The Official Site of Hunter Mahan

Wed, Sep 24th 2008, 17:17

Hunter Mahan TOUR Championship Interview

CHRIS REIMER: I want to thank Hunter for joining us here in the media center. Obviously a good season capped off by a great week last week. Just talk about the road here, and then also what it was like last week.

HUNTER MAHAN: The road here. Um, I played pretty good. Played all right most of the year. The FedEx format actually made it interesting to get here, trying to look at the points and everything, trying to figure out how to get here.

I didn’t play exceptional, but I had moments of really good golf, and then I played pretty good in St. Louis. Game is definitely in pretty good order, and I’m excited to be here.

CHRIS REIMER: And then carried that through to last week, too.

HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, last week was some kind of experience. It was great. It was amazing being in that circumstance and those surroundings, and to play like we did was great to see. Finally got the Cup back, which was the most important thing.

Q. I think there’s nine or ten of you from the U.S. Team here. Do you sense any difficulty in sort of getting back up again this week after how grueling last week is and the celebration, I’m sure, and now kind of having to go back at it again?

HUNTER MAHAN: It is different. I mean, it’s weird kind of going through that and then having to come to such a big event like this. I mean, it is what it is. We get a couple days to kind of fall back down to earth and just get back to the grind a little bit, so it should be good.

I mean, it’s a great field, good golf course, great tournament we’re playing for. I don’t know, it may take a round or two to actually get back into the flow of playing tournament golf again.

Q. Not to try to belabor this point, but could you sort of recap your thoughts and feelings and what you thought the Ryder Cup was going to be beforehand and then what it ultimately ended up being? I think Johnny Miller said on the air maybe it would be better to take a bite of the sandwich before you talk about the sandwich first, because it was sort of the event of a lifetime for you and it blew up all your preconceived notions.

HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, for sure. You watch it on TV and you see kind of what goes on and how exciting it is and the pressure and stuff that guys feel, and you can see it in their faces. You can see it in the way they play sometimes.

Obviously it’s a long, hard week. It really is. You get there Tuesday — actually you get there Monday and you don’t play until Friday, so you’re in it for a long time. I mean, you go play the course quite a few times. You’re just out there a lot.

It’s a little different from any other week you have, ever, really. I mean, it is pretty grueling. But once Friday comes around, I mean, you are so excited you can’t wait to get out on the course.

For me, I played five matches, so I played 36, then 36, then 18. So that was difficult. It really was, because you were emotionally charged. You’re trying to stay pretty calm until something good happened, and then you’re trying to be positive and you’re trying to get the crowd involved, engage the crowd, as Azinger would say.

But he was an exceptional captain. I don’t have any experience with other captains (laughter), but he was — I don’t know how he could have been better. I really don’t. He took all the pressure off of us and just let us go out there and play and put us in good situations with our partners and just let us go out there and be us and just play golf and just play to win the Ryder Cup. That’s it.

Q. Chad and Anthony both said that it’s much easier to be loose and have fun the way you guys were when you have a lead. Could you talk about that?

HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, I think we took the underdog role and reveled in it. Guys like Boo and Anthony, we were there to win, but we were there to win by a lot, if we could. I thought we really outplayed them in the team competition. I thought we really could have had a big lead going into Sunday.

If we could have played 18 a little bit better — I didn’t play 18 that well. Some other guys had chances. It just didn’t work out for us. But I thought we played really well. And to know that we were playing that well — and we just really engaged the whole situation, the crowd.

We felt the pressure, but we didn’t make it a bad thing. We made it a good thing because we were close to winning the Cup, and that’s why we were there. We definitely rode with the people and the excitement of trying to win the Cup, and it was great.

I never felt like — until I got done playing and trying to watch guys, I never felt like there was nervous pressure, it was always excited pressure.

Q. You mentioned earlier that having watched on TV the event, you obviously had preconceived ideas of the Ryder Cup. What was the toughest thing for you to handle last week? And if there was one thing that Zinger said to you that you will carry forward, what would that be?

HUNTER MAHAN: The toughest thing is probably getting there so early and waiting until Friday to play. I was talking to Phil, and he usually gets to tournaments Tuesday night, plays Wednesday, and then tees it up. He was there Monday, had to play Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then play on Friday. It’s just really different, and you can’t overplay it.

You want to get to know the greens really well because putting is everything in that thing, but you can’t overdo it. You can’t work so hard and then be dead on Saturday morning. You know, you’ve got to be ready on Friday so you have something left in the singles.

What Azinger said, I mean, so many things he said. I think he made it — he just made it feel like it was just going to be a great week. He engaged the crowd, and he said that all the time. Just engage the crowd, because I think he knew that would almost relax us. It would make us realize where we are and make us realize that all these people want to see us succeed.

They were truly for us and with us on every shot. Playing with Justin helped a lot. I think, for me, I think what Azinger’s message was, just be yourself all week. Don’t try to be anything else, because our good golf, the way we played, was good enough. We did not have to try to be anybody else or try to raise our game to some extraordinary level, because we were good enough to win that thing.

Q. Speaking of be yourself, who was the guy celebrating on the 17th green on Sunday? Have you seen the video of that?

HUNTER MAHAN: I have. I have seen it.

Q. Some good moves. I don’t know who that guy was.

HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah, I have seen video. If you ever watch me play Madden ’08 or ’09, you would have seen that guy, too. It’s definitely in me. When you go out and play golf four days — I’m trying my best to conserve every amount of energy I have so Sunday on the back nine I’ve got a lot left.

But that’s definitely inside of me, and I think it’s — personally I was waiting for a moment like that. Anybody who plays golf wants to be in that Ryder Cup situation where you have a huge moment like that.

Q. Like Stricker.

HUNTER MAHAN: Yeah. Like you watch Striker and Jimmy Furyk really comes out of his shell, I think, that week. Even Phil. You see Phil celebrating and getting excited. I mean, it was — it’s just a week that is different from every other week. It really is.

I think everybody acts, I don’t want to say differently, but brings a side of them that they usually don’t bring out.

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