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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 17, 2010

Stewart Cink

MARANA, ARIZONA

MARK WILLIAMS: We'd like to welcome Stewart Cink to the Accenture Match Play Championship interview room, after a 2-up victory over Edoardo Molinari. Obviously a struggle first, four down early in the match, came back. Just talk about your day today, please, Stewart.
STEWART CINK: Well, it was definitely a match I'll never forget. And being down four and -- actually down four with my ball square in the middle of a bush on 18 didn't look very promising. But I never let my attitude get away from me today. I knew I was playing well, I just wasn't getting a lot out of it on the front nine.
Edoardo started off birdie, eagle which didn't hurt and made a few other birdies. There was a good reason for me being down, I just didn't make enough birdies.
On the back nine, I played one of the best nine holes I've ever played. I really just drove it well. I made a couple of key putts and holed out a bunker shot and just kept applying pressure.

Q. Obviously you've had good success here in the past. Let's go to 8. Describe the situation, if you could, and how you extricated yourself from it?
STEWART CINK: I hit a good drive. Edoardo hit it in the bunker off the tee. He had to lay up. So I had a 2-iron to the green. I push it a little bit to the right, but I'm playing short of the green and there's a lot of fairway right. Well, the ball just takes a big bounce and goes way further than I thought it would, probably 20 yards longer, and it went into the desert into a bush.
He hits a wedge up on the green, not close, but 30 feet. Now I'm four down and my ball is in the bush. It wasn't really dramatic from there, it's just that that's the situation I was in. I hacked it out of the bush, it went about ten yards into the rough, I made a good chip and good putt to get up-and-down. He two-putted.
Instead of losing the hole and going to five down, I really starting thinking about Delta schedule back to Atlanta. I salvaged the halve there. It's amazing what your mind thinks of when you're in that situation, just sort of boost your spirits a little bit.
I've been in a lot of matches and I've been way up and been drawn even to, and I've been way down and come back.
I'll go ahead and put the Padraig Harrington thing in there now. I think I have to credit Padraig Harrington for this win, because he's done that two times to me two times in this tournament. I've been way up on it and he's come back and tied me and I just squeaked it out. I didn't like being 4-up and then going back to even. It didn't feel that great about that. It's hard to play golf in that circumstance. And that's how I felt like my opponent felt today.
There was a good opportunity for me to keep applying the pressure. And it would be difficult for me to hold ground, and I think that's what happened. So, thank you, Padraig.

Q. What was the part that makes it most memorable, because you played so well on the back or because you came from four down, what makes it a match you'll never forget?
STEWART CINK: I think the back nine, the way I played, I think will be something I remember. Just made a lot of good shots and pressure started to mount there a little bit.
But also just being four down, that quickly, and four down through six, I'd lost five of the first six holes. I was four down with a hole won, I won the third hole. So losing five out of the first six, I'm like, whoa, what are we doing, I needed to splash some cold water on my face. That's why I'll never forget it. I'll always remind myself if I'm 4-down I can come back, and if I'm 4-up, he can come back.

Q. Where did you hole the bunker shot?
STEWART CINK: That was from the front bunker on 16.

Q. And secondly, I've heard a lot of comments about the ball flying a lot farther than people realize. Did you run into that quite a bit today?
STEWART CINK: I didn't have any big surprises out there, but I've also played it here and the course next door for a lot of years and I think it's related to the temperature. Where in the morning you have a little bit cooler temperatures and you have a little bit less adrenalin. When you get warmth and adrenalin on the back nine, it really starts to sail. We have a plan in place for when that starts to tip. You adjust your percentage from -- I think the minimum anyone is using is probably 5 percent and the most is probably 10 percent. So it's somewhere in there. It's a little different for everybody. But you have to know your body and the way you're swinging.

Q. Geoff Ogilvy said something yesterday to the effect that having a match like yours today in the first round kind of steels your resolve for match play, he likes struggling early, would you agree with that?
STEWART CINK: I think it does two things. First it does steel your resolve and gives you confidence knowing you can come back from a deficit.
Secondly, it takes a lot of energy. And you need a lot of energy in this tournament to have a successful run all the way through Sunday. It's just a lot of golf. Mentally you get fatigued. A match like this, you know, I started last year going extra holes the first two matches. And I felt like I ran out of gas against Geoff on Saturday's round. So I'm not complaining about winning, but I didn't do myself any favors by putting this kind of stress on myself in the first round.

Q. Would you mind talking about Tiger real quick. He's going to have a public something or other on Friday, no questions asked, but just the fact that I guess he's speaking publically for the first time and also doing it in the middle of this tournament?
STEWART CINK: It's encouraging that he's coming back to at least be seen by the public, and the rest of us, too, I consider myself the public when we're talking about this matter. So it's good that we're going to see Tiger Woods.
I don't know what he's going to talk about, really. I think it's coincidental that he would pick the Friday of Accenture to announce. It's probably got more to do with his schedule than anything else. It will be good to see Tiger's face again, and see that he's actually out there somewhere. We haven't really known much. I'm glad to here that -- I think this is maybe the beginning of the come back process for him.
MARK WILLIAMS: Thanks, Stewart, appreciate your time.

End of FastScripts

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