WGC ANDERSEN CONSULTING MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 28, 1999

Jeff Maggert

JEFF MAGGERT: It was a long day, obviously. I knew it was going to be that way. I didn't feel like someone was going to win the match by six or seven holes ahead. I felt like it was going to be a close match all day long. I got off to a pretty slow start this morning. I struggled all day with the 5- and 6-footers. I really felt like I had an opportunity to put myself up and two or three holes, you know, at certain parts of the day; and gosh, he just couldn't get those putts to fall, and I was -- I fell 3-down. I felt like if I just played good golf and tried to keep giving myself opportunities that I might make a long putt here or there. When I made the putt at 13 to get the match back to even, I really felt like that is what I had been fighting for all day long. It took me a long time to get the match to that point. I felt from there on -- I felt like it was my tournament if I could just make some birdies coming in. Neither one of us could make a birdie, but what can I say? The chip at 11 was something that I really needed all day long. It was the one shot that I was kind of looking for, really, all day to kind of get me going. Thank God it happened on the last hole.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, I knew Andy had a pretty tough putt there. I didn't really expect him to make it. He hit -- I figured he was going to try to lag it up there pretty close. He hit a good putt. He had about a two-and-a-half-footer left. I had the kind of chip where I could make it. It was, you know, uphill chip. Had a little left-to-right break in it. Had pretty decent lie in the rough there. I just felt like give it a chance to go in, and normally when I take the pin out on a chip shot like that, it makes me pay attention to the speed of the chip a lot more. The last thing I wanted to do was run it four, five feet past the hole because I knew I had been struggling with those all day. Lo and behold, what did I do, hit the thing a little bit too hard. It was right on line and I thought if it would hit the hole, I knew it would slow down. I was going to have you know, a short putt to save par. It slowed down just enough and hit the back of the hole and popped in the air and went in. And, you know, what can I say? Even when I saw it hit the hole, I was thinking it wasn't going to go in. I thought it was going to kind of pop out of there, and it went in, and that is what I needed. I have been waiting five and a half years for that.

JEFF MAGGERT: I was probably 20 feet away from the cup.

JEFF MAGGERT: Sand wedge.

JEFF MAGGERT: I hit a good putt there. I knew the putt was going to be straight the last three feet of the putt, and, you know, I just I thought that I had it on the line that I needed to. Just when it got to about three feet from the hole, it just stayed right there and rolled straight on past the hole. It just looked like it just might try to nudge a little bit more to the left and drop in, but it just stayed out there. That putt gave me a lot of confidence. I hit a really -- actually, hit a good putt on 17. And that putt on 18 really gave me some confidence going to the extra hole on 10. I was just over the green on 10, and I thought I might make that putt. I was not too far away from the hole. I hit a pretty good putt there. I didn't really give it much of a chance, but I still hit a good putt.

JEFF MAGGERT: Hit nice drive on 10. I needed a good drive there. That was a tough pin on 10. The green was hard as a rock. I needed to get it down there where I can hit a 9 or a wedge or 8-iron in there and that was a good drive. I hit a 9-iron and it still went over the back of the green.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, you know, there is going to be a lot of doubters, for sure, but I have been around this game a long time, and played some good golf. I don't really care what they say. This was a good win for me. I have been -- like I said, I have been waiting five and a half years to get back in the winner's circle. I knew I was going to get here eventually, and took me a little longer than I would like to. I feel like -- I really feel like that I am kind of in the prime of my golf right now. I feel like my game -- I feel like my game is still getting better, and that is a good feeling.

JEFF MAGGERT: I think early on, it did. The first half a dozen so times of coming up short it was -- you know, it was more -- it did bother me. And then as I went, I played -- I came to realize that I was playing some really good golf tournaments, and I wasn't giving golf tournaments away. Other people were playing good golf to beat me. You know, last year I played good. Huston and David Duval shot 64 the last round, and it was things like that. I can't get down if the guy comes out and shoots a great round and beats me. You got to give him credit. It is the ones where you mess up and give tournaments away that bother you. I really wasn't doing that. I stumbled a bit in the U.S. Open a few years ago, but it's a tough tournament and a lot of people have done that. I just -- I really knew in my heart that eventually I was going to win another tournament out here, and hopefully I am going to win a lot more.

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, it is. I had a lot of putts that were just burning the edge and not going in. And in Match Play, those, to me, are the putts that can really make or break you. They can -- they can demoralize your opponent a lot of times if you are making a lot of five or six-footers, because those are the putts that keep you from losing holes or halving a hole when it looks like the other guy might win. I bet I had a half dozen of those today where I could have flipped the result around on that particular hole, and I just couldn't get them to go in. I made the long putt on 10 this afternoon, and that really -- that is kind -- I just needed one of those, you know, to kind to get one hole going my way. And you know, after that, I felt pretty good. I felt like -- I think I was -- that put me 1-down for the day, and I felt like 1-down, you know, with eight holes to go was something that I can handle. I knew I could make some birdies coming in. I made a good birdie on 13 there and that put the match even. After that, I just felt like if I could get birdie putt on every hole coming in, you know, one of those might go in. Took a couple extra holes and it wasn't a putt, it was a chip.

JEFF MAGGERT: About 30 feet, yeah. 13 was kind of my range. I like to putt from that distance, it was 12 to 15 feet. When I am putting well, I make a lot of those distances. I had a good read on it and I felt like I was going to make that putt as soon as I walked on the green.

JEFF MAGGERT: More so today. You know, it is a great feeling. Like I said, I have been sitting up here in this chair talking about finishing second too many times. I wanted to be here. I needed a win for me, myself, and I (laughs) and it feels good.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, Congressional was a little different situation. When you got four guys tied for the lead and fighting it down the stretch with three holes to go, anything can happen. A guy can make two birdies, and when you are playing Match Play, one-on-one, you seem to have a lot more control of your destiny. It is a lot different in Match Play. The whole week, every day is a new tournament, and there is pressure situations in every match that you face. And those situations that I faced earlier in the week, certainly, I think helped me at the end today, because I came back against Tiger Woods and came back in a couple of the other matches. And you know, when you do that early in the week, it gives you confidence. Especially today when I was 3-down at one point this morning, and I just -- I felt like I was going to come back and have a chance to win.

JEFF MAGGERT: Not really. I have been in a lot of nervous situations. I have always said being nervous is good. I think if you expect to be nervous and realize that you are going to be nervous, it is easier to handle. I think a lot of guys get intimidated when they get nervous, and it is just a fact of golf. In a major championship, be it the Ryder Cup or whatever, nervous is okay. It is okay. I have told guys at the Ryder Cup, some of my teammates: Don't worry about it if you are nervous on the first tee, everyone else is. That is just part of it. Go out and play golf and be nervous. And guys that can play well when they are nervous are the guys that win tournaments. You can't be afraid of it and think that there is something the matter with your game because you are nervous. Everyone chokes in golf. That is just a fact of life. I have choked before and you know, sometimes I don't choke. But being nervous is just part of the game, and you have to accept it. I was nervous, but I was confident. That is the easiest way to describe it.

JEFF MAGGERT: I think the biggest thing about my golf game is I don't give away holes and I feel like I am a good pressure player. In Match Play, if you can avoid giving away holes to your opponent by making bogeys, you can wear a guy down. A good example is the match I had against Nick Price the second day. I made no bogeys and one birdie. To do that all day long is tough on the other guy, because it gets to the point where he knows, especially coming down the stretch, that he is going to have to make a birdie to beat me. When I get 1- or 2-up on a guy, on this golf course, with three or four holes to go, I don't feel like I am going to make a bogey coming down the stretch. If I can make one or two birdies, then it is going to make it even more difficult. I drive the ball straight. I hit a lot of fairways. I think that is important in Match Play. You want to be in every hole. When you get to the green, you want to have an opportunity, some type of putt or an easy chip, you know, to win the hole. If you can do that all day long. That is what you have to do in Match Play.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, I kept telling you guys that for five years (laughs).

JEFF MAGGERT: I feel like they were there. I guess the most frustrating part about it is it wasn't coming out with victories. To talk to the press and the media, you know, it was almost like a tape-recording for me. I knew what I was going to say before I even came in. But I knew inside of myself that I had what it took to win golf tournaments. Not to be disrespectful to you guys, but a lot of times when I finished second, I wouldn't read what you guys would have to write because it was counterproductive to me to read something that a guy writes: Well, Jeff Maggert came up short again and maybe he doesn't have the right stuff to do it. I don't want to hear that stuff because I don't believe it. I don't. I never have, and I always felt like I would be up here winning a golf tournament.

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, when you hit a putt exactly where you want it, you know, when you are putting well, you see the line on the greens so well, you can see where that ball is going to roll, and you see that mental picture in your mind. So when you hit a putt on line, it can give you a lot of confidence. Every 15-footer, you can hit every one of them perfect and not every one of them is going to go in. But if you hit every one of them where you are aiming, eventually you are going to make some of those. The putt on 18, I hit a great putt. I hit it exactly where I wanted to hit it. I thought it had a great chance to go in and it just slipped by the hole. It did give me some confidence.

JEFF MAGGERT: Certainly better putt than some of the 5- and 6-footers that I missed. A lot of those that I had missed, I went hitting them where I was looking. I was pulling them or pushing them just a fraction, and you know, an inch in this game goes a long way sometimes.

JEFF MAGGERT: I had pretty long putt on 17. It was probably 18 to 20 feet. Maybe even a little bit more. It was downhill. It was pretty fast putt. It would have been easy to run it three or four feet by. I was -- Andrew was a little bit closer. It was a length of putt that I thought if I could make that putt, man, it would really put the pressure on him. I hit pretty good putt there and it just slipped by. But more importantly, I just had, you know, a gimme putt. I got it up there close and it kind of putt the emphasis on him. I think he had the same putt going down the hill; so, you know, now that I was in the hole with 5, he had to worry about knocking it by, three, four, five feet. Instead of being aggressive with that putt, he had to play a little more defensive.

JEFF MAGGERT: 18 was probably 15 feet. I don't know.

JEFF MAGGERT: I was in the first cut of rough, probably maybe one yard from the fairway cut. And then there was maybe another yard of the fairway cut tell. So, six feet from the edge of the green.

JEFF MAGGERT: Oh, yeah.

JEFF MAGGERT: I think a lot of people felt that way even guys that had played the TOUR for 20 years. It was an amazing day. It was kind of unfortunate because I was a big deal. I had qualified for the Open. Went through all the stages, actually, as an amateur, and I knew I would probably turn pro later that summer. And I called the USGA -- I didn't even know if I could play as a pro since I qualified under my amateur status. And they said, certainly, since you weren't give an exemption, as an amateur you can do whatever you want. So that was my first pro tournament. I had played in some Tour events as an amateur; so, it was a big day for me. You know, I have never played in the U.S. Open, my first pro tournament, then to go out there and have the weather like that, it was a tough day --

JEFF MAGGERT: It was 80-something. A snowman, plus a few.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, I think when you win a tournament it is draining. But this week, it was a long week. Seven rounds of golf is a lot of golf to play. All my matches went down to the wire at the end. And in some ways it was tiring, but in other ways it was good for me today, because I knew, you know, I knew I could come back if I was down. And you know, I spent the last probably 18 months doing a fitness program and I have kind of worked on it and I think it definitely paid off this week.

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, '95.

JEFF MAGGERT: I wasn't -- I didn't have any problems with that, but it was the fact that two years later, they were in the same situation and they were going to finish that one and I didn't see the reasoning at all. And I gave Finchem an earful, but we are still friends.

JEFF MAGGERT: Andrew has got a great game. He has played on the Tour a number of years and he has won out here a few times. Anybody that can play 15 years on the TOUR and win four, five times is a great player. Andrew played good today. I think the thing that impressed me is Andrew drove the ball very well today. I expected him to miss a few more fairways. The only hole that he got in trouble with, with the driver, was in the afternoon round on No. 5 when he drove it in the creek there. But I expected him to miss a few more fairways today and he didn't. He drove the ball very well all day. He might have hit more fairways than I did.

JEFF MAGGERT: The shot -- tee shot you mean?

JEFF MAGGERT: It was -- I had 8-iron. Hit 8-iron in there in the morning round. I knew it was a good club. Actually, in the morning, I pulled it almost in the exact same spot. Actually, I had been fighting that type of shot most of the week. I had been pulling a few shots by five or six yards and it wasn't -- I wasn't surprised to see it going left, because I had seen a lot of them go left all week. Just you know, every shot doesn't go where you want, unfortunately. But it was a shot pattern that I was used to. It didn't upset me. When I hit it, I said, "Oh, I can't believe you did another one of those." I knew where it was going to be and I knew the chip was going to be a fairly easy up-and-downed; so I wasn't too worried about it. Actually, when I saw the ball -- from when I saw the ball, walking off the tee, I knew I was in position to where I could chip it in. I was on that mindset going up to the green. "You need to try to chip this one in." You know, it is one of those chips that it is close enough where you can -- if you can roll it up there close to the hole, it might go in.

JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, 6, I was in the kind of the downslope of the bunker. I really didn't have that much of a play there. I was playing left or to the right on purpose there. That was about the only play I had. The other hole --

JEFF MAGGERT: Again, the same thing, I needed that ball to be in the bunker instead of sticking in where it did in the grass. And again, I was on the downslope of that little grass there with not a very good lie. I knew the ball was not going to have any backspin coming out there. It just scooted across the green a little bit too much.

JEFF MAGGERT: That was a driver. I hit driver on every hole this week except for the 4th hole and the 15th hole.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, they built a new tee there and the new tee is about 30 yards far back. It is 300 yards from the water to the new tee, and 300 yards is not in my range with a driver, believe me (laughter).

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, sometimes on a downwind hole, you are probably right. But that hole was kind of playing into the wind with a right-to-left breeze, and I could hit my best drive that I have dream about and wouldn't have gotten to the water. I think most of the players were hitting drivers there. Tiger could probably hit 3-wood, but I think Andrew hit driver there today, both times, and he is hitting the ball long. I was amazed. Some of the tee shots he hit today were pretty impressive.

JEFF MAGGERT: I thought it was probably a pretty fair ranking. There were probably a lot of guys that thought I was maybe ranked too high for a guy that only won one tournament and ranked 24th in the world. There were a lot of tournaments below me that won pretty big tournaments. I have played a lot of good golf the last nine years since I have been on Tour. I think overall the rankings are good for the game. I know they have got a lot of scrutiny this week, they can maybe fine-tune them a little bit. There is always going to be argument on who should be No. 1 and who shouldn't be; so, I think it is good to have the rankings.

JEFF MAGGERT: When I was 17 years old, I was recruited pretty heavily by a number of colleges to go play golf. At that time Oklahoma State was top the golf program in the country. I think I was a lured -- was lured because of that. In hindsight, it probably wasn't a good decision for me. The program was not the style of golf that I -- I am a guy that goes out and plays, and you know, when I am done, I am done. I go home and I don't worry about it, and I don't go out and hit a lot of practice balls. The coach there, I have no ill feelings with that university, believe me,, but after three years there I decided to leave and I wound up at Texas A & M, probably a place where I should have gone maybe from the very beginning. It was, you know, a program where I could kind of be myself and play the type of golf that I like to play, and the pressure wasn't there to go out and hit balls four, five hours a day and work on your game. And I think as a young kid, it is important to have a little fun along the way, especially when you are in college. There is a lot of things in college that you like to do and they don't necessarily have to be school or golf. And for three years at Oklahoma State, it was -- I had a lot of fun there. I enjoyed the guys on the team. In hindsight, probably a bad decision.

JEFF MAGGERT: Just one year.

JEFF MAGGERT: My golf eligibility was up and I knew I wanted to give a shot as a pro and I felt like I might go back to school if I played pro golf for two or three years and things didn't work out. But I had some pretty good success early on. I played well in the Asian Tour. Played there for three years and played in Australia for two years before I got on the TOUR. So, I had won some tournaments over there and I felt like my game was ready for the TOUR when I got to the TOUR at '91. I played pretty well my rookie year. Improved a little bit my first three, four years on Tour.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, the confidence factor, for one. I think the biggest thing is I can just be myself now. I don't have to -- it is like, Hey, I don't -- I can finish second now and it is okay. Where before, it was like, if you finish second again, you know, it is not going to be okay. But now I can go out and have fun, and if I have a couple of seconds the rest of the year, I don't have to worry about it.

JEFF MAGGERT: Certainly probably the biggest win in my career. You got the Top-64 guys in the world playing and Match Play is a very difficult format to win. This is not an easy week and that is why, you know, it is tough for the top players in the world, the Top 5 players in the world. I know everyone wanted to see them here in the semifinals going head-to-head, but it is a tough week to get down to the last four players in this tournament.

JEFF MAGGERT: He asked me if I wanted the pin. I knew I didn't want the pin. Normally, if I take the pin out, it makes me conscious of the speed of the chip a little bit more. The last thing I wanted to do was hit it by the hole because it would have been a downhill putt, you know, four, five feet, the ones that I hadn't done so well on. By taking the pin out, I felt like I would be a little bit more conscious of the speed and try to just roll the ball up next to the hole, and maybe you know, maybe die it in the hole. I did exactly what I didn't want to do. I hit the ball too hard. If the pin would have been in, I think the chip still would have gone in. The pin probably would have helped it go in the hole, but on the other hand, sometimes a chip with that speed can easily hit the pin and bounce off the pin and not go in. I am sure someone has done a study on the pin being in and not being in, but I am glad it wasn't in today, believe me.

JEFF MAGGERT: Probably four, five feet by, I think. It was an uphill chip. It was slowing down, as it was reaching the hole, but it was still going pretty fast when it went in.

JEFF MAGGERT: Well, I think over time, there is going to be a lot of tournaments here where the No. 1 guy makes it to the finals or the semifinals or you know, it is going to happen. Good players are going to play good in this event. Whoever that might be, if it is Tiger Woods or whoever, eventually those guys, at least I think they will, you know, those type of players are going to play well in this tournament. This formality suits guys that are top players in the world. You have to play well to get to Sunday. There is a lot of good players here this week, and it was unfortunate maybe that Tiger and David and some of those guys didn't make it further into the tournament, being the inaugural year of the event. But I don't think anybody should get down on this format. I think over time it is going to be a great tournament.

JEFF MAGGERT: My son has been giving me a hard time about finishing second for a while, too; so I am going to go straight home and call him and give him a little bit of a hard time. But, you know, he has been an inspiration to me, really the last few years, because he does get on me and he doesn't like it, and it is not, you know: Oh, Dad, I am sorry you finished. It is: Dad, how come you can't win? Very specific, you know: How come you let that guy beat you? So it has been good.

JEFF MAGGERT: Matt.

JEFF MAGGERT: Ten. I have a daughter Macy that is eight, and they both play golf, but in the last year or so, Matt has really kind of picked up the game to another level and he gets upset when I don't do well, which is fun.

JEFF MAGGERT: You know, it is tough for a 10-year-old to be patient, and I am trying to -- he has taken up the game and I want him to realize that there is a lot to say about playing good golf and having fun, and you don't always have to win to have fun. I want him to learn those things as he grows up playing golf. But you know, he is like any other kid. You know, he wants to see dad do well and it makes him mad when -- he has been there with me a lot of times where I have come up short and he has shed a few tears about it. It was funny when -- I guess after I beat Nick Price in the second round, I told my son on the phone that night I said, you know, Matt, I said, "If I win in the morning and Tiger wins his match in the morning then we are going to play in the afternoon." He says, "Oh, no, he says, you can't beat Tiger Woods, Dad." (laughter) And I kind of knew he was going to say that. So, the first thing I did the next day as I called Matt, and I said -- the first thing he said. He said you beat him, Dad, you beat him. So he was pretty excited about that.

JEFF MAGGERT: No. He was in shock, I think.

JEFF MAGGERT: I have been fortunate in Match Play tournaments, I have. I won a Diners Club matches with Jim McGovern. I have won Diners Club matches with Steve Elkington and I have had some success in the Ryder Cup and The Presidents Cup, so, if captain Ben is out there listening, you know, I expect to make the team on point, but if for some reason I come up short, I want to play Ben, put me in, coach.

JEFF MAGGERT: Fortunately, the most disappointing losses came early and those are the ones that you shoot a bad round the last day. Actually my rookie year on Tour the tournament in Houston had got rained out and they rescheduled it for October. I was leading the tournament by, I don't know, two or three shots maybe going into the last day. I shot like 79 or 80 the last day. That one probably sticks out more than any even though you can say, well, he was a rookie and he is going to have to experience that once or twice. But, still, that one upsets me more than anything. It was on my home course, and I don't care if it was a PGA TOUR or not, I don't like shooting 80; especially on my home course. That one upset me. I got my first win a couple years later in 1993 and I just thought I'd eventually just kind of get on a roll and start winning a few tournaments. But it was a struggle. They always say the second one is tough, but this was a tough one.

JEFF MAGGERT: Not really. I think the good thing about my personality is as many times as I have had finished second, I know that life is too short and golf is too tough to let that affect you. If I am worrying about that out here while I am trying to win golf tournaments, it's certainly not going to be good for me. A lot of people like to bring those past experiences up when I get in a position to win a tournament, but I try to ignore it because, you know, it doesn't do me any good to dwell on the past.