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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY MORGAN STANLEYMay 31, 2008Mathew GogginDUBLIN, OHIO DOUG MILNE: Thank you, Mathew, for joining us here in the interview room at the Memorial Tournament. Once again we'll jump right into it. Third round 71. Got the job done and obviously a long day. Just some comments on the round. MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, it was a little easier than yesterday in the fact that the greens were a little softer. So the fairways were a little softer. So you could hit the ball off line and it would stay in the fairway. The same with the second shots weren't so brutal. But it's still a tough golf course. The greens are really fast. And obviously the two birdies in the first three holes was a great way to start and then I was pretty steady from then on in without too many dramas, a couple of bogeys and a birdie, but I had some other good opportunities too but didn't quite take advantage of them. But I made some nice up-and-downs as well. So it was a pretty good day. DOUG MILNE: Take some questions. Q. You didn't find yourself pressing for birdies out there I take it? MATHEW GOGGIN: No. You just can't really press here. You got to let them come to you. You hit the ball a lot of times hitting the ball to 20 feet and think it's a good shot and if you can make a couple of those and make some birdies. If not, it's going to be a lot of pars. But even through the middle of the day, even shots into par-5s, the wind was up and it was even tough to control the distance on the pitch shots. It got quite windy. The last few holes it died down. Q. Tell me about your lie on 14 and how close you came to doing something than what you did. MATHEW GOGGIN: Well, there's nothing else I really could do. If it was a little bit further up the hill, I would have been able to stand halfway down the bank and maybe hit it. But where it was, it was going to be about chest high and unless I was Phil Mickelson I wasn't going to try that. Q. Your short game seemed to stand up pretty well today? MATHEW GOGGIN: I was happy with that. My bunker play is the best part of my short game. So I managed to leave myself on the up slope of a few bunkers and had some reasonably easy bunker shots. A couple of tricky ones. But it was definitely the strongest part of my short game so I'm always pretty happy when I miss in a bunker instead of the cabbage. Q. You said a one-round lead doesn't mean anything, a two-round lead doesn't mean anything. What about a three-round lead? MATHEW GOGGIN: That's an interesting situation. You're three in front, you expect to win, don't you? I mean, that's what you expect to do. So I guess your expectations rise. But it's a tough golf course and if I can handle myself the same way as what I did today, I'm going to feel the same amount of pressure tomorrow as what I did today. So yeah, it's a great opportunity now. You work the first three days to give yourself this sort of a chance. And now it's there to be taken. Q. Do you mean generically you expect to win or specifically you expect to win tomorrow? MATHEW GOGGIN: No, I expect to -- I mean, three shots in front, I do expect to win, yes. Yeah. Q. Did you feel different about your putting coming in here, you putted so well so far? MATHEW GOGGIN: No, it's been getting better and better. It's been more and more consistent this year. And just fast greens suit me. I just like letting the ball roll and not having to force putts. Just sort of suits my game or I'm sort of a bit of a lag putter anyway. So just dying the ball into the hole. Q. Really feasted on the first five holes, do you feel just better there? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, no, I mean, I guess if you're going to score, that's sort of a stretch those first seven holes. It's the only part of the golf course where like when you get through 8, 9, 10, 11, the wind is all over the place, and 12. I hit a 3-iron into 10 today and there's just not a lot of comfortable shots. Well, the first six or seven holes you hit the fairways, they're pretty comfortable second shots. You have middle or short irons, a couple of par-5s that you can maybe reach. So if you are playing well, you're probably feeling like you could get two or three birdies through the first six holes. Q. You seem like you controlled yourself when you're in trouble or even keel, is that you? MATHEW GOGGIN: That's all I've been trying to do. I've been working towards this for a long time. And it's probably the hardest thing in the world to do. When you got so many different things you're thinking about or so many different things that are happening, just to act like, well, who cares, it's not an easy thing to do. It sort of almost goes against what you naturally want to do in competition or in sport. I play a lot of other sports and if you got angry or fired up, you always go and run through someone or give them a bit of stiff arm or something like that. Well, in golf you just got to act like, well, it is okay, no problem. That's in the water. (Laughter.) Q. Were there many nerves today or not? MATHEW GOGGIN: I actually felt really calm. I wasn't nervous. I felt very relaxed actually. Yeah, no, I felt good all day. Q. What exactly do you do on Monday? MATHEW GOGGIN: I got a 36-hole qualifier. Q. Have you looked at options for tomorrow night? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, I'm hoping that from the generosity of Robert Allenby I'm going to get a lift with him. Q. Is that a first for him? I mean generosity. MATHEW GOGGIN: No, no, he's a very generous guy. Q. Has he offered to wait for you? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, how did he do? Q. He's about 1-over. MATHEW GOGGIN: Okay. Well, hopefully he'll wait. (Laughter.) Q. Seriously, if he doesn't, what will you do? MATHEW GOGGIN: Just there's a few other options. There's a later flight, but there's a couple of other guys flying down, I'll just have to beg. Q. Fuel's on you if you win? MATHEW GOGGIN: It probably will be, yeah. Q. What about Jack's plane? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, well, who knows. Gary and I, maybe we can talk him into it. (Laughter.) Q. In your professional career, what's the degree of difficulty these last three days? How does it rank for you? MATHEW GOGGIN: You mean as far as the golf course? Q. Yeah. MATHEW GOGGIN: Or just personally? Q. No, as far as the golf course. MATHEW GOGGIN: Yesterday was as tough -- well, Oakmont last year was as tough a golf course as I have ever seen. And yesterday, this was sort of -- if Oakmont's a 10, this was a 9 in that wind. But I played some ridiculous conditions in Australia too, where the course is unplayable. That seems to be the trend these days. Q. With this patience, this new-found patience or the patience you've been working toward, how much did that help you during the rain delay? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, the rain delay, you just don't -- you just shut down, really. Don't think about golf. Just shoot the shit -- that's an expression I guess -- just have a chat with guys and not just wait and see what happens. It's pretty easy to pass time down there when you got to listen to Stuart Appleby go on and on. (Laughter.) Q. How have you slept on the lead the last two nights and will tonight be any different? MATHEW GOGGIN: I don't have any problem sleeping because I got a two-year-old and a five-month-old and they kept me awake for the last two years, so when I get out on TOUR by myself it's always pretty easy to catch up on some sleep. Q. Do you expect to be nervous tomorrow? MATHEW GOGGIN: Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to be long, it's going to be hard, and I'm going to be nervous, I'm going to have all sorts of expectations and things are going to go wrong and you just have to try and bounce off it and get through the day. But obviously it's a -- with a three-shot lead, at least you have a cushion or something in the bank, if you like, if things do go horribly wrong. And you'll still have a chance no matter what, hopefully. Q. You have won four professional tournaments, but obviously nothing approaching this stature. Have you spoken to anyone about what to expect? MATHEW GOGGIN: Yeah, well, not other players. Not really. No, I wouldn't say, no, I had a conversation about it. You sort of know what you expect. Anything -- anytime anything means a lot to you, you don't get less nervous playing the final round at Q-School or when something really matters to you at any stage. It's just that you just get nervous. There's no degrees. And so you deal with it in all different parts of your career with different things that to other people probably don't seem like a big deal, but if they're a big deal to you at the time, then you'll get nervous. Q. Are there some other great final rounds that you can draw on for confidence? MATHEW GOGGIN: Well, it's not really about going out there and having a great final round or playing above yourself or having everything go right. It's just being solid. It's just play the same way I played the last three days or the last month, two months, three months. It's just going out there and just you don't have to you have to do anything special because when you think you have to do something special, that's when you make mistakes. Q. Some guys have target scores. Some guys watch the leaderboard. What do you do? MATHEW GOGGIN: I just want to have one less than anybody else so I don't really care. If everyone -- if we all go out and shoot 78 tomorrow, as long as I'm 1-under them, I don't really care, I'm not going to be disappointed. Q. 3-under is sort of like a tricky lead. If it's one shot, you basically know you have to play great. If it's five shots, you know you probably don't. Three shots, you might have to play great; you might not? MATHEW GOGGIN: You're going to have to play great no matter what. It's not like we have got a bunch of choppers behind me. They're good players. They're going to -- someone's going to have a good day because they're the best players in the world. So you can't expect to go out there and chop it around and cruise to a victory. It's just not going to happen. You're going to have to play well. But the bonus is you're not leading the tournament because you played poorly. DOUG MILNE: Just run through your birdies really quick and give us some clubs. MATHEW GOGGIN: First I hit a 8-iron to about 20 feet, maybe 18 feet. Actually hit a pretty good shot and holed the putt. The third I pitched the ball to about six feet, made birdie. 8, I missed it in the right trap. That was a very difficult shot. Probably got it out to 20 feet and just missed it. 14, I hit a horrible shot really. Pull hooked a 5-iron just in the hazard, it wasn't in the water, and then chipped it and actually pitched it quite close. Pitched it to about six feet and missed it. Then 15, I hit a good 4-wood that just missed the green left and had a reasonable lie in the rough and hit a chip down to about four feet and made it. DOUG MILNE: Okay. Well, Mathew, thanks for your time and best of luck tomorrow. MATHEW GOGGIN: No worries. End of FastScripts |
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