THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

June 15, 2022

Mark Power

Quick Quotes

Q. How are you feeling?

MARK POWER: Feeling really good, actually. I just -- God, it was a really tough match and the way it finished was a bit wild because we played such good golf all day. I think we both had six birdies and only dropped one or two shots each.

So it was a little scrappy towards the end but to hit that shot close on 18 to get the win was huge.

Q. Can you talk us through 18 and what happened there because it looked at one point maybe you were going to have to take a drop?

MARK POWER: Yeah, so I struggled with my tee shots just toward the end. I played great all round but just towards the end I couldn't quite hit the fairway and I hit it right on 18 and it was right on the edge of bush. I didn't think I would be able to hit it but I had no really other option. I couldn't really drop because I was in the hay. I said I would take a swipe at it, and luckily it came out perfect into the middle of the fairway and left myself a perfect number of 90 yards. Thankfully hit that to a foot to get the win.

Q. Is it fun when you guys are out there going head-to-head and you are both making so many birdies?

MARK POWER: It was. We are both almost feeding off each other. I started to make some huge putts and Jack would hole out for me. We were kind of just laughing about it because sometimes matches can get tense and just a little bit uneasy.

But we were both feeding off each other. We were laughing, smiling. We just knew whoever was going to win deserved to win. It was just a really fun game. One of the best games I've had ever, really.

Q. And you had a nice crowd following you as well?

MARK POWER: Yeah, there was some local people over. My girlfriend came over this morning, and there's a good crew of Aussies, and Jack had plenty of support on his side as well. Was nice. Some locals came out and watched and I think they appreciated good golf.

Q. You've been in good form, Wake Forest winning recently. How has the season been?

MARK POWER: Yeah, it's been good. Personally I started to play a lot better towards the end of the year. We won the Conference Championship and Regional Championship at Wake Forest so we all started to play real nice towards the end of the year.

It gave me a little bit of confidence coming into this tournament because I had a good run two years ago to get to the semifinals. So it was a little confidence boost and made me feel like I had some good thoughts going into this week.

Q. Clearly still a lot of golf to play, and you're a very experienced match player. Do you start to dream of what could be?

MARK POWER: Yeah, I mean, big thing for me this week was mainly trying to stay out of my own way and stay in the present because I do have an active mind and I can get carried away sometimes, and it maybe has held me back in the past.

So I'm just trying to take everything as it comes but I was just telling someone there, the first match is always the hardest one. That was a really tough game. Hopefully I can get a couple more easy wins. But well, I'm going to have to play some good golf, and so I'm just going to stay focused on tomorrow's match and see what happens.