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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

November 15, 2011

Matt Kuchar

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

Q. What do you think of the course?
MATT KUCHAR: This is an excellent golf course. You can play so many different shots. It's firm and fast and all of the greens seem to have an opening in front, so you can run balls up. I really enjoyed playing it today.

Q. I was going to ask you strategy-wise, do you feel you can be aggressive on this golf course? You have a lot of guys on your team that can be aggressive, and it's not a long golf course, but how do you feel aggression plays into the strategy.
MATT KUCHAR: Depends on course setup, where they place some of the tees. There are a few short holes, but tricky holes, it seems like as firm as the greens are, sometimes being aggressive isn't that key.
I think the one thing that will help is the guys that hit it long having some shorter irons, being able to hit it higher with more spin to these greens will be an advantage.
The guys that don't hit it far hit a flatter ball, it's tough to get those shots close to the hole.

Q. There's a lot of talk about whether the Internationals do have an advantage on this course; what do you feel on that?
MATT KUCHAR: I don't know. I don't know. I like -- actually I like the idea that we have a lot of guys that can hit it a long way. I think that comes in handy when you have a course with greens as firm as these are.

Q. Does it feel different at a Presidents Cup versus the first time you came out in The Ryder Cup?
MATT KUCHAR: Still that excitement. I don't quite feel like a veteran but I'm certainly past the rookie stage now.
So I feel comfortable being here. I'm excited to be here. I know this is one of those events where I saw coming up to the 2012 Presidents Cup was going to be at Royal Melbourne, Freddie Couples was the captain, it was one of those ones I really wanted to make the team and excited to be here and be a part of it.

Q. I'm sure you know the last time the U.S. came over here it wasn't all that close. Phil was out there with you guys today; did he talk to you about what happened the last time and make sure that doesn't happen again?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, and we also got a nice letter yesterday from Jack Nicklaus, he was the captain at the time, and reflected on that and was excited for our chances. That was nice. Any time you hear any sort of comment from Jack Nicklaus, you're pretty excited, so that was a nice gesture.

Q. What did he say to you?
MATT KUCHAR: Just good luck. He said, you guys have a great team. We weren't very prepared last year, or last time it was here, and got it handed to us but if you do a good job of preparing I'm sure it will be a great competition.

Q. Talk about strategy on the short par 4s, whether you might drive it to the green --
MATT KUCHAR: Depends on who your partner is. I'm not sure who my partner will be. Right now, I couldn't tell you the number of the one I could think of -- cutting it off on the left, whichever hole that is, is not one I'll be going for.
With the greens being so firm, there's no way to run a ball up there. So Phil Mickelson, he hit 3-wood, landed on the green and rolled over to a place that wasn't very good, I think laying up to the right it seemed like a pretty simple wedge shot.

Q. Have you heard the theory about playing this course backwards, like knowing where you have to position on the previous shot?
MATT KUCHAR: I know people have always talked about that for most courses but I guess it applies here as well.
I feel like the golf I've played, I've figured out pretty well by a couple of rounds without having to go backwards, but maybe it would come in handy.

Q. Any residual effect from Sydney?
MATT KUCHAR: I'm excited. I was glad to have a little break. Got to enjoy Sydney on Saturday. It was great. It's a great city. We sometimes come to these events and don't get a chance to really see where we are. So it was kind of nice to have a Saturday to where we took a ferry over to Manly Island and had a good day.
Yesterday I had a nice walk about Melbourne, had a good time walking around the shops. We even played tennis. We went to Kooyong Lawn Club and had tennis on the grass courts. It was great fun.

Q. It's really exposed.
MATT KUCHAR: It's an impressive facility with 26 grass courts, 22 red clay. It's an amazing facility. We had a lot of fun, to get to play on grass.

Q. You played Kingston Heath when you were quite young; how did you do?
MATT KUCHAR: Back in 2000. I had a caddie that reminded me that I started out with a birdie, that was my professional debut, first tournament as a professional and I birdied my first hole. So got off to a good start.

Q. Made the cut?
MATT KUCHAR: Made the cut, yeah.

Q. When you pull on the stars and stripes, is it an advantage when the internationals are looking at something that doesn't mean anything to them; do you feel bulletproof?
MATT KUCHAR: You certainly have an extra sense of pride for sure. I had not thought about that with the internationals, not really having their own insignia.
So there is certainly that extra sense of pride when you put on the flag. That feels good. It's an exciting opportunity and doesn't come around all that often that you get a chance to represent your country. It's great opportunity.

Q. You're going to be representing tourism in Australia the way you're talking, the last couple of weeks?
MATT KUCHAR: I think it's a fantastic country. I love coming down. I'm just excited to be part of this event. I know Melbourne is such a big starting town that it's going to be huge support for this event, The Presidents Cup. All of the people I know from that area are just so excited to have this Presidents Cup here.

Q. What have you learned so far, the differences in the captaining style maybe between what Corey was, and Freddie has his own unique style.
MATT KUCHAR: So far there's been a lot of hanging out. It feels typical for prejudice Couples. We have not had a whole lot of discussions, not even a team meeting. It's just been kind of hanging out, bonding, having fun. I think we'll get into more discussions about who is playing with who. Right now, we're not real sure just yet.

Q. Does he have anything that you know of that's fun to do or just hanging out?
MATT KUCHAR: I think he's just trying to keep the week as easy as possible. He has played on so many of these that he knows these get to be long weeks with getting up early, staying up late and functions every night. He's trying to keep the functions to a minimum. With my first Ryder Cup experience being last year, by week's end I was pretty worn out. I'm excited to have Fred make it as easy as possible for us this time.

Q. He's been known for some special guests sometimes in the team room.
MATT KUCHAR: I have no clue what's going to happen.

Q. Royal Melbourne is rated as one of the top courses in the world; how much preparation do you do as a player?
MATT KUCHAR: When I was at Georgia Tech, my college coach basically had us get to that next event, he explained his job is to get us to the next event, for us to show up, play the best we could, add the scores up, figure out whoever had the least amount of scores and head back home. I'm still pretty much the same way. I'm not one to keep up with any sort of -- even I guess journalism, I would say, I don't read any magazines. I don't watch Golf Channel. I don't do any of that unfortunately.
I show up, I play golf and I kind of keep my head down. This is about all I do.

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