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SHELL HOUSTON OPENApril 5, 2014Matt KucharHUMBLE, TEXAS DAVE SENKO: Matt, thanks for joining us. Third straight round in the 60s. 68 today, 15-under for the tournament and 4-shot lead going into tomorrow. Maybe just get us started talk a little bit about your day. Looks like six birdies today and two bogies. Then we'll get some questions. MATT KUCHAR: Another solid round of golf. I think I was 17 of 18 for greens with regulation. Stayed out of trouble. Had a lot of opportunities for birdies. It's a nice position to have played well last week, to have been in the last group with a chance to win and again to come back this week, completely different course and have another shot to win. Sunday is a great place to be. I'm playing some good, steady golf. It was nice to start off with a birdie on the first and got it going. Kind of -- then had a nice run 12 through 14. 12 was just a wedge to a foot. 13 was a par-5, chip shot to 2 feet and 14 was the birdie, 200-yard par-3. That was kind of the unexpected one. Hit a nice 5-iron to 12 feet, made it pretty straight up the hill putt. DAVE SENKO: Questions. Q. Little hiccup on 18. Do you think about that or try the block it out and think about the entire round? MATT KUCHAR: It's a bummer to 3-putt the last one. My speed got a little off there. I kind of had some crazy up and over putts on 17 and 18 and left myself some testers, but all in all putted well. I'm not at all disappointed with the way I putted or the way I played. I'll pretty pleased. Q. Were you disappointed with how last week ended, but given the two-week stretch you have now, how does it set you up and how good do you deal with it? MATT KUCHAR: I'm focused for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to playing a good round of golf. I've been playing some steady golf for a couple years now and feel like my chances of playing well tomorrow are pretty good. Having a 4-shot lead is a great position to be in. Tomorrow I think I just go out and try to turn the 4-shot lead into a 5-shot lead and see if I can keep going. Q. Matt, what lessons do you think that you can take from last week, what you learned and can apply to coming into this week? MATT KUCHAR: I'm not sure a lot of lessons. A comfort level. I played pretty nice last week. Last week was a hard golf course and really hard conditions. Right there, turned at even par and then hit a couple -- had a couple hiccups on 10 and 11. I thought I hit some decent shots that turned out to be a couple bogies. Last week -- other than that, I felt like all in all I was playing some pretty good golf. I'm excited to get right back in the saddle and have a chance in the last group tomorrow. Q. Have you ever had a bigger lead going into the final round? MATT KUCHAR: To my knowledge, I'm not very good about that stuff, but I would guess not. Four shots is as sizeable a lead as I've had. Q. What was your approach on 1 and how big a swing was it to pick up two strokes right there on Sergio? MATT KUCHAR: I see that as being irrelevant on the 37th hole. What my approach shot at 120 yards, the wind was pretty much straight across, left to right, tough little pin and hit -- was able to hit a wedge shot that had some more spin. Kind of a full gap wedge for me. Landed I think right on the front fringe and trickled down to maybe 7, 8 feet. Q. Matt, I think only three top 15 players in the world have won this season. Do you attribute that to, you know, new world of PGA TOUR parity or is there something -- MATT KUCHAR: I think there's a lot of depth in the game of golf. We'll -- we see a great amount of depth now. It's great for the game to see a bunch of fresh faces come out and win. I also think the season is pretty young right now. You'll see some of the top names come through as the season continues. Q. Top-10 finishes the last year, last two years at the Masters. How are you playing now compared to how you went into Augusta last year? MATT KUCHAR: I'm not really familiar with exactly how sharp I was the last couple years. Certainly feel awfully good about where my game is stacking up right now. I had a good couple of runs there the last two years with Top-10s. Had I think maybe a third two years ago. Awfully excited to be close there. I think I eagled the 15th hole to pull tied for the lead momentarily and had a good chance. It's an awfully fun place to be in the hunt late on Sunday. Right now I'm certainly excited about the form I'm on. Q. When you stop off and see Chris O'Connell the weeks you're in Texas, do you have any more contact with him during the week? Do you call him or does he come out and watch? Is your tune-up on Monday or Tuesday good enough? MATT KUCHAR: It's generally, depending on where we are, for -- in Dallas, if I'm playing the Byron Nelson, he's out more of the tournament days. But the last two weeks, it's been a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and he heads back to Dallas. Q. You don't call him or text him or anything? MATT KUCHAR: Not much. Not much. We've got it pretty well sorted and -- Q. Did you talk to him at all this week since your tune-up? MATT KUCHAR: I think he joked about -- text message about, must have been scrambling pretty good the first day, 18 for 18 on greens. He knew he did a pretty good job. Q. How many greens did you miss yesterday? You had 17 or 18 today? MATT KUCHAR: I'm not sure. I probably missed five yesterday. Q. All told, pretty solid three rounds? MATT KUCHAR: Pretty nice ball striking. Q. I'm not trying to put a hex on you or anything, but since 2013 -- (laughter) 26 of the 57 3rd round leaders have gone on to win. This year Rory blew a lead, Adam blew a lead, Bubba blew a lead. What do you attribute the inability to close, I guess, to? MATT KUCHAR: Probably some hard golf courses and hard conditions. Trying to beat the best in the world. It's not an easy thing. You hope to get as big a lead as possible. Q. What's your relationship with Mark Teixeira? Did you guys go to high school -- MATT KUCHAR: College. Q. So if you crossed paths with him, it's not unusual for you to have gone to a ballgame this week and say hello? MATT KUCHAR: No. He came down to the event in Tampa. They were doing spring training. He came down to the Valspar Tampa Championship. Stopped over and said hello. Not unusual if we're in the same area, trying to catch up for a little bit. Q. I'm sure going to a game like that, it was what, that was opening night? MATT KUCHAR: Opening night. Q. Doing that sort of thing probably relaxes you. It's a good idea doing stuff like that. MATT KUCHAR: It's fun for me. I've got two little boys. It's fun to kind of live through them a little bit, see them get excited at -- some of the funny things is that they get so excited to get a baseball and so excited to get autographs on it. They can't wait to just chuck the ball down the stairs. They were just rolling it out of the stadium, throwing it around. I'm thinking you got all these autographs on it. Most people like the keep those as keepsakes. It's a ball to them. They want to play. It's fun to see things through their eyes. I get to feel like I'm still a kid as well. Q. How old are they? MATT KUCHAR: Six and four. Q. Names? MATT KUCHAR: Cameron and Carson. Q. You took them with you, family travels with you as much as possible? MATT KUCHAR: They do. Q. Matt, Weibring sent you to Chris O'Connell? MATT KUCHAR: That's correct. Q. Where would you be right now if he hadn't sent you? MATT KUCHAR: I would not have played on four straight Cup teams. I know that's for sure. I know -- I've become so much more consistent of a golfer due to Chris. There's no telling. I think I have a nice career on the PGA TOUR, but certainly not the career that I've had the last six, seven years since we started working. Q. I guess you're doing the early morning tee times again tomorrow in the threesomes. Seemed to work well for you today. Anything, I guess, to get it in before -- get it in tomorrow, I guess? MATT KUCHAR: It guess it makes sense. From what I understand, the storms are more heavy in the morning. Sounds like that's when the storms are coming. However, don't know what the forecast is. Things do change and we get some more time, you have an opportunity to play. I guess they're doing the right thing. To me it feels like we'll come here and wait around for a lot longer but part of the deal. Q. Matt, what about Monday finish is definitely in order if you don't get finished. What would that do for the Masters if you're playing here on Monday? How do you think you would handle it? MATT KUCHAR: Right now I'm not planning on getting to Augusta till late in the afternoon on Tuesday, so I still make it home for a night. Right now our plan is to go home for Sunday, Monday night. So, it will just be one night if we go home. My schedule for Augusta remains the same. Q. One more follow-up question to your work with Chris. What was different about your game prior to working with Chris? What is the fundamental difference? Consistency? MATT KUCHAR: It's made my swing much more repetitive. I could certainly hit good shots with my old swing, just not as consistently. It's completely -- we tried to make my swing less reliant on timing. I was more reliant on timing. I could hit great shots, but it was due to having good hand/eye coordination and having good timing, being able to deliver the club in a good place, and just tried to eliminate as much need for timing as possible. Q. It's not like your distance has changed with your driver or irons or anything like that? MATT KUCHAR: No. Q. Your ball striking became better. MATT KUCHAR: More consistent. DAVE SENKO: Everyone okay? Thanks, Matt. MATT KUCHAR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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