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MONTREAL CHAMPIONSHIP

July 4, 2010

John Cook

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

PHIL STAMBAUGH: John, three rounds in the 60s, final round 68, you said yesterday that somebody would probably shoot a low score today, and just happened to be Larry Mize, and he wins the inaugural MontrÃ©al Championship. But you still had a good week, you made one bogey on the first hole in the first round, and four birdies, no bogeys today. A couple thoughts about the round.
JOHN COOK: Yeah, I can tell you that second is not much fun. I've had a bunch this year and I've won my share, but some of these are harder than others to take.
You know, I'm happy with that. I didn't make any bogeys today, didn't come close. I left a lot out there, wow. I can't actually even begin. But overall, no bogeys today or yesterday, and just the first hole of the championship. I'm happy with that. That was one of my things today was just go out and don't make any bogeys, and I never came close.
So overall, happy. I struck the ball well today. I misread three or four putts, and that was the championship right there. Hats off to Larry, 64 today, it was a tricky wind, different from previous days, so a little bit different course. But any time you shoot 64 in the last round, that's going to jump some people. Although shooting 68 was not too bad.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Can you maybe take us through the day, you start with six pars, did you sort of having a feeling of what was going on out there.
JOHN COOK: Oh, sure. I never throughout the day felt -- I thought, got to get to 15 first. That was my first goal, get to 15-under and then kind of take it from there and then you kind of know where you're going to stand. You know someone was going to be a little better than that, so the first goal was get to 15. I had a chance at 2 from about eight feet and missed it, and I lipped it out at 3, lipped out at 4, left about a 6-footer at 5.
Birdied 7, hit a driver and a 3-iron on the green, pitched it up six feet and made that.
8, I hit a real nice putt from about 15 feet.
10, I had about an 8-footer and missed it.
13, misread a putt. Had about a 12-footer across the hole.
14, I made a great 2-putt from the front of the green. Made, gosh, about a 12 or 14 footer for my second putt, but the first putt was basically -- it was a great 2-putt, I can tell you that.
15, I stood up from the fairway and hit a pretty good shot, but came up just short of the green and I pitched it in and my caddie called it walking up to the green, and we were a hundred yards to the green. Well, 15 was the championship. I hit a real nice drive, just off the right edge of the green. Wind was swirl, downwind, into the wind, it was left-to-right, we were standing there for ten minutes. The wind was blowing quite a few different directions and I decided the wind was going to be coming mostly out of the west, which means it was fine, I could knock it on the green or hit it up close. I went right between the bunkers, hit a real good shot, hit the driver to the front of the green and pitched it down there to about three feet. Just got completely fooled on this putt. Stadler had the same putt, and his ball went in the right center of the hole and I read the putt right center the whole way, and I might have pushed it just a little bit, but it missed on the right and it just was -- that was it right there.
16 hit a good putt on the lip from ten feet.
18, hit a good putt, didn't go in.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: How long was your putt on 18?
JOHN COOK: About 25 feet.

Q. Inaudible.
JOHN COOK: I knew what was happening. That wasn't really an issue. I knew at some point I would get going. I was hitting too many good shots. Never really missed a shot. I didn't hit a great drive off of 10. Had a birdie putt. But I knew that there was just so many guys within four shots that, you know, I might have been leading, but I wasn't going to be the champion just because I was leading. There were a lot of good players behind me.
But once I got going -- and I really hit some good shots. Just didn't pan out. Got it going there at 7 and really felt like it was fine throughout the day, I just couldn't capitalize on good opportunities until the end. Just came up a little bit short.

Q. Talk about your drive on 18, pushing it to the right?
JOHN COOK: Yeah, I was trying to hit it down to the right to get a real good angle at the flag because the wind was blowing right-to-left. Thinned it a little, hit a pretty good shot, still only had an 8-iron to the green. If I had smashed one -- could have been between 9-iron or wedge, that was kind of the game plan. I was okay, I was fine, had a real good look at the pin. I thought the wind would hit my ball a bit more than it did and I was trying to draw an 8-iron in there and didn't really move. I knew if I got it to the right there was a little hill there and could swoop down the hill to ten feet and carry it. Disappointed but hit a good putt.

Q. Did you think it was going to go in right off the bat?
JOHN COOK: Oh, yeah, I thought it was good. Had perfect speed and it started to break and just leveled out, and I went, oh, no, can't do that. I got fooled a few times this week, I really did. And mostly I played too much break, some of the putts I missed just didn't break quite as much as I thought. Make a note for next year.

Q. How was 16 playing?
JOHN COOK: It was 252 to the pin, 255 to the front left and 258 to the front right. The wind was howling pretty good out of the left. Plenty of length to get it all the way there. I hit it right at that right bunker and hit a good shot.

Q. The par 4 --
JOHN COOK: Love it. If you can make a two, three, four or a five, yes. If it's so ridiculous that you can make a seven or an eight or something stupid, then that's not a good hole. A hole like that, you're not going to make more than five and you have a chance to make two. So you just have to step up and hit a good golf shot. I like short fours and sometimes the short fives.

Q. Is there only one hole like this out there?
JOHN COOK: We have a couple. One at Seattle, Snoqualmie, 14, and I'm sure there are some others here and there. But yeah, I like that variety. Tom Weiskopf was a great idol and a great friend of mine, course builder and he always had a drivable par 4. Yeah, I like that. Too.

Q. It was 50/50, guys laying up or going to the hole, how hard was it today?
JOHN COOK: Well, with the wind blowing like it was, it was pretty hard. I didn't have my decision made until those guys had cleared the green. If the wind had come into my face at all, would I have laid up. But once the wind started to turn back to where it was supposed to be going, which was left-to-right, I had plenty of length. But it's really how you feel. I'm sure plenty of guys laid up and made three and plenty of guys laid up to the green and made five.

Q. What's your assessment of the whole week?
JOHN COOK: Fantastic. We were joking on the first tee, we had not played in front of crowds like this since we were on TOUR. We get good crowds a lot and great community involvement every single week, but this week, they really came out. We are very appreciative of the people here in MontrÃ©al to have an event and to welcome us like they did. You know, it will just get bigger and better and we are just so happy to be up here.
We are professional golfers. We have been doing this since we were 22 years old, so most of us for 30-plus years and that's what we do, and we love to travel and go and put on -- entertain the fans, the sponsors, the crowd, so we are appreciative of being here.

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