WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 26, 2003

Kevin Sutherland

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Kevin Sutherland, thank you for joining us. Coming back as a defending champion, you must have been a little discouraged through the first 12 holes or so, you were 3-down, but came back to take the match. That had to be a great feeling.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah, I played really poor on the front. I think I made maybe one or maybe two pars. I was hitting it all over the place. But I just kind of -- for whatever reason, I made a nice birdie on -- I keep saying 4 -- but 13. And then I made a nice up-and-down on 5. Sergio made a bogey, and kind of helped me get back into the match a little bit there. I made a nice birdie on the next hole. Then he 3-putted, and all of a sudden I was 1-up. And four holes to go. I was kind of thinking, unless I get going here, I'm going to be going home here pretty soon.

It just -- match play is a funny thing. You get some momentum, and I definitely got it and I was kind of riding it pretty well. I made a nice birdie on the last hole. And that hole is much tougher than it was last year. And momentum is a funny thing. You just kind of get it and you can ride it. Sergio seemed like he was kind of struggling a little bit. And I was able to come back and win.

Q. Would you go through -- you were down three?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Yeah. I was 3-down with 6 to play.

Q. Could you go through how your -- your positive holes after that?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I hit a 3-wood off of 13, hit a wedge, and even at that point I'm thinking -- I had about a 15-footer, and I felt like if I'm going to have any chance really at all, I need pretty much to make this putt, and I did. And then I hit a really nice drive on the next hole. And Sergio hit a good drive. He hit first. I was kind of thinking, I need to be pretty aggressive with it.

The pin was back left and I figured Sergio, being 2-up at the time, was probably looking for more like the middle of the green. And he hit kind of a pull hook left of the path. And unfortunately, now I'm thinking I'm going to try to hit it in the middle of the green. I hit a pull hook, and I hit it left and long, which was just a terrible shot under the situation, being I'm 2-down. I'm thinking, I can't give him back any holes that he wants to give me. So I made a nice up-and-down, though, and got that hole with a par.

And I kind of reflected back on last year. I was 2-down to Duval last year with two to play. I'm 2-down with four to play, and, hey, I've still got a chance here, I'm not out of this thing yet -- actually, I'm 1-down -- 1-down with four to play. So I've got a good chance here, if I can play some solid holes. And lo and behold, I birdied two of the last three, and he 3-putted that par-3, and all of a sudden I was leading and winning or whatever.

Q. Were they big putts?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Well, I made about a 4-footer for par on that -- was it 14? And I was just off on the fringe, probably close to 20 feet from the hole. And I probably -- that's probably the best putt I hit all day. It felt good when I hit it. I had been struggling. I missed a two-and-a-half footer on one hole. I was really putting poorly on the front. I missed a lot of short putts, so I was a little discouraged about how I was putting the ball. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere I kind of caught fire with the putter, and rolled in some nice putts. I got up-and-down on the bunker the next hole, par-3, went over the water, 16. After he knocked it by 15 feet, I knocked it by about 3 feet. And the last hole, I hit a good driver and 6-iron to 5, 6 feet and I hit another good putt there.

Q. So the one on 15 brought you even, then?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: That brought me even. And obviously, that was -- anytime that you're down and you're running out of holes, that was a critical putt. And again, it kind of got the momentum going my way again. I got it and kind of started rolling. And it's just crazy the way sometimes things can get rolling in one direction.

Q. Your tee shot on 16, did you miss that a little bit or did you not have enough club? Looked like it was never getting to the green.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I hit a 7-iron. It's 183 yards. Obviously it was a good 7-iron for me to get it there. I didn't quite catch it solid. But I was sure rooting for it to get up. I didn't hit it terrible. I think if I hit it really solid it probably would have gotten close to the front of the green. I'm not sure how much more I could have gotten out of it. It felt like it was the right club when I was picking it, maybe it wasn't. I don't know.

Q. Was there just one area of your swing that wasn't going right today?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Well, early in the round I was driving the ball really poorly. It was kind of like last year, the last match. I was all over the place. And I actually -- I had a chip out on the first hole, and then -- but I made two birdies in a row. So I lost the first hole. How many holes did we tie today? Not very many. I won one -- he won -- after the first 7 holes we had one tie. There wasn't a whole lot of halving going on. On the backside, we didn't tie on the whole backside.

Q. The conditions are tougher, the rough is rougher, and the wind -- if it keeps -- is this the type of thing that doesn't mean anything in match play or do you think it will favor certain players if it keeps up like this?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: Well, it's definitely a lot tougher. I think last year you didn't have to necessarily be playing your best from tee-to-green. And you could still win matches. I think in any individual match I think anything can happen. Both guys can be having a bad day, and you can maybe still win. But I think over the long haul, I think if you're not playing your best, not driving the ball in the fairway, I think you're probably going to struggle in the long haul. You just can't play out of the rough.

There are some lies -- I know Sergio had a lie today on the 11th hole that he hit maybe 30, 40 yards, and I had a lie on the 7th hole that I tried to hit with an 8-iron that I hit literally 20 feet. And you can get some good ones, but there's a lot of really bad lies out there.

Q. Playing out of the rough last year, obviously you had a lot of success on Sunday. It's a lot harder out of the rough this time?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: It's much different, yeah. I hadn't really had a chance to play the whole course, I only played seven holes yesterday. There seems to be some spots, like on the 18th hole to the right, the rough -- the 9th hole. But all in all, the rough is much more difficult than it was last year. You just -- it's so wet and it's much longer. It's very thick. If you're in the rough -- and the holes are longer now, too. So instead of having 140 yards out of the rough, you're having like maybe 170 out of the rough. And instead of being able to get to the green, you're going to come up 30, 40 yards short, at best, and I just think that to be able to play this golf course, the way it's playing now you need to be able to drive the ball in the fairway.

Q. What do you say to a guy after coming back to catch him, after the match is over? Do you almost want to apologize?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: To Sergio?

Q. Yes.

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: He said, "Good comeback." And I said, "Thanks." I said, "I had a fun day today." I don't know what to say. It wasn't a whole lot of conversation after the match. He just said, "Nice comeback," and I said, "Thank you." And that was about it.

Q. The momentum that you spoke of several times, the 15-footer you made at 13, did that kind of -- that was kind of the thing that got it all going?

KEVIN SUTHERLAND: I think it kind of got me -- it gave me a little bit of hope. If I had been 3-down with five to play, obviously you're not done, but obviously you're running out of holes. So being 2-down, and all of a sudden you've got a very difficult hole coming up, playing into the wind, playing very long, tough pin, I was thinking I probably needed to make birdie. But it doesn't take a lot for you to make bogey on that hole, and he happened to make bogey. So now I'm only 1-down with four to play. And now I'm right back in it.

So that putt on the 13th hole was obviously a critical putt, because it obviously let me know that I was still in the match, and it kind of let him know that maybe it wasn't quite over yet.

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