WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 24, 2021

Jon Rahm

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Jon, can you sort of assess the round, and when you go into match play, are there maybe more nerves starting out than you would have on a normal Thursday morning?

JON RAHM: Not really, no. No different. It's kind of you go on a hole-by-hole basis, right. Sometimes you have to react a bit from what your partner is doing. Assessing my round, we kind of -- I think we were in a bit of a pillow fight the first five holes, nothing good happening, just bogeys, and then I didn't hit any good tee shots really, and then started on 6, finally hit a good one, and I don't think I missed one really at all.

The only one would be 15, and it was maybe five yards right of where I was looking. That really set a good tone.

I was hitting good tee shots, giving myself plenty of chances for birdie. Made the one on 6, made the one on 9 and ended with a 3-up lead on 11 tee, and he turned on the jets. Four straight birdies, the one on 14 from where he was was pretty unbelievable, and well, we came down to basically a four-hole match where I ended up on top.

Q. Can that one swing you said you had on 6 where you started hitting good tee shots, does that change your momentum a little bit?

JON RAHM: Well, I was working on some feel off the tee on the swing, and on the range it works, and then you get to the course and it just wasn't great, so I missed the first two left off the tee, which is highly unlikely for me. I never do.

Once I got to the next tee shot, I said, well, just stop the mechanics, and I hit good shots, it was just on 5 I got unfortunate with how far that 3-wood went, and next time I had a driver, which was 6, same thing, just no thoughts, just go and hit it, period, which is what I've done my whole life, and I hit a perfect tee shot there, and every tee shot after that was really good, as well. It's more about go and play, not hit the golf ball, so I just went and played at the end.

Q. You're an aggressive player by nature and you obviously had a good match play record in your amateur career. Does match play kind of play to your strengths with being aggressive and going out there and playing that way?

JON RAHM: I would say so, yeah, because you can't really let down. Even if you get a 1-up, 2-up lead, you've still got to keep on going hitting the right shots to pressure on your playing partner. And vice versa, if you're a couple down you've got to put pressure, as well, you've got to go ahead. So it kind of fits my playing style a lot, but obviously you've got to pick your spots.

Even though I've got to give a lot of credit to Adam. On 18 I was fully ready to lay up because I didn't think we could get it on the green. Everything has been a little bit softer, just not rolling out quite as much, and he looked at me and said, oh, you can definitely get it there, and that's why I hit driver on 18 and ended up in the perfect spot, which is the bunker. Like I said, pick your spots. Also hit a 3-wood to the green on 16 from about 290. It is what it is.

Q. I think we asked you this early in the week, but was there a point in the match today where something that your opponent did sort of dictated what you did?

JON RAHM: Let me think. Not dictate because I was fortunate to go and tee off first quite a few times. But yeah, he hit driver on 13, and that kind of forced me to hit driver, as well, because he hit it in the fairway in a perfect spot. Not in that case today because he didn't have his best day off the tee, so he was missing them, so my objective was clear. He didn't hit any balls in the hazard, so he was always in play, so it was nothing special. But if he would have hit driver in the water on 13 I would have probably laid up instead of hitting driver. So not today, not really.