch them under certain pressures, certain conditions. Of course today I was with Paul, and we -- I guess I walked as many holes as a road. I get going with it and I get into it. I'm on a high with it because if you can't give it a hundred percent, then don't do it. But I think the presence of being there shows that you're really that interested in it.

PAUL MARCHAND: I have to make sure that the captain has water. And we have a great rapport, and I think my main role is a sounding board, being able to be fortunate enough to gain from the captain's wisdom over the years, and in this setting to be able to answer some questions and throw some things back to him and it's sort of like a chess match when you go through these pairings. And I think it helps to -- he knows what he wants to do, but I think it helps to have somebody that you can bounce some things around off of, along with the team. And then also I can interact with some of the players and follow up with some of the questions that maybe are better informally discussed without the captain. Not that that's come up very often, but I can go back to him as intermediary. But those two things, dealing with small conversations with the players, and being a sounding board for the coach. And I'm glad to be here, thanks for the question.

KEN VENTURI: I will say one thing about Paul, I couldn't have done this job without him, because we have been in contact since when I asked him at the Masters to be my captain's assistant. And he has just been unbelievable. And I will say this, and he takes compliments about as well as I do, you don't want them, but you can give me -- you could give me a second choice, a second person I would pick for captain, I don't have one. He's my first, and I can go over it a hundred times and I would still pick him. He is truly a professional.

KEN VENTURI: It did. Because they both expressed they were playing well, and of course the chemistry of the two of them, and today was -- you could see them, they were reaching their peak, they were getting up there. And I just felt that it's a tough team to break up when they feel so comfortable. And I did that on another gut feeling, again, I guess.

KEN VENTURI: Not comfortable at all. My dad always told me, 2-up is better than 1-up, and 3-up is better than 2-up, and the cushion -- I don't call it a cushion. We're going out tomorrow and I'll be talking to the team. We've got to go out there, we've got to get as many as we can, and do what we can and play the very best we can. I don't mind -- it's not whether win or lose. You can't condemn anybody if they give you a hundred percent and they lose. I can't say you did wrong. It's when you don't try, that's when I don't put up with that.

KEN VENTURI: It definitely passed my mind, because I was thinking we were leading after the morning round, but not by -- what, 6 to 4 is what it was. And oh, yes, I mean I don't take -- just don't relax, you can't. You can relax Sunday after the victory, but we've got to give it a hundred percent. I just don't think that you should ever -- I mean those are gone. You can't say, well, I got -- this is what happens with players, they'll get a lead and they'll get to the back 9 and they'll think, boy, if I just -- if I could just shoot 36 I could win. So that's the number. For the first 63 holes they're not thinking -- they're thinking hole by hole. And now they've got the whole 9 ahead of them instead of going shot by shot. So we're going match by match and day by day, and that's the only way to approach it. And that's how I play competition.

KEN VENTURI: It will really help on Sunday, when I see that big American flag. That's what I'm really looking forward to. And I can't tell you how much I want it. You'll probably find out my emotions on Sunday, if it comes to pass, and which I hope it does. But it's just really been an honor to be the captain of the American Team and at a facility like this and everything they've done, it's just magnificent. I can't tell you when I've spent a better week, and I am looking forward to tomorrow and Sunday and all being well, we'll walk out of here with the cup.