|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 17, 2014Robert KarlssonHOYLAKE, ENGLAND MIKE WOODCOCK: I'm delighted to welcome Sweden's Robert Karlsson to the interview room. Robert, 3-under par, 69 today. You must be very pleased with that start. ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, it was a very early morning. It was a nice day to get out early and to play well. Then the R&A had turned the TVs off, so we could get peace and quiet on the course, so it was great (laughing). Q. Are you over all your health problems you had recently? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, no problems. Playing pretty nicely, so it's okay. Q. Is that giving you a new lease on life, in a sense? ROBERT KARLSSON: Well, a lot of people thought it was health problems, 2012. It was health problems, but more in the brain, I think. But there we go. But last year I didn't play good at all and then pretty much had a bit of a team talk with the guys I'm working with in June and kind of -- because it was a very frustrating spring last year. I felt like I didn't have any problems like in 2012, and I still just wasn't playing good enough. And we decided to have a look at old pictures, where I did well in 2008, and kind of use some of those as sort of a benchmark we were trying to do and we went from there. I've been working very hard from June of last year, and things are kind of coming together nicely now, so I'm happy. Q. You must feel this is a really, really solid start today? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, I didn't play fantastic, but the course is out there to make some birdies on. A lot of missed shots, so did some really good recoveries, so a pretty good, solid round of golf. Q. You started the first ball, have you started that early? How did you prepare? ROBERT KARLSSON: I had that question, have I gone off this early before? I don't know. Not on the British Open. I was off early last year, but I think it was 7:10 or something. How you prepare? Well, I didn't want to have the alarm clock before 4:00. Luckily I had my wife here, and she made breakfast in the house, because I didn't want to get here and want to have to eat and get to the range and things like that. I was here probably at 4:45 this morning, warmed up and I went to the range and off we go. Q. Just talking with David Howell, he said although the wind was slight, which was changing all the time. He said a couple of you guys actually underclubbed on occasion? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, it was tricky. That's usually the problem, if it is a problem. When there is little wind it's a bit everywhere. So it went from northeast to southeast, and a bit around and everywhere. So it was a bit tricky. But if you call this tricky, I'll take this tricky. Q. During that frustrating time when you were trying to get your game back, the game you knew you could play, was there a particular moment that you felt it click and you realized it was coming good again? ROBERT KARLSSON: Probably in Mexico, even though I didn't pull it off. In Mexico last year I played really nicely. I was in the last group with Harris English. And even though it fell apart a bit in the end, I felt like I enjoyed it and I played good enough to be there, and I felt comfortable in the situation. So that was a big, big step sort of to get things back together. Q. Is there kind of mental rehabilitation after that? ROBERT KARLSSON: A bit. A bit. If you play bad for a longer period of time, you can always get the swing back, but it takes longer to get the confidence back. It always takes a bit of a hard battering. The body you can always sort of get the swing back decent, but to pull the shots off on the course, and then to do it under pressure and enjoy it as well is, yeah, it takes a bit of time. Q. A few days ago you told me it was here at Royal Liverpool that you learned how to play links. What did you learn then? ROBERT KARLSSON: Well, it was -- I had a bad spell. I finished 5th in The Open in '92, and from '92 to probably here, I don't know if I made any cuts at all or if I missed all of them. Because I put myself under way too much pressure, and played with too small of margins, and you can't do that on links golf. I put myself in trouble and wasn't patient enough. That year, 2006 when I played here, I came in playing pretty well. At the end of the day it's 18 holes and 18 tees, it's got to be conquered four times. I just played it pretty comfortably, and finished 35th, and it felt like for me it was a huge, huge step forward. And I played well the week after that. So it was a good stepping-stone to come here and kind of understand how to do it again. Q. I'm curious first of all, who is your mental coach? Second, could you expand a little bit on the self talk that you kind of used to get through that tough stretch two years ago with the driver? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, I work with Gio Valiante at the moment. In 2012 when I went through it, first of all, I had to do some soul searching for myself if I wanted to keep doing this. And when I decided I wanted to, it was a look back on trying to understand what I did good in 2008, and what I wasn't doing very good now. And it was both in the swing and then now obviously on the mental side. But the mental side comes after. Kind of first I had to see on the range that, yeah, I can hit the ball again. Even 2012 when I was hitting it okay on the range it wasn't the same feeling. I didn't feel it was the same pressure on the ball. I never hit it as solid. I felt like I hit it shorter and a lot more hooky. I don't really hit it hooky when I'm playing good. A lot of things that didn't make sense. When the shots pattern started to make sense a bit more, I was like, yeah, I recognize this. I know how to play from here. You just have to be patient with yourself and be nice to yourself. When I was struggling, keep beating myself up, it takes just longer time. So just have to take every little step forward as a big positive. And then if I'm 270th in the world, it's great to get to 260. Even if I'd like to be at 15, 10 or 5, but I'm not. If you're 270 in the world, you have to get to 250 first and kind of build from there. You can't compare to the guys playing in the Ryder Cup or winning the Order of Merits, because I'm not there at the moment. I just have to see where I am. It's been sort of a big -- step by step. Q. Was there an element of playing almost before The Open Championship had started? ROBERT KARLSSON: What do you mean? Q. Did you feel with most of the crowds starting out later, did you feel as though if didn't feel like an Open in a way? ROBERT KARLSSON: On the first tee the stands were full. I was very impressed. I would not have been there (laughter). The stands were full. It was very impressive. So the first couple of holes we were pretty much the only guys on the course. So we had a lot of people coming down on 1, 2 and 3. But then at 4 or 5 it quieted down, we were almost on our own out there. So in one way a little bit. But it's a part of it. Some days you have that kind of draw. But it was just a perfect day for scoring for us, except when the wind was switching a bit. The greens were perfect. The greens were as soft as they're going to be today, even though they're not soft. But the greens had a bit of moisture on them. If you're off early, you're a bit more on your own. Q. You're talking about your lower ranking earlier. How frustrating is it to not play regularly in the big tournaments like you were in 2008, 2009? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, well, at the moment I'm pretty happy to be 140th in the world. Two weeks ago it was 199th. It's something inspiring me and trying to get me back. When I'm working, doing extra hours at the gym or going extra hours on the driving range or working out at home, this is what I want to do again. At the moment it's a waste of time to be frustrated, but it's definitely a drive to come back in and play these events, and not have to wait two weeks before to see if you get in or not. Definitely, it's a driving, definitely. Q. Is there any kind of fear that the bad experience that you had in 2012 could repeat itself again or that the processes you've put in solid enough? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, the processes are fine. I'm not afraid of that at all because it's nothing to be afraid of, because it's something I created myself. When I understood that I was the one who created it, I could uncreate it and just work on it. Because before it was really easy when I understood this is a pattern like any other pattern. You start to stand too long over the ball, thinking too much, and all of a sudden I've been there for a minute, and then it just went from bad to worse. So I thought back enough to the time when it started to happen to see the signs, to recognize what I felt in the beginning. That's nothing even in thinking about it. So that's not an issue and hasn't been an issue for over a year. So it's easy. Q. Henrik Stenson has been coming back up as well. How much was he a model for you to follow? Has he spoken to you much about it at that time when you were struggling? ROBERT KARLSSON: Not so much when I was struggling, but definitely everyone that is playing badly and coming back, is definitely inspiring. Casey has been the same. Westwood a few years has been the same. It just shows that it can be done. So that's obviously -- that's inspiring for me. I'm chasing him. I'm quite far behind, but at least I'm chasing. Q. I was just wondering, would you mind if I asked a question in English for you to answer in Swedish? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, no problem. Q. Can you tell us what happened after the turn that saw you in such good form. ROBERT KARLSSON: (Speaking in Swedish.) MIKE WOODCOCK: Could you give us a short summary in English for the stenographer. ROBERT KARLSSON: In the beginning I didn't hit it great and it was a bit tricky on the front nine, I thought. And then I hit some good shots on the back nine, and I also chipped in once, which got the round going. And also the three par 5s on the back nine, there's going to be some good scoring on the back nine. Q. Before you said you had to do some soul searching, how close were you to quitting? ROBERT KARLSSON: I think every golfer thinks about quitting about twice a year (laughter), if you're a pro. That's a hard question to answer because, yeah, obviously I had to really think if I wanted to keep going. But what else am I going to do? I just love this game. But it was definitely not very fun when I was struggling the middle of last year. But when I saw the old pictures from 2008 and what I was doing now, it was like, there's actually quite a big difference, I have some things to work on. And all of a sudden I could see there was sort of a path going forward. So it was fine. And especially then I played those four qualifying events on the Web.com Tour, and in the middle of those, even though I didn't score very well, I hit some good shots. Yeah, I remember these. I remember this feeling. When I miss it, it goes slightly right. And it's never a big loopy hook. Yeah, I can see it. I'm kind of happy with this. So that was kind of when I started to feel and see how it was going to be done again. Q. You talked a little while ago about patience, and it relates to the question you just answered in Swedish. Do you feel like you actually put that in practice today that you kept patient while things weren't quite going on the front nine, and then you were rewarded with the three birdies on the back nine? ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, I mean, every golf tournament you have to play very patient. I've been doing pretty good the last few events I played. And just have to keep going. After 72 holes you will have some holes where you have do the little things right and you might be a couple over. And you can miss a couple of greens here and there and all of a sudden you chip in and knock in a long putt. It's at least a bit of a roller coaster ride when you play 72 holes, and you just have to take the good with the bad and not get too caught up with it because it's going to be a long week. I've done that pretty well today and the last few weeks. Q. When you won the Dunhill at St. Andrews, am I correct in saying you said at that time you had a vision problem with your putting? ROBERT KARLSSON: I had a vision problem in 2009. I got fluid behind the retina behind my left eye, I was out to four months in 2009, in the summer. I didn't play from the 4th of June to mid-September. But I won in St. Andrews in 2008, so it was not then yet. Q. When you were looking down, you couldn't kind of focus on the putts? ROBERT KARLSSON: That was 2009, yeah. That's why I stopped playing. I couldn't see if the ball was -- in the rough was the worst. I looked down if I had no idea if the ball was sitting up in the rough or on the bottom. It was hopeless. I could only hit driver pretty much, that was on a flat surface and you create the lie yourself and the body kind of takes care of it. When you have to adjust and bunker shots -- if I looked down on the sand, for example, it looked like it was just ants everywhere, it just moved. I went to the doctor, then, in June of 2009 and they started the first question was, what is your job? Because he had no idea -- "I'm a professional golfer." He asked me, "Are you any good?" I was like, "These are questions I don't really want to have. Yeah, I'm all right." "Do you have a lot of money?" It's like, "I'm all right, okay." "Then you should have a long time off." That was not what I wanted to hear. He said straight away, "It's going to take you four months to get back. You can keep playing, because it's not dangerous, but it could hurt your vision if you don't take proper time off." So I took four months off. I wasn't allowed to practice anything. I could hit golf balls, but it was not very good to hit golf balls, because I didn't know where the ball was. So I left the clubs aside and I didn't touch them for about four months. I played two and a half months later, and it was a pretty sad story, but that was difficult. Q. Obviously you live in the States now in Charlotte. Do you see yourself getting back on the PGA Tour and staying there or do you want try to get onto the Ryder Cup team, and split between Europe and the PGA Tour? ROBERT KARLSSON: It's difficult where I am now in the World Ranking. It's great to play both Tours or possibly play the four qualifying events in September, but at the moment I don't think I'll do it, because if I play well, I'm going to put myself in a really difficult position where I have to play 15 in America and 13 here, and I can't choose the 15 in America. So it can put myself in a really tough position. But if I play good enough and get back in the top 50, obviously that's quite natural to play a bit of both. Q. You birdied 15 and 16 today, with two par 5s in the finish here at Royal Liverpool, how much will that decide where the Claret Jug ends up on Sunday? ROBERT KARLSSON: It depends a lot on where the wind is. But today it's -- 15 plays into the wind and I don't carry a 7-iron to the hole, it's usually a 9-iron and a wedge. But it was actually quite nice. And 16, 17, and 18 in this winds, which is into on the par 5s and down on 17. Actually can be some low scoring at the end. I hit 2-iron down 17, but both David Duval and Howell hit driver, and I don't think they had more than a little 9-iron. You can easily finish birdie, birdie, birdie. So it definitely can be a slightly different finish this week to The Open than for example Muirfield, where the three last holes are very, very difficult. So it's going to be definitely a tournament -- it can be very tight right in the end. MIKE WOODCOCK: Thank you very much, and best of luck for the week. ROBERT KARLSSON: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|