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THE PRESIDENTS CUPNovember 18, 2011Aaron BaddeleyJason DayGeoff OgilvyCharl SchwartzelMELBOURNE, VICTORIA MARK WILLIAMS: Thanks for joining us, gentlemen. All winners on the International side. Maybe if we can just start with Geoff, your match, obviously it was a pretty clutch putt on the last. Give us a talk about that and we'll go straight into questions with the other guys. GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, nice to hole a nice putt on the last. We were never down in the match. We played pretty well. It's about Royal Melbourne about as hard as it's going to get today. Pretty happy we did all right. Nice to hole a nice putt on the last to get a point for us. Yeah, we both played quite well; the other two, Bill and Nick played very well. So it's hard to tell how you're playing out there, because it's such a hard golf course at the moment. So fun to play the golf course when it's that hard, but frustrating, as well, but nice to get a point. MARK WILLIAMS: You and Retief combined and you're out again tomorrow. Some comments on your match. CHARL SCHWARTZEL: We sort of dovetailed really good today. I played the second and third hole, I was basically not even in the hole, more just supporting Retief, and he won both those holes, making a birdie and a par and we were 2-up through three. We played really solid from there. I helped him on a few occasions coming in, and, you know, we made the birdies at the right time and just kept the match going. Every time they made a birdie, we made a birdie on top of it. The only place we slipped up was the 14th, but I think we are a very good pairing. You know, looking forward to tomorrow. MARK WILLIAMS: Jason and Aaron, you obviously are out again tomorrow in the last group; just talk about your match a little bit. JASON DAY: Yeah, like Geoff said, it was very tough today. I was talking to the guys, and it's amazing how much you have to allow for the ball to curve in the air when the wind is this strong. You have to be so precise landing the ball on the green. If you land a little short, it will pull up. If you hit the green a little too far, it's going to bounce and roll over the green. So it was playing very tough out there today, and, you know, I was glad that I had Badds on my side, because he played unbelievable golf out there. You know, we were just happy we got the win. A good positive going into tomorrow's round, and hopefully the weather can kind of stay away. Probably not going to happen that way, but we have got a tough match tomorrow, and we're just looking forward to it. AARON BADDELEY: Yeah, it was a good day today. It was super-difficult out there, as we have all said. It was just a matter of sticking to our game plan. That's what Jason and I did all day. That's what we talked about is sticking to our game plan, playing the golf course. We did that, and as a team together, we did great. Jason made a great putt on 15 to keep our momentum going, and it was nice to be able to close them out there on the last to get a point. Q. Tomorrow you go first off with Robert against a young rookie team, but they have won both times, Simpson and Watson. Talk about that match a little bit and the pairing with Robert, both of you being from Melbourne, obviously. And also, just a comparative of this course and the conditions today, if you've ever experienced, like in a major or what -- just to give people an idea of a comparative feel of the day. GEOFF OGILVY: Well firstly, it's going to be fun to play tomorrow with Robert. We had a good match. We teamed up last time I think in the best-ball at Harding Park and had a win. That will be fun. He's obviously a great player here at Royal Melbourne and won a couple of tournaments here and had some good performances. I'm excited about the match. Webb and Bubba, those two have played well the first two days. We are going to see another golf course tomorrow morning, different from today, depending what the weather gives us. Yeah, the match will be fun. The golf course -- there's nothing like this place, really, I mean, when it's like that. It's pretty unique. You play some really tough days -- we have had some tough days in the Masters in the wind. The year that Zach won was a cold, super-windy day. It's similar difficulty to that, kind of the Saturday the year that Zach won, 2007. Similar in difficulty to that. Completely different, though. It's a hot wind. The course gets progressively harder as you play because it dries out and it dries out and it dries out. It's just unbelievable how short of clubs you have to hit downwind. You catch yourself thinking, there's just no way from 165 yards I can hit sand iron, but it's the only sensible club to hit, because anything more is going to go in the back. It's really hard to get that into your head. So I think for the rookies out there, or the Royal Melbourne rookies out there, that would have been a pretty -- they have never seen anything like that before. Growing up in Melbourne, you get the odd northerly. Most of the Sandbelt does similar stuff. Royal Melbourne does it the best because it's got the most width. It's very playable today. It's just really, really hard. If you hit a great shot, you can get it close, but it's just really, really hard, which is why it's fun, which is why people praise this course. It can get as hard as it can today; anyone breaking par, it's an astonishing score, but it's there if you play great shots. It's frustrating to play, but it's also great fun to play like that, yeah, for anyone that has not seen Royal Melbourne in weather like that before. Q. Obviously you were feeling different 24 hours ago; tell us about the last hole and last putt, particularly. AARON BADDELEY: Yeah, very different. Today I really wanted to just free it up on the last hole, and hit a nice tee shot and then hit a good second. I feel like I got a little unlucky with that second shot, it didn't bounce up to the green. The 3-footer, I was going over in my mind, just to "knock it in the middle, knock it in the middle, knock it in the middle." Yeah, when it went in, it was pretty great because both Jason and I did really good today, and on a really difficult day, and to come away with a point was huge, especially against a tough team with Tiger and Dustin. Q. Is it something that you can take not for rest of this week, but for the rest of your career, what happened yesterday, the fact that you come out in tough conditions and play really well; is it something that maybe in a major championship you can look back on this and take some confidence? AARON BADDELEY: I think for sure. I was super disappointed yesterday because Jason played so well yesterday and I really feel like I let him down and the team down a little bit. So to be able to bounce back today and get out there on a tough day and do the job, it was good. It was good. Q. Coming into last week, you had never played with Tiger Woods, and now you've won a match against your idol. Can you just talk about your feelings about that? JASON DAY: He walked on to the tee this morning and said, "Long time, no see." Obviously we played together last week, and we had a ball last week. He played very well the first two days that I played with him. And he played well today. He hit a lot of good, quality shots out there. You know, eagle putt goes on 15 and, you know, he chips on the 18th, you never know what could have happened. But Badds played unbelievable golf today. It was amazing how good he played. I had a couple of good, clutch shots that I obviously contributed to, but you know, if it wasn't for Badds playing so well and bouncing back from yesterday, it was just good to see. And it was a team effort out there today. It was just really fun. You know, no matter who we play, we just want to try and get the job done. That's our ultimate goal at the end of the week is try to beat the person that's across the tee from us. You know, whether it's Phil Mickelson or Nick Watney or Tiger Woods, we want to go out there and try to beat them no matter what, and if we do, that's great. And if we don't, we are disappointed but we have got to move on and go on to the next match. Tomorrow's round is going to be super tough. The weather is going to be different. The golf course is going to be a lot different compared to today. So right now, my mind-set is just to get some rest and move onto tomorrow's round. I think that's what most of the guys are doing. It was good, solid play from the team today, and I think the guys are going to try to get some rest tonight, because it has been a long week already. Q. Just in terms of an overview, 7-5, how do you feel? A lot of people thought you would be the favorite, they were the underdogs, you were home. But you're two points back, but obviously a long way to go. How do you feel about the next couple of days and where you're at? GEOFF OGILVY: I think we all feel pretty good. We are not favorites anymore? Q. Just saying, the score -- GEOFF OGILVY: I think we feel pretty good. I think everyone played pretty well today. It's just the way the match turns around, 7-5, it's equal, you know what I mean. We are all pretty excited, as these guys say, about tomorrow. Tomorrow is a really big day. There's ten points on offer tomorrow. Could be 15-7 by the end of tomorrow. We feel very good. We are happy with the way the matches turned out shaping up for tomorrow morning. Everyone's pretty excited about the whole thing. We had a great dinner last night and everyone came out really well today, and it's a really hard day for 24 guys at Royal Melbourne and we've come out all right, and after 36 holes tomorrow, we might be 15-7 by this time tomorrow. That would be good, huh. MARK WILLIAMS: Thank you, gentlemen, we appreciate your time and good luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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