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TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIPOctober 5, 2009Matt KucharVERONA, NEW YORK MARK STEVENS: All right. I'd like to welcome Matt Kuchar to the interview room. Matt, if you would just kind of talk a little bit about picking up your second PGA TOUR win and kind of how the last hole played out, and then we'll take some questions. MATT KUCHAR: It's hard to describe what a great feeling it is to win a PGA TOUR event. It's so difficult to win. For me it's been seven years since the last one. I think in that seven years you just -- because you don't win, there's not a whole lot of rewards, so you feel like the game beats you up a little bit. And I feel like I had to do a good job of staying patient and just trying to get better. And I really feel my game has gotten better, and the feeling you get after winning a PGA TOUR event is just -- it's so exciting. It just makes you feel great. This is a treat. I think this is one of the cooler trophies in golf. I'm certainly excited to be putting this one up at home, but I'm just really excited, too. I battled these conditions. It was a hard week, played some good golf. Just didn't let the conditions get the best of me. And then to have this playoff, I can't remember being so nervous. I missed a short putt on the first playoff hole that was to seal the deal, and it was straight nerves, the reason why I missed that. I putted great all week and don't think I missed but maybe one of those all week and happened to miss it when it was for the win, but to make that great putt on 18, the second playoff hole and then grind it out and just to make it nice up-and-down on No. 13. 13 was kind of my nemesis all week, the one hole I struggled with, to get a par there and seal the deal was great. Q. Matt, all week you cited your ability to bounce back after tough holes. Like you said, you missed the winner on 13, came back and made it on 18. You know, how do you do that? Or do you pride yourself on that? MATT KUCHAR: I do. I think I do pride myself on the fact that I bounce back pretty well. I'm very good at not letting a bad shot or bad hole get to me. It was funny the thoughts that go through your mind in a playoff. You're just so nervous. And I think on 18 after I missed the short putt on 13 and I hit my chip 20 feet by the hole, and I'm like, awe, what have you done here. You know, you've just given this thing up. You missed that short one on 13. I can't believe you've given this thing away. And up on the green I was able to kind of regroup, settle myself down and be able to put a good stroke on it. All you can do is try to get a good read and put a good stroke on it. When I hit it, it felt great, you never know from 20 feet, but boy, what a great feeling to see that putt go in. Q. (No microphone). MATT KUCHAR: Yeah. Yeah. I think both Vaughn and I would have to say even last night in the playoffs would have been nervous and tight. And it's a feeling you don't experience very often. You're just not in very many playoffs. You're not challenging for championships. You have a nervousness and tightness maybe trying to make a cut, but not the same as winning a golf tournament. Winning is a big deal out here on Tour. You can make a great living finishing Top 5s, but there's something to be said about guys that win. It feels great. It's been seven years for me, and I think it probably feels extra special because it's been so long since I've been in the winner's circle. Q. (No microphone). MATT KUCHAR: I don't change much for match play. I still feel like you play the best shot for the opportunity. I don't think you make a whole lot of adjustments. I know on the last hole, Vaughn hit it in the water. I still had to suck it up and hit some good shots. I knew Vaughn was most likely going to make bogey, and I made bogey earlier. I made bogey the day before on Sunday on 13. 13 is a hard hole, and I knew bogey probably wasn't going to get it done. I needed to make a par. And I think had I been in more trouble and not just had a 12-inch putt to seal the deal, Vaughn was going to make his for bogey, and I was still going to have to make my par. So you just can't let up. You have to keep the pedal down. Q. As the playoff drags on, do you have an appreciation for what you guys are doing, keep going hole after hole or you're just so focused, you're not realizing it? MATT KUCHAR: It was pretty exciting to go that many holes. I think we're more in the moment, than, you know, holy cow, we've gone two holes last night and how many did we go, four holes today. It's just a long playoff. Most of them probably end up going only one or two holes. To go six holes is a lot of golf. It was fun to throw a couple birdies in there and a shame to have a couple bogeys in there, but it was pretty good golf under the circumstances. MARK STEVENS: The last six-hole playoff, by the way, was the 1986 Kemper Open when Greg Norman defeated Larry Mize. Q. Do you guys talk to each other when you're going back and forth. I know you missed the putt, then he hit a long one. MATT KUCHAR: We talked a little last night at the start of the playoff, but most of our conversations were just "good shot," you know. He played a couple great shots. I played some good shots. I think that was the majority of our conversation. It was such a grind. We were both very into trying to play the best golf we could, and our caddies did a good job of taking a little bit of that tension off by conversation between the player and caddie, not so much player and player, but just kind of sticking to your comfort ground. Q. Matt, I was wondering, one, if you used Mr. Beasley this week, and if you did, how well it putted for you? MATT KUCHAR: I actually used a putter called Barbados. It's a different putter. Mr. Beasley has been back and forth. Barbados has been the guy that's been with me for a while, and I putted great with it. It's one of the better putting weeks I can remember having. So it was not Mr. Beasley that was in the bag for the tournament. But this putter is a Guerin Rife Barbados that I used, and used it well. Q. Going back to the U.S. Amateur and then your college career, and then you come out and there was a lot of excitement about you. Have you if felt that early in your career maybe expectations were too high and it was a negative? MATT KUCHAR: I don't think expectations really affect a player that much. I think it has to do -- all of us expect a lot out of ourselves. All of us think we're going to be champions out here. All of us expect to win golf tournaments. I got my first one relatively easy, my first year on Tour in 2002 winning the Honda Classic and felt like I was off and going. But this is difficult. The guys are great out here. And I've been fortunate to hook up with an instructor I really feel comfortable with Chris O'Connell, has been helping me for the last three or four years now. He's a Jim Hardy disciple, works on the one-play-and-swing method. I really feel like my game has improved a great deal since working with him. And I think there's a bit of a comfort level on TOUR. You hear some of the veterans talk about kind of a learning curve out here and almost a 10-year learning curve before you really get comfortable in how to play golf on TOUR, and I feel like I've maybe fallen into that. I feel like I'm maturing and it seems like you get guys in their 40s that are playing some of their best golf in their lives, because of the maturity that is involved with the game of golf. So I feel like I'm starting to enter that stage. Q. It was touched on a little earlier how well you were able to bounce back this week. Was there a part of your game, and I know obviously under the weather conditions the variation was -- you did a great job with all the different trouble you guys got into out there. But was there one part of your game you felt was stronger than the others? MATT KUCHAR: 100 percent my putting was fantastic this week. I made felt like miles of putts. Seemed like everything inside of 10 feet I felt very confident, very comfortable with, and I saw a lot of them go in the hole. The course conditions, playing lift, clean and place you didn't have to drive it great. You could tee it up in the rough. You didn't have to hit your irons great. If you missed the green, you were teeing it up and most likely going to get up-and-down if you missed the green. But that being said, putting I think is the great equalizer. If you're making those putts, you just have to get it within a certain zone, and I had that going this week. Q. In addition to your putting your bunker play, it does seem to be really good. It was almost like get in the bunker and I'm okay. MATT KUCHAR: I've been very confident with my bunker game. I think I was only in two bunkers throughout the tournament and then one in the playoff, and had basically tap-ins with each bunker shot. But I've been confident. I knew that was a place I didn't want to go. This week I knew around the greens and the rough you could tee it off and you're always going to get a good lie. Bunkers you never knew if they were washed out, how firm they were going to be but I drew a couple good lies, and I've been real comfortable with my bunker technique and my bunker game. Q. As far as your father has roots somewhat in this area, right, in Watertown? MATT KUCHAR: He graduated Watertown High. That's right. He was actually just up here about a month ago for his 40th reunion. Mom and Dad came up, Dad was actually a tennis teaching pro at the South Islands Club and raves about that being some of the best times of his life, being up there. He absolutely loves that area, took Mom back there for the reunion, and again, they were blown away by how beautiful it is up there. So yeah, some roots. My father didn't live too long in Watertown. My grandfather worked for GMAC and kind of moved around a good bit over the Northeast. I think he was there maybe two years or one year. Q. So he wasn't a native or anything like that? MATT KUCHAR: Right. Q. So you seem to have a little bit of roots now with a good showing at Oak Hill in '98 and a victory here. MATT KUCHAR: Right. Right. This is a beautiful part of the world. It's a shame it couldn't have been showcased a little better. I think you're probably going to have the full bloom of leaves in a week and the place will be spectacular. You could tell it's a beautiful place. I came here two years ago. We had great weather staying here at the Turning Stone Resort. We stayed in the lodge. I don't know if I've had better accommodations all year. This is a great place. Q. Your son's name, who looks like he's going to be a super great grounds keeper? MATT KUCHAR: Right. Right. It's Cameron. C-A-M-E-R-O-N. Q. Matt, you seem to enjoy yourself more than most players this week. Do you think that mindset maybe helps when you get weather like this? MATT KUCHAR: Probably. I think -- I enjoy -- I enjoy myself. I enjoy playing golf probably more than most guys out here. It can become work, I think particularly when you're not playing so well, it feels more like work. I've been playing well for a while, and when you play well, it sure is a lot of fun. But my mind frame is I enjoy being out here. Even if it's crappy, I'm the guy that's going to find the bright spot. MARK STEVENS: One more question. Q. Obviously you went through a lot of different weather conditions here. People over the past couple years have been so worried that guys won't want to come back at this time of year. How much do you guys really think about that when you're choosing which tournaments to go to? MATT KUCHAR: I think there were a lot of people that looked at this weather forecast, and I don't know how many late withdrawals there were. That would be an interesting thing to look at. But looking at the forecast for this week, nobody was very excited to see the temperatures be in the 40s, high in the 60s, with rain. But I don't know. This is a great place, of course. It's a great course. I think guys look at the course first, look at the sponsor, the quality of field and probably the purse. I'm lucky I've got a great supporting crew for conditions like this. Bridgestone's been a great part of my team. I know they make great fall weather attire. They make a great all-weather golf ball, too. I've been lucky they've been there to help me get through this. MARK STEVENS: Okay. Thank you very much, Matt, and best of luck to you the rest of the year. MATT KUCHAR: All right. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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