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PGA CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 13, 2010Matt KucharKOHLER, WISCONSIN KELLY ELBIN: Matt Kuchar, ladies and gentlemen, the leader by two strokes in the second round of the 92nd PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. Matt shot 3-under par 69 today for a 136 total 8-under par. Matt, again, a good solid round, just some comments on your play today and perhaps comparing it to how you played yesterday. MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, thank you. I'm very pleased with the way I'm playing. It's been a great year. I had a strong week last week and continued on with a good start to this week. Not too much trouble to report in two rounds. Just putting well and staying out of trouble, so I find myself at 8-under par. KELLY ELBIN: For the record, Matt has hit 23 of 28 fairways and only 52 putts for the two rounds. You had a stretch of three birdies in a row, 11, 12, 13. Could you talk about that in terms of clubs you hit in there and distances on the putts. MATT KUCHAR: Those were the downwind holes. Made the turn at 10, 11, 12, 13 and knew that those were the holes, if I was going to take advantage, anyway, that those were going to be them. I hit a close one on 10, just left a putt right on the lip short. And 11, the par 5, I knocked it just over the green in two. Hit a nice chip up to two feet and made the putt. 12 is a par 3. It was playing I think 150 yards today, straight downwind, downhill. Hit a 52-degree wedge about as hard as I could just about pin-high to eight feet. Made that putt. And then on 13, hit 3-wood down to I think 105 yards from the hole and again, straight downhill, downwind. Hit 60-degree wedge as hard as I could and it nearly went in, kind of like yesterday's. Came very close to making two 2s on that hole which would have been fun, but that ball ended up stopping I think five feet short of the hole. Q. You probably have answered this during the year because you've had such a good year, but going back, you were obviously a fine, fine amateur, had the great Masters, and everybody touted you, great pro career. What happened along the way? You've won a couple of tournaments, but you went to the Nationwide; could you explain what happened? MATT KUCHAR: I think it's golf. I think that's what happens. There aren't many people here that play this game that don't have up-and-downs. I think every one of you guys, if you play golf, one day have it, one day don't. We're not a whole lot different. We're a little more consistent, but the same things happen to us. I went through some stretches of not having it, but have kind of dug my way back out, and I think a lot of credit is due to Chris O'Connell. I've been working with Chris O'Connell since 2006. He's my instructor. Since working with him in 2006, every year has gotten better. As a golfer we hope to improve on the year before and we've done that every year, this year being my best year-to-date. Q. You had such success as an amateur and out of Georgia Tech, and then when things started to go back, was it like a shock to you or depressing or did you never have to fight your way back before? MATT KUCHAR: No, I think in sport, that's what you do. You find yourself in holes, whether you're playing tennis and you're down two breaks and you have to dig back; golf is the same. It was very similar. I had experiences in college where I played great golf and I remember my junior year, it was a difficult year for me. I didn't play great my junior year, and then rebounded with a good senior year, turned pro, earned my card and a sponsor exemption straightaway my first year, and in those seven events, earned enough money to keep my way on Tour for 2002 and then had a win straightaway in 2002, and then kind of another dip down. Since 2006, it's been a steady climb back up. KELLY ELBIN: For the record this year Matt has eight Top-10 finishes on the PGA TOUR, including a tie for six at the U.S. Open. Q. For the record, it's more like one day on, nine days off for us. MATT KUCHAR: As long as you get one day on. Q. We are really kind of savoring the moment on the good days. It's interesting that Molder is up there kind of close to you, because you guys were both ten feet tall and bullet proof coming out -- at certain stages in college, you after your first two years and him four-time first team All-American. He remarked outside that a lot of people might have thought that you guys would be up there in a position like this a little bit earlier, long before. Would you talk about how no journey is assured no matter how good you are coming out of school with those laurels? MATT KUCHAR: I think that's the beauty of the sport of golf. There's no guaranteed contract. You have to perform. And it's a tough game. I think most people would have expected the two of us to be doing this earlier on in our career. But I remember talking to some guys when I was fresh on TOUR, talking to them about a ten-year learning curve out here. It didn't make much sense. I went out and had a win straightaway in 2002 and thought it would be smooth sailing, and yet here I am ten years into it and I feel like just now, maybe there is something to this ten-year learning curve. I can't tell you what it is; I can't tell you what the difference is. I don't know if it's comfort level. It's kind of one of those unspoken things that I'm really not sure how to describe it to people, other than maybe there really is a ten-year learning curve. Q. Last week, you were telling us that there's no dirt on you and that you have the most boring life imaginable. MATT KUCHAR: It's not boring. It's just not dirt. (Laughter). Q. And then secondly, let's look at -- obviously you've had -- I actually counted nine Top-10s, but eight or nine, and a second and two thirds. How important is the next step now that you've been playing so well to get to -- I know you had a chance on Sunday and Hunter had a great round. How important is it to get to the next step and win one? MATT KUCHAR: I've thought and talked to people about that, and it seems like now, the position I've put myself in this year, the logical next step would be to win. And thought about, all right, going into a tournament week, the thought process should be to win. Yet, I ask the question: What did you do -- or how do you think, if you don't win? Because that's a very likely scenario. Now, do you leave disappointed if you don't win? And we came to the conclusion that probably the best way to approach it would be -- the goal for the week is to put yourself in contention on Sunday. To win, there's definitely an element of luck involved in winning. You just can't control everything out there. So we came to the conclusion that I think the best way to approach a week is to give yourself a chance Sunday, and if fate is on your side, you find yourself in the winner's circle. Q. I talked to Coach Heppler and he was saying that maybe this environment out here forced you and Bryce kind of to look at yourself for a while and that maybe now you're finally comfortable with who you are and how you play out here; do you feel that that's part of the development and that's what brought you to this point? MATT KUCHAR: I think there's certainly a maturing process. I would have told you hands down, Bryce would have dominated out here straightaway. I thought Bryce had no chinks in the armor. I thought out of school, he was hands-down the best player in college golf. I thought, there was a guy that's going straight to the big leagues and going to do well out here. It's just a funny game (laughing). You know, there are a lot of great lessons I took from my time at Georgia Tech. Coach Heppler was a very influential man my career and certainly helped me get to this point. He knows a lot about the two of our personalities in our games, and I think sometimes paying the price and having to dig yourself out of things makes you a better person, a bigger person, and hopefully more prepared to go out and do well in events like this. Q. As you recall, kind of one of the headlines you made at the Masters this year, was just being paired with Tiger in those first two rounds. Wonder if you can think back to that point in the season, if you could see something like this coming, the season that you had, and also, just being in contention in a major. MATT KUCHAR: I had a nice West Coast up to that point. Played real well at Kapalua. Nearly won Bob Hope. Things were going well for me. I was looking forward to doing some good things and there were certain times where I felt like I was going to play great every week. And unfortunately, that doesn't last forever, but I've had a great season. It feels like I've played well nearly every week. So this is certainly a great place to be, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to really do something great this weekend. Q. You played the first two rounds here with two guys who really struggled, two-parter, did their struggles distract you in any way? And secondly, just curious if you spoke to Monty much about The Ryder Cup and what Ryder Cups in Europe are like? MATT KUCHAR: I had a conversation last week about feeding off of other players, whether it's good or bad. It seems like there should be a study done with all of the data that goes into golf and sport, that you see guys -- where two guys play well and just keep on pushing themselves and the round gets lower and lower with the two guys. And then you see similar with two guys going bad, kind of like Ernie and I last Sunday; neither one of us played well. I don't know if there is anything to feeding off good or bad. Today, really, the first two rounds out here, I played with guys that struggled, but I didn't see it affect me. I felt like stayed in the zone and played some good golf. As far as talking with Colin about The Ryder Cup, we had a number of conversations. Colin was easy to play with. I wasn't sure what to expect. I don't recall playing with Colin before. It may have been my first or second -- I may have played years ago with him but don't recall. He was easy to play with, chatty. Had a good time with Colin, and I had a number of Ryder Cup questions for him and kind of discussions. Just how it works as far as, I know The PGA of America runs our side of The Ryder Cup, and he said their side is run by I think 60 percent The European Tour, 20 percent their PGA and I forget the other 20 percent. But it's just split a little differently there. Their captain's picks are chosen differently. It sounded kind of like our NFL draft; it seems like at the last day it comes and he has to make three picks almost instantaneously once that final tournament is over. So it seems like the format is a little different as far as how their players are chosen with the picks and with the points, as well. Q. Can you describe what happened on No. 6, and how do you put a hole like that behind you and not let it kind of take the rest of the round down? MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, it was a new tee and a completely new look. We had a good target off the tee, and when I was looking in my yardage book, the fairway all slopes left-to-right and it seemed like if you could get it in the left side, chasing down, either pin-high or just past pin-high, you would have a great chip back at the green. It looked like if you flirted at all with right, there was kind of some deep bunkers there and the pin was in a tough position to try to get up-and-down from anything short right. So I pulled my shot a little bit, and I still assumed it was going to be okay. I just, in practice rounds, we always laid up there. There was not an up-tee. We played from the back tees and the wind wasn't blowing like it was. But it quickly slopes down hard-left into a service road and then into the hazard. I was unaware until the marshals started flagging like it might be out-of-bounds that my ball was in some trouble. Q. Were you relieved to get off the golf course before this really bad stuff blew in? And it looks like you hold your finish a long time, especially on drives. Can you talk about that? MATT KUCHAR: It started blowing pretty good. I remember we were on the par 3, I think 7th hole today, and it was whipping 20, 25 miles an hour downwind. Well, what did we have, 215 yards or so? I hit an 8-iron just past pin-high, so it was -- I mean, it was blowing hard. I don't know whether or not it's going to be a whole lot worse this afternoon than that. It was playing tough there for a long stretch of kind of the middle of our round. If it starts pouring down rain, I'm really not sure what this afternoon holds. And then holding the finish, that's not something I'm conscious of. That's just part of the makeup there. There are probably a lot of idiosyncracies that you could pick up that I wouldn't know about. Q. You said sometimes you had to dig yourself out of things and make yourself a better person. Curious if there was any example on your journey where you maybe doubted off you could reel off Top-10s and be up there like there. And what are your enduring memories of the Olympic Club in '98 and that year as an amateur? MATT KUCHAR: No specific memories about digging out of holes. I just know that there are definitely times where golf is frustrating, where you just have a difficult time putting good scores together and good shots together. And I know that -- I think that's one of those things Bruce Heppler was always honest at Georgia Tech, the one thing you can control is your attitude. You can't let the course beat you up out there, if you just continue to have a positive attitude and look forward to trying to find the next shot, even if you hit your drive on No. 6 left in the hazard that you weren't aware of (laughter), try to go ahead and figure out a way to get the next one on the green and get the next putt in the hole. I think if you -- he would preach, if you're dragging your head and you're sulking about the kind of bad bounce and bad break and bad shot you just hit, you're probably not going to hit the next shot very good, either. So I think I've done pretty well with having a good attitude and knowing that, hey, you keep working hard, you keep doing the right things and have a good attitude, hopefully things will turn around. And they have for me. I think just with sport in general, I've been a fan of sport, like I mentioned with tennis, you can kind yourself down in holes pretty quickly. You do your best to dig your way out of a couple of breaks down or whatever sport it may be. You're always going to find yourself in a situation where you have to dig a little deeper. Q. What do you remember about the Olympic Club? MATT KUCHAR: I remember the Olympic Club quite well. I had a great experience and I had an even better finish there that year as an amateur than I did in the Masters that year. It was a fantastic week. I remember thinking the course was one of the hardest courses I ever played. I think the thing I remember most when I finished my round is -- when I finished my rounds at the Masters in '98, I remember being disappointed it was over. I felt like I was walking on clouds. I wanted the days to never end. I remember finishing rounds at Olympic Club wanting to go home and take a nap. (Laughter) I remember just feeling pretty well beaten up. I remember thinking that course was so difficult and demanding that I couldn't wait to get home and lay down. Q. On 17, you guys had to wait and you went and sat behind the TV camera there. Just how exhausted were you from the long day? MATT KUCHAR: Not exhausted. It was just a chance to catch a little rest. It seemed to be a long day, but I was not exhausted. If there's a long wait like that, I'd just as soon find a bench somewhere, whether or not it's the third or fourth hole or whether it's my 20th hole of the day, I would just as soon find a place to go sit and take it easy for a while. Q. Do you consider yourself an old 32 or a young 32? And what I mean by that is with all of the amateur success and the things you've had early on, is it a long time coming for you to be sitting in a room leading a major in Ryder Cup position, all that kind of stuff? MATT KUCHAR: It's going by so fast. I still find myself feeling almost like a rookie. I still feel like I'm the kid from '97 winning the U.S. Amateur and playing in the Masters in '98. I still feel like I'm that same kid. It feels like that is just a blink of an eye ago. It's hard to believe that I have a wife and two kids and kind of a whole different life and perspective on life now, but still feel like a very, very young 32. KELLY ELBIN: Matt Kuchar, the leader at the PGA Championship, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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