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WALKER CUP MATCHSeptember 13, 2009Colin DalgleishGavin DearNial KearneyARDMORE, PENNSYLVANIA RAND JERRIS: We welcome Colin Dalgleish, captain of the Great Britain & Ireland Team, along with two of his team members, Gavin Dear and Niall Kearney, thank you for taking a few moments to join us. Colin, we'll start with you, I don't think that the final score of this match truly reflects how well your players played throughout the weekend. You must be really proud of your team and the spirit and the skills that they showed on the golf course for two days. CAPTAIN COLIN DALGLEISH: Yeah, certainly, very disappointed. Two years ago, there was just one point in it and we felt we could have won, should have won there, came across here, we really did believe we had a strong team. I think the preparations all went well, and I do think that it was a match that had things gone a different way, maybe we could have won but everything just kind of seemed to run against us from the start. We got off to a reasonable start, I suppose, but then one behind in the foursomes and then we were all sort of battling uphill from there. Going back a bit in the singles in the afternoon with some good halves yesterday to go 8-4 and still within striking distance. Got off to a great start this morning in the foursomes, and that fell away and the lead became pretty much too much of a mountain to climb; and albeit at one stage this afternoon, the board was looking very good for us, and it would have been just possible to maybe take eight points out of this afternoon and even to tie the Walker Cup, but then it kind of ran away from us again. So, very disappointed. The team is very disappointed. I kind of feel that, you know, the ten players we had here are better players and played better than the result would suggest, which is always very frustrating for everybody involved here. And it's just very disappointing and no doubt will kind of reflect on it in a few days' time and think back to what we could have done differently. But it seemed that there was some great golf played by the United States. Played some fantastic golf, some putts holed on both sides. The golf course was fantastic, and the greens were certainly pacier than the GB&I Team are used to playing on normally, but I think we adapted to them very well. And I think that a lot of short game stuff that we did really was pretty good. I mean, there was some great pitches and putts and so on. But the United States really were, from what I saw, extraordinary in some of the stuff that they did, and short game and long game, as well. They really -- I think the U.S. Team did exceptionally well to arrive at the result they did. Ultimately very disappointed, and as I say, I feel the result really doesn't reflect how well our team played. RAND JERRIS: Maybe Gavin can start us with just some comments about the day, what it was like from a player's perspective during the day, through the foursomes and the singles matches in the afternoon. GAVIN DEAR: Well, foursomes, we got off to a great start, you know, and then we got pegged back immediately. The guys just holed a few putts in the middle of the round, and it seemed to kind of run against us on the back nine. We played a lot better than we did do the first day. And yeah, it just kind of went against us and you know, they closed us out. This of afternoon, I played pretty solid. I had sort of three shaky holes. Managed to get half on one of my shaky holes and really on the back nine I sort of started to play like I know I can. I put the ball in position. I holed a few putts for the first time on the weekend and managed to pull away. When I finished, I thought I had a look at the board, standing at 17, I thought we had a -- like Colin said, we were in a position where in the matches fell our way we could maybe get the eight points and just not to be -- it was a very enjoyable weekend, great experience and great to be out here. NIAL KEARNEY: Going into today, our whole team knew we had to go out and win the foursomes this morning to give ourselves a good chance this afternoon. Didn't go our way this morning. We were really confident going into this morning. We played really well yesterday and we were up against it from the start against Rickie and Bud. We played our golf. We went 2-down early. We got them back to square. We lost 13 and 14 to go back to 2-down, and ended bringing them up to the last and Stiggy hit a great punching chip shot right across the green and just shaved the hole. The Americans made a super par and all credit to them. 3-1 down after the foursomes, we had a mental decline going into the afternoon, and obviously looking at the boards, nip and tuck, a lot of matches all-square, someone up on either side. So outside chance that it could have gone our way. My own match, I went up early. I was 2-up or 3-up. I had a putt on 10 to go 4 and I missed. My opponent birdied the 11th, could have gone four, and then went back to two and had some nice clutch putts coming in and ended up winning 16 which was great but certainly feeling pretty keen and would have been great to come over here to the U.S. soil and win the Cup back but that's just the way it goes. I suppose I just need to sit down and think about what we could have done better and give teams going forward a little advice and see what they can do. Q. Now I thought your singles match against Nathan Smith was outstanding, some big putts really put him on his heels, something you did the whole round. I'm sure individually you're pretty happy with how you finished up, very solid round against a guy that had been playing pretty well this weekend. NIAL KEARNEY: Yeah, I would have been disappointed if we would have lost. Obviously me and Stiggy gelled very well together. Played very well this weekend. I was confident going into this afternoon that I could pull a win out of the bag against Nathan. The putts, both of us holed some nice putts and hit a lot of great putts and just slipped by on a few occasions. The match really could have gone either way coming up the last few holes. And very happy. Had a lot of good putts coming in. Q. Obviously we have been successful, the U.S. have been successful in the last three matches, and we have tasted the other side of that in The Ryder Cup and we had to make some changes to the way we did things. Do you think that it is time for you guys to take a look at maybe changing the way you do your selection process? CAPTAIN COLIN DALGLEISH: I don't particularly think so. In terms of the match and the setup, I think it's a strong match. It has been evenly balanced for the last -- if you look over the course of the last six matches, it's been even. I mean, clearly the final result was 16 and a half-the and a half which is a large win. Last two matches have been a point, 2007, 2005, and both previous were obviously GB&I and I think it was a large win at Ocean Forest. The selection thing, I don't think it's really any issues with regard to that. I think our policy is they are trying to identify the ten players that we think will best play a particular venue under the particular pressure of a Walker Cup, and, you know, that's what we did. I think that the guys that are here have been recognized performers in Great Britain and they have won in different parts of the world and so on. So I don't think there's any rush -- I don't think that I would see any rush to change our particular selection procedure and policy. Q. Just to follow up, obviously experiencing this two times as a captain, assuming that you won't be the captain next time, what do you think that you would impart, just off the top of your head, obviously there's more as you go along, to a new captain coming into this experience? CAPTAIN COLIN DALGLEISH: I can't think that it's -- you've got to be sort of organized in everything you're doing. But at the end of the day you put all that stuff in place, and if you do it well or badly, I mean, it will have some effect. But at the end of the day, it comes down to how the guys actually adapt to you and how they play the golf course and how they deal with the particular pressures of the Walker Cup. And it is unique. It is very much a rarified air compared with most of the amateur golf that the team would play in. If they are playing in their home international championships or European team championships, even the British Amateur Championship and so on, the kind of interest level is significantly lower and you stand out there yesterday afternoon and this afternoon you stand on the first tee with the fairways absolutely lined. It is a pressure that not many people play under even playing at the highest level of amateur golf until they do play in the walk Walker Cup. So I think if there's anything we can do to try to ramp up that side of it to in any way provide more experience to the players that are playing in that type of environment as much as possible, whether that be co-events or whatever, I think that's part of it. Q. Was there a point over the weekend that you felt it was a turning point and the momentum was getting away from you all? CAPTAIN COLIN DALGLEISH: I think that as of this morning, at 8-4, I felt that we were four points behind and there were 14 points still to play for; so going into this morning, I still felt that we had a pretty reasonable chance but it was important that we won the foursomes and closed the gap a little bit, even if it was after foursomes, it was still attainable. I think we went 3-1 behind in the foursomes and realized we are going to have to win and a half points to win the Walker Cup, because if we won eight points the U.S. was going to retain it, and it was still a pretty tall order. I knew it was going to take clearly an exceptional set of circumstances. To exactly what point I realized it wasn't going to happen, I think it was at some stage this afternoon when there were a couple of games that were clearly gone. That's finally when I realized. RAND JERRIS: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. End of FastScripts |
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