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WGC DELL MATCH PLAY


March 23, 2016


Jason Dufner


Austin, Texas

CHRIS REIMER: Start here with Jason Dufner. First round victory over Rickie Fowler. He mentioned, in his pretournament interview, it's sometimes more fun to beat your friends than beat folks you don't know because you have bragging rights. Is that the case?

JASON DUFNER: I just want to beat everybody this week, that would be fine. Yeah, me and Rickie have become pretty good friends. Makes it a little bit tougher, but also a little bit more comfortable out there. It was pretty relaxed. I think we both enjoyed being out there competing against each other. In most cases somebody is going to win, something is going to lose in this format, I guess we have draws this year. So I'm happy to be moving on and see who comes up next tomorrow.

CHRIS REIMER: What's the first kind of thoughts this week on this golf course? How does it fit your eye?

JASON DUFNER: It's a good golf course. I think it fits the way I play pretty well. It's tough right now with the winds. We haven't played the golf course, obviously, too many times. Kind of making some decisions out there.

There are some par-4s that maybe you can get pretty close to driving, depending on wind condition. The 12th hole, which is a par 5, is kind of a little bit tricky with the wind being so much downwind and where you want to place it there.

Then the next hole, 13, obviously, with driver in play at times.

I think everybody is kind of feeling it out. I thought it was pretty difficult to putt today. The greens have a lot of tilt, a lot of speed and then you throw the wind into it. And also new greens for us. We get pretty familiar with the breaks and we play a lot of the same hole locations. I think everybody is kind of feeling out how it's going to be this week.

It's really important in this format, especially in the group format, to get a win the first day. Really low percentage chance of moving on if you lose that first match, unfortunately.

Q. You work with Chuck Cook, he's at Barton Creek.
JASON DUFNER: He's at UT Golf Club.

Q. You've been down in this area?
JASON DUFNER: I've spent a lot of time in Austin. Played this fall out here with Tom Kite and Chuck one day in the afternoon. It was not conditions like this. It was wet and north wind, which I think we might get tomorrow.

So that might be an advantage for me tomorrow, if the wind turns and comes out of the north. I've seen this golf course and kind of know what to do. I spent most of my time at UT Golf Club, a little bit at Barton Creek, but not much out here.

Q. You talked about the format, are you a fan of the new format or are you okay with the way it was?
JASON DUFNER: Yeah, I kind of like the old format, to be honest with you. I think the percentages of moving on after a first day loss is pretty low, might be around 20 percent. So even if you lose the first match, you're kind of stuck out here playing, and there were a lot of matches last year where guys were kind of playing not for much. And we had some actually heated exchanges because of that.

I like the old format, but I get what they're trying to do to make Dell and the people of Austin happy with having guys around. It would be pretty disappointing. Like today, Rickie, big crowd favorite, huge for the tournament, and he could have been out for the first round. But personally I do like the old format.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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