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U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 20, 2008

Sihwan Kim

PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA

Q. Thanks for coming in. Tough match today. Obviously playing against a legend's grandson, does that make it a little more difficult?
SIHWAN KIM: A little bit. I mean, but he's a, like a different persona, a different golf game than the legend, Arnold Palmer. So it was good to know that he was his grandson of him, but it's still didn't make that much of a difference. He was just another one of my opponents. I took him as that.

Q. Last time you were in, went past 18 holes you actually lost in the first hole at Olympic Club last year, you were going to be a freshman at Stanford, now you're a sophomore, you somehow got past the 18 holes this week and went on to 19 holes. Can you talk about what the difference is between this year and last year in your game?
SIHWAN KIM: I probably got a little more consistent in my game. My game's been, I play well this summer in my game's been improving in a way that I don't make as many mistakes as I did before. Although I came in like three bogeys in the last three holes. Yeah, that was, I improved mostly on I think, I think my trouble shot and my mental game's kind of improved. So that's good.

Q. Do you, is that because of being at Stanford and working with the coaches or is that one of the things that you just are starting to understand golf a little better than you did when you were a freshman?
SIHWAN KIM: I have Neal Smith, he's our kind of mental and like kind of all around coach. He talks about how to approach a shot before you play and all that. And that really helped me out.
And I tried, I mean I do what he tells me to do every shot, every round until this point, since I started Stanford. So I think my game's improving a lot through that.

Q. You got up-and-down at 15, looked like the match could have been over there. And he makes his putt and you're dormie, what happened from there and can you describe the emotional swing of those last three holes?
SIHWAN KIM: He was putting pretty well to that point. So I wasn't really surprised that he made a putt on 15.
But 16 I just kind of hit is right. But I was in the fescue, the long stuff there, and I couldn't do much from there. So I lost the hole there.
On 17, I hit a good shot, but since it seems like the wind's kind of swirling around so I couldn't really get a hang of it. So it came up short.
18, out of the rough it just had no spin at all and I hit a great shot and it just became, it just went over.

Q. I know where you hit it at 16 in that fescue, did that take a little bit out of you? Because then you kind of hacked at it went over to the other side of the fairway, did that sort of go like, "Oh, shoot"?
SIHWAN KIM: A little bit. Differently it cut my mojo. I was putting well and hitting really well to that point. But that little thing kind of cuts my mojo, but it was kind of my fault, because I needed to get back right on it, but I guess that didn't quite happen today.

Q. If it's in the bunker, can you reach the green if it's in the bunker as opposed to in the fescue?
SIHWAN KIM: Probably not, but I think I could get pretty close to it.

Q. What did you hit on 17?
SIHWAN KIM: 17, I saw Sam hit 7-iron, a little long left. So I tried to hit 7-iron punch. And it felt pretty good and it kind of hung up in the air a little bit and I saw it drop down right in the bunker. It was a good shot.

Q. What's the difficulty in closing out a match you have a cushion of a 3-up lead?
SIHWAN KIM: I mean Sam was just, he was making putts like good putts. So when somebody's making good putts, it's really hard because you have kind of pressure on yourself and you got to not make mistakes, but with greens like this, rolling away from you on every direction, it's really hard.

Q. You're a west coast guy, you won your junior in 2004 at Olympic, so now you're here a Donald Ross course, you don't see many of those in California. So how difficult is this to kind to kind of get used to this kind of golf?
SIHWAN KIM: I mean, like west coast, I mean, let's say for Olympic, you could really, if you don't miss that much, it's not that much of a problem.
But here if you don't hit a shot the way you exactly planned, it's going every where.
Like on No. 1, I mean I hit, I just pulled that a little bit and I thought I would be okay but it spun back into that bunker which I was really surprised. And I was just like, you know, huh? You know, like that.
So I mean, it's really different golf course and I got to get, I got to adjust to it more here. So it would be more specific here in a way, where I want to be and how I want to, where I want to leave the ball on the green and all that.

Q. Were you a little too conservative on the second shot on one, the extra hole?
SIHWAN KIM: Yeah, I definitely didn't want to go right or long. So the wind was kind of blowing left, but I didn't think it was going to affect that much, so I kind of looked about 10 to 15 feet to the left of the pin and hit it.

Q. Pulled it a little, right?
SIHWAN KIM: And then it hooked more and spun back into the bunker, so.

Q. I know you were looking at it like that's unbelievable, I can't believe that happened?
SIHWAN KIM: It kind of stopped and kept on trickling. So I was really upset.

Q. But great bunker shot. Did you have a good lie? Was it on an up slope?
SIHWAN KIM: I had a great lie, up slope and I was kind of worried that like, since it's up slope, I was kind of worried that it won't carry far enough. But I had a really good contact and I had like five foot for par after that.

Q. Were you shocked that Sam blew it into the woods off the tee there?
SIHWAN KIM: Yeah, yeah. Like when we were coming in, he was just striping it down the middle and I should, I actually didn't see how he hit it because I was marking my ball to get a new ball and I, his reaction was just awful, so I knew he was going somewhere.

Q. Yeah, he said that he thought maybe that settled you down a little bit from there, because you just lost three holes in a row and then he does that. Did that at all help you psychologically?
SIHWAN KIM: Definitely. When some or my opponent hits in the woods or something like that, all I need to do is just hit the fairway and hit the green, and most likely I'll win, so that kind of kept the pressure down and yeah.

Q. I remember last year we went into Olympic and you had won the Junior there and you got through the round and lost in 19 holes. How do you approach this year's amateur when you came in?
SIHWAN KIM: My skills and my everything has improved and I have actually kind of, I mean since it's east coast, I came here like five days before the tournament just to get kind of used to the times and all of that.
And I just put a lot more preparation in a this tournament and it seems like all of the last amateur I had great U.S. Amateur, like I put more effort and more preparation into this one.

Q. What did you feel was the biggest key to getting out to that cushion and maintaining it for awhile?
SIHWAN KIM: I mean I was just, you know, I started off, I mean we both, I guess started off really bad. We both bogeyed the first hole. But from there I all I concentrated on is just getting pars, because this course, if you just make little mistakes it's an easy bogey.

Q. Seemed like you made a lot of good putts too?
SIHWAN KIM: Yeah, I made a lot of great putts. I made great par putts like No. 6. That was along par putt. And I was, I kind of hit it hard, but I was fortunate enough for it to go in.

Q. Those always help don't they?
SIHWAN KIM: Oh, always. Yeah. Good breaks.

Q. That keeps you not only keeps you in it, but keeps you ahead. You're 2-up right there?
SIHWAN KIM: Keeps the momentum going, keeps everything going.

Q. I think the other big turning point was 10. You were in the rough, he was in the fairway. He hits it just dead left off the second shot.
SIHWAN KIM: Yeah, I mean if he hit it straight I would probably, I had good enough lie to hit a 3-wood, I probably would hit my 3-wood, but chance of me actually hitting it pretty solid is very low, but since he hooked it left, I kind of.

Q. Yeah, that kind of opened the door. And then he conceded 4, basically. He still wasn't in after he still had a long putt for 6.
SIHWAN KIM: Right.

Q. So I mean it turned from looked like he had a little bit of an advantage, might get back into it, to you won the hole.
SIHWAN KIM: Yeah. That's right.

Q. Matt Hill beat Jamie Lovemark so instead of seeing him which I'm sure you have seen enough of you're going to see Matt Hill. Any thoughts on that?
SIHWAN KIM: I was kind of surprise that had Jamie lost, but, I mean, since Matt beat Jamie, that makes him or he probably is a great player, so I'm going to probably approach the next or tomorrow's match in the same way I approached today but kind of finish better.

End of FastScripts

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