THE PRESIDENTS CUP

October 20, 2000

Peter Thomson

PETER THOMSON: I'll give you fancy words to use. I said it was a shocker, shocker meant a horrible day. I told you about 1996 when more or less the same thing happened, it's remarkable that the same thing happened again in the second round.

PETER THOMSON: Well, that's the truth. I can't add much to that.

PETER THOMSON: He assures me he's a hundred percent healthy. And he'll get there, you'll see. By Sunday he'll win a point.

PETER THOMSON: I'm a great admirer of him. Anyone that swings take long, has that beautiful long backswing, he's for me. He's a very talented golfer, and he's got a lot of what we commonly call guts. So I'm glad he's on my team and not the other.

PETER THOMSON: Well, it was light beer (laughter.) Anyway, we encourage everybody really to say what they think and feel. And he couldn't hold back. He had to say something to rally everybody. He wanted to say I don't feel depressed, I don't feel down in the dumps, I feel we're going to win. And if we all play hard and play with our heart in it, and everybody gave him a rousing cheer, and we all this had another beer (laughter.)

PETER THOMSON: The first is the new boys, as you say, Campbell and Goosen are obviously pretty talented players. Campbell has been winning quite a bit on the European Tour lately. Goosen is always there and roundabout. You can see the quality of his game. I think he's going to win a big one some day soon. So that's a fresh infusion of new players on our team, which is very healthy for the future. I was thinking last night or the night before, that by the time this event is played again in two years' time, we'll have a different looking team. And very likely we may have a Chinese -- a golfer from China, and we could easily have a golfer from India. So it's beginning to take on a more cosmopolitan look than it started off with. There may be only one Australian, you never know.

PETER THOMSON: No, none whatever. As it's worked out, those two big guns, as I call them, they've had the hard matches, although they haven't won the points. It's very important that they -- they take on the hard games. And that's what they've done. I feel that they've pulled their weight, and they've done the team a lot of good.

PETER THOMSON: My feelings are that there's a long way to go. I'm grateful for that. This afternoon is a worry. If we get through this foursome stuff with the situation as it is now I'll be very happy.

PETER THOMSON: Well, it doesn't worry me personally, although I was never one to take the time. I think there's too much conferring that goes on. I don't think all that is necessary. But I'd like to see it quicker.

PETER THOMSON: I'm sorry, I forgot to answer that. Two questions are too much for me. I think Greg -- I may have mentioned it yesterday, he needs play. He needs to get back into play serious tournament golf, which this is. Playing half a game, like a foursome's match wasn't enough. This morning was pretty important for him to play his own ball and show everybody that he's as good as he ever was. So that's what he did.

PETER THOMSON: My impressions are it's been very fair. We discussed this in team and we expected, of course, that there's a louder clap for a U.S. team good shot than our good shot, but it's pretty clear that our good shots get applauded as well. So that's how we want it. We hope it stays that way. And I'm sure it will. It's a good start. We don't want crowds to really behave themselves, but we want to enjoy it as a golf spectacle, meaning a good shot coming from where it comes from, should get a bit of a cheer.

PETER THOMSON: Not that I've heard of, no, no complaints.

PETER THOMSON: No, we did not. Greg and I and everybody else discussed it last evening and it was resolved that he would have a rest this afternoon.

PETER THOMSON: He's been very lucky, he's had good partners (laughter.)