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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 25, 2009

Anthony Kim

MARANA, ARIZONA

LAURA HILL: Anthony, thanks for coming in. A 7 & 5 win for you, decisive in the first round. Just give us your overall impressions of how things went out there. Pretty good.
ANTHONY KIM: It went pretty solidly. I haven't been playing my best the last couple months now, and I feel like I've been struggling with my swing and found it overseas, even though the scores didn't show it.
And I think that now that my body's healthy, I'm in a little bit better shape, I can hit the ball like I was before I got injured and so now I'm looking for a little bit better year than last.

Q. Your schedule has got a lot of people talking. Are you okay with the way you've scheduled the last three weeks?
ANTHONY KIM: I am. I think people would be saying better stuff if I was winning overseas and then coming over here and playing well, but all I can do is learn from my mistakes, and I'm happy with how I've scheduled and I know things are going to work out for the best.

Q. Was it tough to miss L.A.?
ANTHONY KIM: It was. I live 20, 30 minutes away from that golf course, so it was very tough. But at the same time it was a great opportunity for me to go play in Malaysia and Australia, which I've never been, and I really enjoyed the experience over there, but I'm obviously very excited to be back.

Q. Were you determined to win as quickly as possible so you could go watch Tiger play this afternoon?
ANTHONY KIM: I don't think I'll be watching too much golf, but this is a long week, so to be able to save my legs and get the match over with was something that I was hoping would happen, and good thing for me it did.

Q. Did you figure out how many hours you've been in a plane the last two weeks?
ANTHONY KIM: I did. 47 in the last two weeks. So quite a bit.

Q. Do you remember off the top of your head what it was?
ANTHONY KIM: It was 21 and a half to Malaysia, six to Perth, four back to Sydney, 17 or 16 back to Los Angeles and then 15 minutes over here from Palm Springs.

Q. Are you curious to see what Tiger will shoot or how he'll play today?
ANTHONY KIM: I mean, I'm sure he's going to play great, he always does. So I'm not really too concerned about what Tiger's doing right now. I know that I need to bring my game to a different level. Even though I did win, I think it's a tough thing to win, and I know how hard it is to travel somewhere and then tee it up on a course you're not familiar with and in conditions that you're not familiar with, so I didn't play as well as I -- as the score showed, but there's some things that I need to tighten up with my short game and putting, so I'll go work on that this afternoon and hopefully be ready for tomorrow.

Q. What happened on 3? You left one in the bunker, didn't you?
ANTHONY KIM: Yeah.

Q. What did you do?
ANTHONY KIM: What did I do? I don't know. It was all a blur. I was actually looking right into the sun, and it was such an easy shot I didn't even think I needed to look at the ball, and there was a little bit of a glare from the sun right behind the cup.
Then I looked at my ball, and it was a little fuzzy, but I said, you can't possibly miss this shot, and I just went and hit it and hit it about four inches fat. So lucky for me I got away with it there with a half.

Q. Where was he?
ANTHONY KIM: He was right to the right and chipped up to about 15 feet.

Q. Are you getting better at handling jet lag, or how do you handle the jet lag? How is the travel getting to you?
ANTHONY KIM: I'm definitely getting better, but at the same time I think I'm in better shape, so it's easier for me to find my rhythm as far as getting to the gym and then going and playing. And if you can figure a way out to do that, it definitely makes scheduling a lot easier. So I got -- I landed I want to say at 8, 9 o'clock and then I hung out with my friends for a while, flew out, and went to the gym for about 45 minutes. So if you can get into that mindset, it's a little bit easier. I only got two hours of sleep two nights ago so that was tough, but I got is six or seven yesterday, so I'm pretty excited.

Q. So you were home for a matter of -- in your house for a matter of what? Two hours? Three hours?
ANTHONY KIM: Yeah, about two hours.

Q. Did you have time to check the mail or anything like that?
ANTHONY KIM: No, I have good friends that are checking the mail for me and I got to pet my dog and see my parents, so that's all I really needed.

Q. How often do your parents come out?
ANTHONY KIM: They don't come out very often, but when they're out, I like to -- I would like to play well. They were out at FBR and I didn't play my best, but it's very nice for me to have them here.

Q. Did you know your opponent? Had you ever met him before?
ANTHONY KIM: No, I was just telling my best friend back there that I had -- it's actually harder to prepare, and even though you're playing the golf course, it's harder to prepare when you have no idea who this guy is. And I don't know what he does well and under pressure what works and what doesn't, and I think that is something that's important in match play. You're playing against an opponent, not just the golf course.

Q. What was your previous match play singles match play experience before last year? I'm trying to figure out when is the last time you played the 15th hole?
ANTHONY KIM: To be honest I don't even remember. I think it was the U.S. Amateur -- I actually missed the cut at the U.S. Amateur in my last amateur event before I turned pro. So it would be --

Q. U.S. Amateur the year before that?
ANTHONY KIM: I feel really old right now. But it would be about five years ago. Five, six years ago is my last match play tournament.
LAURA HILL: Anthony, thanks.
ANTHONY KIM: All right. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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