THE PRESIDENTS CUP

October 19, 2000

Robert Allenby

Stuart Appleby

Steve Elkington

Ernie Els

Retief Goosen

Nick Price

RETIEF GOOSEN: Well, it was great. It was really good out there. The crowd was great. We enjoyed it. Stewart and Kirk just putted much better than us today. We played pretty well, me and Mike. We never missed a green. We putted for birdie on every hole. But we only made two putts. So at the end that really cost us:The American team played well today. It's just been the opposite to '98 when we made all the putts and the Americans didn't. It's our turn to be on the other side now. But tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. Tomorrow is one of the days that's really going to decide win or lose.

NICK PRICE: I think we were pretty evenly matched, as in match play normally, you have to finish off. And we didn't finish off. They did a lot better than we did today. And as it turned out I think we were quite happy to go down the 18th, because they could have beaten us a little earlier than that. But it was a close match. And apart from really -- three of the matches were close. So I think -- we haven't given up hope yet. We have a big day tomorrow and I hope we can make -- reduce the deficit. We're 5 behind and if we can be two or three behind or maybe even pull even tomorrow at best, I think we'll be happy to look forward to Saturday and Sunday.

STUART APPLEBY: We really didn't get out of the blocks real quick. We got thrown a pretty windy, pretty tough course the whole day, which made it very difficult to get close. I didn't drive the ball. Robert wasn't a hundred percent happy with the way he hit his. We worked a little too hard. Jim and Hal played pretty solid, not outstanding, but solid golf. They did it at the right times. We were spending too much time recovering. When you're doing that, you're not making forward moves towards winning holes. We got close. We would have loved to have got a little closer. We basically ran out of lap time. So that was disappointing. We really feel like -- well, we know we'll have to do a better job tomorrow. We certainly have the resources to do that. But it's disappointing not to be able to combine well the first day, which leaves us a lot of deficit to work out.

ERNIE ELS: Our match was close all the way. We got ourselves in a little bit of a nut at the turn. We lost 9 and 10, went 3-down. We played good from there. We didn't make any bogeys coming in and played some good stuff. Tiger's putt on 16 was the key to the round. We've got to -- we didn't get the luck on our side, unfortunately. We played good enough but we didn't make the putts. So good luck to them, they played well.

STEVE ELKINGTON: We didn't get any rhythm going. A foursome is a hard game to play. The other team we played, Mickelson and Lehman, they put a lot of pressure on us really, and we didn't respond very well. We didn't really start getting some good shots until about the 9th hole, when we played okay. But it was too late.

ROBERT ALLENBY: I think Stewart and I obviously -- we sort of -- we had some opportunities that we didn't make the most of, which was pretty much more on the front 9. They got to 3-up and the next minute holes are closing, and you've got to put your finger in it pretty quickly. A couple of putts on the front 9, had they dropped it, would have been all square or 1-up in our favor, and we wouldn't have lost those holes.