WGC EMC WORLD CUP

December 13, 2002

Paul Casey

Justin Rose

RODDY WILLIAMS: Justin, Paul very well played. Great day, you seemed to enjoy it and finished off nicely at the end. Maybe sum up your day for us.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, the day was exciting, really. And to finish off like that was the icing on the cake, really. It was a tricky shot where you didn't have a lot of control over the ball. I just tried to land it in the front half of the green and let it release to the pin. There's always a certain element of luck for it to roll to a couple of inches, but I'm sure Paul enjoyed tapping in a couple of inches.

PAUL CASEY: I'm good at that length. (Laughs).

RODDY WILLIAMS: You've obviously proved you're a good foursomes partnership today.

PAUL CASEY: Yeah, I think that we are a fairly even team. I think we complement each other's games nicely. We have definitely picked the correct way to play this golf course, by Justin taking the odds and myself taking the evens.

You know, even with a couple of bogeys in there early on, we've had a lot of offense, shall we say. I think it just proves how disappointing yesterday was and I think we can do a lot better in our four-ball tomorrow and take it from there.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Obviously right back in it.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, definitely. Yesterday we got off to a pretty good start but then lost our momentum on the back nine. Today we stayed very patient after a bit of an up-and-down start, really. We were level through six, so I think we did really well to stay patient, stay positive and trust that the birdies would come. That was the key today.

Q. You mentioned putting problems yesterday and then you missed about a 3-footer on the second. So presumably you needed to tell yourself to forget it?

PAUL CASEY: That was my fault because I should have made it.

JUSTIN ROSE: The thing with foursomes, especially on the greens, the way we've played it, it was Paul was going to do most of the putting today -- okay, early on, I missed a short one, which is not great. But the difficulty of foursomes is you can go five or six holes without really having to make a putt.

That's no excuse for the second green, but that is one of the tough things about foursomes is keeping your rhythm going. I think obviously we did that very well today, to shoot a good score.

Q. You mentioned this is the correct way to play the course, why is it the correct way, to split the odds and evens that way, the way did you?

PAUL CASEY: Together we felt like Justin's iron game was better this week than mine. Maybe better in general. (Laughter.) And obviously all of the par 3s are odd-numbered holes.

JUSTIN ROSE: And Paul is hitting like an animal off the tee. And that kind of works well because he was driving on Paul all of the par 5s.

PAUL CASEY: And I felt like I was putting well. I don't know how many holes I actually played into the green. If I did it correctly, I would have only played it about five holes; three on the front and a couple on the back.

So I thought my strength was off the tee this week and his strength was the irons. So take it from there.

Q. How did you match up with Mickelson driving?

PAUL CASEY: I tried not to turn into a long drive contest. I hit a bad tee shot on ten which I got away with. But I did get him by 43 paces on the 14th.

JUSTIN ROSE: But he wasn't counting or anything. (Laughter.)

PAUL CASEY: He said he missed it. (Laughter.)

Q. Did you ask him why he was so late on the tee?

PAUL CASEY: Trying to make a grand entrance, I think. I didn't ask him.

Q. Didn't find out?

JUSTIN ROSE: I'm not sure what the rules are. I guess David was going to hit the first tee shot. So I don't know if Phil was even required to be there for that, I'm not sure.

Q. Anything different tomorrow about the way you attack the four-balls?

JUSTIN ROSE: The four-ball, you know that you really have to make a lot of birdies. The key for us tomorrow and I think Paul will agree is that we both need to get our ball in play more consistently. Yesterday I was out of a few holes and that puts pressure on the either guy; and when he's on the greens from 15 feet, he feels like he's wanting to make the putt, but he's also mindful of not making a mistake. So if you've got two guys on the green with two birdies chances, that makes it a lot easier and that will be our strategy tomorrow.

Q. These first two rounds, was that your play or do you expect to get better?

PAUL CASEY: It was pretty good today, but obviously two bogeys today, it can be better. Yesterday definitely could have been better. What we can shoot, I don't know. I'm not going to state a number. I mean, do you have any comment on that?

JUSTIN ROSE: Not really. But we've got it the wrong way around, really. We've shot a low are score in foursomes than four-ball which is sort of a bit topsy-turvy. But today the course was there for the taking, no wind.

Just at the end of the day, four-ball better balls is the format where you feel like you can shoot really low, and I think to kind of keep pace with the field, you've got to shoot at least 10-under to keep some sort of pace with the field.

PAUL CASEY: I think there is a tendency for the tournament to set the pins maybe tougher on the four-ball/better-ball day because you've got four guys going at pins and they know we are going to be aggressive. So maybe the course was a shot easier today than it was yesterday. But that's only speculation. Who knows.

Q. Which team is the most impressive for both of you?

JUSTIN ROSE: I thought before the tournament started the Argentinians -- when I first saw the course I thought the Argentina would be the team to beat. I'm not sure how they are going; they may still be. They are both very, very long hitters and they have both been playing well all year and they got on very well, similar games and I thought they would be a tough team to beat.

PAUL CASEY: Tough question. I don't know. You've got to look at the Americans with where they are in the World Rankings. I still that we are a good team to beat. If we play well, then we are the team to beat.

Q. Do you have any comments on the ridiculous performance of the Mexican team, their performance on this tournament? They are in last place.

PAUL CASEY: I don't think that's fair to say it's a ridiculous performance.

JUSTIN ROSE: No, there's a lot of pressure sometimes when it's in your home country to perform.

PAUL CASEY: I agree. I've met Esteban a couple of times. I don't know his playing partner. But I think there is a lot of pressure on them this week so I think that is fairly unfair.

Q. Yesterday you started slowly and then today you did so well, why the difference between yesterday and today?

JUSTIN ROSE: I think today we kind of realized that we needed to play well to get back into the tournament. We were quite a few shots out -- well, I don't know where we were aligned but we were behind a lot of teams and I think today we realized how important it was to get out and shoot a good score. So possibly we were just a little bit more focused today.

PAUL CASEY: I reiterate that.

Q. What are the pros and cons of having a friends as a caddie?

PAUL CASEY: Cheap. (Laughter.)

Q. Is it just the one-off?

PAUL CASEY: It is the one-off, yeah. I have a regular caddie sorted for next year. The guy, his name is Ben Harrison. He's worked for me before. So it's not completely new. But he's done very well this week.

Q. Did you both feel like you might do better in foursomes, given that it's less of a putting contest than four-balls?

JUSTIN ROSE: Well, I think we did fancy -- I think we were really, really pleased with our strategy. I think the course suits us very well the way we are playing it, me on the odds and Paul on the evens. I think that really suits our games. So that was encouraging.

And also, I think we are a team of two strong players, where possibly there are other teams that are obviously more one-sided. We both trust each other to basically play the balls anyway around. I believe the guy is going to pull off a good shot.

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