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THE RYDER CUPSeptember 23, 2014Graeme McDowellAUCHTERARDER, SCOTLAND STEVE TODD: I'm joined by Graeme McDowell. Graeme, playing your fourth Ryder Cup consecutively. Just give us a sense of how it feels to be playing in Scotland, the Home of Golf, in a Ryder Cup? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, always huge amounts of fun to be part of the 12 men playing this week. Just very excited to kind of get here yesterday and kind of get together last night, and just sort of tune into the vibe, to what it's going to feel like in the team room this week. I think we've got a great mix of characters and personalities and experience. I think Paul has been a fantastic captain to this point with his communication levels, and really his level of preparation has been phenomenal. So just a really, really good atmosphere in the team room, just a good bunch of lads having some fun. But really all focused on the task at hand this week. I think we're all acutely aware that this is a big week and we have a U.S. Team who are incredibly motivated to come and win. We've got to try and do our job and take care of business this week. Just fun. Obviously my second Ryder Cup, sort of on home soil, two in America. There's nothing quite like Ryder Cups back in this part of the world, very special, especially here in Scotland. I think the crowds are going to be phenomenal, very educated fans, love their golf, and it's a special part of the world, so very, very excited. STEVE TODD: I would be remiss to not wish you congratulations on the new arrival. We saw the effect it had on Paul Casey a couple of weeks ago. Are you hoping it can be a galvanising effect for you this week? GRAEME McDOWELL: Sure. Nappy effect didn't work so well in Denver. I was low on adrenaline. I didn't realise the ten days after we had our baby how much adrenaline I was actually running on. I wasn't sleeping much, and by the time I got to Denver and did start sleeping, I actually experienced a little bit of a flat, a little bit of a downer, really and didn't really feed well into my golf. I've kind of come to terms with that. I've come to terms with the fact that sleeping is done, is gone forever. And I arrive here this week feeling fresh and ready to go. It was tough leaving the family last weekend. Kristin was very disappointed she couldn't be here this week, really wanted to be here and be part of the team, but it was just too early to kind of start traveling with the little one. A lot of fun. Obviously a life-changing experience, and just looking forward to the week. And like I say, I've come to terms with the sort of physicality, sort of physical levels required, sleepless evenings and whatnot. I'm feeling very, very fresh this week, and like you say, hopefully my delayed nappy effect will kick in this week. Q. Does Victor Dubuisson need a playing partner who is steady, experienced and reliable, and do you think you would fit the bill? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, I think I'm one of a few players that could fit the bill. I think there's no doubt, we have three rookies who are very different, I suppose. I mean, Stephen, obviously who has to deal with the pressure of the home crowd this week, and a golf course that he knows his way around. The Ryder Cup is such a different experience. You've got Jamie Donaldson who has turned himself into one of Europe's most consistent players, who I think will handle himself really, really well this week. And then you've got Victor, who, you know, I've heard described as an enigma, and just a tough guy to kind of get your head around kind of what he's thinking. Obviously doesn't lack for talent. His sort of relaxed mood, personality, could be confused with maybe intimidation and nervousness. I've kind of been trying to sort of get close to him the last few months and spend a little time with him. He's a great guy. We do have a great team room this week with some dynamic personalities, and Victor I think can bring a huge amount to the team this week. Yes, I would very much embrace the task of, sort of the expression, blooding a guy like Victor, and I would love to play with him. We are talking about potentially that happening, and like I say, I'm one of a few guys that could potentially do that. Like I say, he's a very talented kid and definitely someone we are trying to pay a bit of attention to in the team room this week and make sure he has any questions that are in his mind get answered and put his mind at rest and get him ready to play some great golf this weekend. Q. You were obviously the hero in 2010, perhaps didn't have personally your best time in Medinah. Does that give you any extra added motivation to really be that man again, to be one of the real stars again? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, for sure. By my own expectation levels, Medinah was personally, it's fractionally disappointing. At the end of the day, this is a team competition, though. Hero or villain or somewhere in between; it doesn't really matter, as long as we can pick The Ryder Cup up on Sunday night. I'd take a disappointing week again for me if we could win. I'd sacrifice that. Of course, I think we are all very, very proud individuals, and we want to play as well as we possibly can. I feel like I come in here this week a lot more prepared than I was two years ago at Medinah. I was low on energy. I was physically not where I needed to be and that kind of became very evident as the week went on and I didn't play the way I would like to. I really wanted to come in this week having experienced everything, I suppose; a bad week personally, great weeks personally, wins, loses, first shots, last shots. Coming to Gleneagles here, kind of wanting to really embrace my week and enjoy my week, try and take the pressure off myself, and really be up for it and be excited and embrace the task with my eyes open, as opposed to head down and feeling the pressure. So I'm excited. My three Ryder Cups to this point have been the greatest golf experiences of my life and I'm looking forward to adding a fourth experience, win, lose or draw. I'm going to give it 110 per cent this week and see what happens come Sunday evening. Q. As you mentioned, you've hit the opening tee shot at a Ryder Cup and you've holed what turned out to be pretty much the winning putt. Can you describe what both of those experiences were like? GRAEME McDOWELL: You know, 2010 was the most nerve-wracking experience, certainly probably of my life. I thought I would be nervous going into the delivery room there four weeks ago. But I would say that back nine against Hunter Mahan in Celtic Manor, I don't think I will ever be that tight and that nervous again in my life. It was pretty intense stuff. You know, to make birdie on 16 like I did and win that point was certainly one of the highs of my career. Hitting the first tee shot at Medinah a couple years ago was a very bizarre experience. I would say I felt very calm and confident and ready to take that on as I went to the first tee, and the noise was amazing and everyone's excitement levels had peaked. I remember getting announced on the first tee and putting the tee in the ground and the whole place going deathly silent and how bizarre that was. I remember standing over the tee shot thinking to myself, this is just the most bizarre feeling I've ever had in my life, and I didn't put a very good swing on it. Like my head was genuinely kind of elsewhere just kind of taking in the sort of, how surreal the moment and the environment was from sort of high noise levels to absolutely zero. I remember seeing Bubba and all the guys kind of whipping the crowd up afterwards and thinking to myself, maybe I should have done that, because it was very bizarre. The silence level was amazing. Yeah, it's fun to hit the first tee shot, and even more fun to hit the last putt. It's a special tournament, like I say. My experiences in the three Ryder Cups I've played so far are very much the greatest experiences of my golf career. Q. Ten years ago, you were involved in a playoff with Stephen Gallacher in the Dunhill Links. Has it surprised you it's taken him a decade to get to this stage? And what particular strength do you think he brings to the team? GRAEME McDOWELL: I don't think anything ever surprises me in this game. There really is no recipe to success. There's the fast way; there's the slow way. You know, this game is very difficult mentally, physically. Guys mature at different levels, different rates. There really is no kind of recipe to success. So no, when I look at Stevie, yeah, I remember that playoff at the Dunhill. He's a very, very good player. He hits it long, very strong, very kind of assured of himself. I think he'll conduct himself very well this weekend. Obviously with his record around this golf course, he's got the right attitude and the right personality that I think will really fit in well to this team. He'll stand on the first tee on Friday morning or afternoon, whatever it may be, and he'll be ready to go. I think he's showed a lot of class and heart for the way he played to get onto this team. Obviously I was very acutely aware of what was going on that week in Italy when he came within a whisker of taking my automatic spot and probably deserved to take my automatic spot, if it wasn't for a 63 from David Howell to sort of pip him on the line. Yes, he's a wildcard and yes he's a rookie, but I think we all believe that he deserves to be on this team, and hopefully he knows that he deserves to be on this team, as well. So I think he'll have a great week and I think he'll bring a great dynamic to this team. Q. Is it possible to compare the emotions of winning The Ryder Cup to the feelings of becoming a father for the first time? GRAEME McDOWELL: No, very difficult. I think I was very emotional the first four or five days after having my first child. For everyone in the room that's experienced that, I think we all know it's something you can't describe and it's something that changes you inside forever. Winning a Ryder Cup, obviously you share that with everyone. It's a very turbo-charged, kind of electric moment in your life and adrenaline-filled and all of the above, really. Very difficult to describe the two, and very difficult even to describe a major championship to winning a Ryder Cup. There's nothing quite like the team atmosphere. There's nothing quite like playing for each other in a game which is innately very individual. The game is selfish and we look out for ourselves week-in and week-out, and it's individual achievement and you live and die by your own achievement. When you come this week and play for each other and play for another 11 teammates, and the bonds that you develop this week, the kind of openness that everyone kind of has, we're all very protective of our secrets and our ethos and the things we do to try to become the best players we can be. I think we are all very open books this week and we share and we're really all united towards the one task. We'll do anything for each other this week. It's a very, very special thing to be involved in. Q. This European Team are really getting talked up going into this Ryder Cup. Does the added expectation bring an added pressure, and if so, how are the guys in the locker room dealing with that? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, I think it's an unusual scenario for the Europeans to be favourites coming into a Ryder Cup. It's not a sort of label that we take lightly. I think we are very proud of the label. We watched a video in the team room last night which really described how far The European Tour had come, all the way back from the '50s and the '60s and the John Jacobs and the real kind of pioneers of The European Tour and getting drummed year-in and year-out in The Ryder Cup, to the turning point with Jacklin and Seve and everything that kind of went on in that period when the Europeans started to realise that perhaps they could compete on the global stage and they could compete in Ryder Cups, to sort of the present day where we have won seven of the last nine and we are actually going into The Ryder Cup as favourites. We are part of the label, but we are also very aware that this is a big Ryder Cup this week, because we do feel the need for the U.S. Team to win one. We certainly feel like they will be coming at us 100 percent this weekend and we have to be ready for that. We are not taking them lightly. We heard a stat last night that when both teams were solidified after the picks that their average World Ranking was better than our average World Ranking. It might not be the same, at this moment we might be slightly favourites again, but we are under no illusions that this team is great. They have a lot of young blood on their team which is going to ignite that passion that we've always had. I think it's difficult for a lot of the stalwart Americans who play year-in, year-out, Presidents Cup, Ryder Cups. I've spoken to a few of them and they are of the belief that this needs to be every three years so that they can play a Ryder Cup and a Presidents Cup and have a year off. I would be a supporter of that. I think for their level of engagement, they need that, because when you look at the Tigers and Phils and Strickers and Furyks who have played eight, nine, ten, 12 of these in a row, they do lose their shine. This event has become such a global spectacle and such a huge passion, emotional week, we want them to be as into it as we are, and I believe that they have a team this week that will be into it as much as we are. I think we have got targets on our back this week and we are aware of that, and we are going to be ready for it. We are not getting sucked in by the favourite tag. We are going to play like underdogs. That's kind of what we're going for. Q. It's very unusual to hit the opening tee shot and hole the -- be the character at the end. And you may yet hit the tee shot again. What are your characteristics, do you think, that singles you out for that sort of thing? In polite circles, we talk about fortitude, and in less polite circles, we might refer to balls of steel. GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, I've been lucky enough to hit a few good shots under the gun in my career. I'm a guy that certainly embraces the high-pressure scenarios and tries to put them in perspective and realise that that's why I practise and that's why I should try and enjoy it. Not that those types of scenarios are easy to enjoy. They are very painful and they're very hard at the time. They're very unusual scenarios because you crave them, but when you're actually there, you kind of sometimes wish you weren't there because it is very, very -- it's very hard, and all you can think about is not messing up. When you do come out the other end of them, if you do succeed in that type of environment, they are very, very rewarding, as well. So I mean, I've been blessed, thankfully with some level of fortitude. I guess I always wonder where I got it from. I sort of the last ten years worked it out that I got it from my mom. She's a pretty tough cookie and MS sufferer, and she's a very strong person. So I feel like I get that from her. The one thing that she did give me is definitely perspective and some strength of mind. Hopefully I would love to get a chance to test it out again this weekend. Maybe the mistake I made at Medinah was not maybe forcing myself a little further down the order on Sunday. I felt like I did the sort of 12th man thing, and I kind of put myself into the middle of the pack at Medinah, and perhaps I needed that little bit of sort of intensity of the last groups. And perhaps come Sunday, if it's needed, I will put myself kind of a little bit further down the order and ask the question of myself and focus my mind again this year. Hopefully we don't need it. You know, hopefully it's a blowout and we can have some fun on Sunday afternoon. I think inevitably we all know this is going to be close this weekend and it may come down to the last few matches. Hopefully I get a chance to do it again and put myself under the pressure. I'm here to perform this week. I told the captain, I'm here to play five times this week. I'm up for it, I'm ready, bring it on. It's a great test. I think the great thing about The Ryder Cup is it's Sunday afternoon pressure from the first tee shot on Friday morning, and there's nothing quite like that in golf, that little bit of pressure and nervousness and intensity to focus the mind and just ask questions of yourself, do you have it, what have you got, how is your golf swing going to hold up under pressure, and can you do it. I'm looking forward to answering some of those questions this weekend. Q. Paul said yesterday that tactically, the team may be better served by you and Rory playing with others. Does it come to a point where a partnership that looks so natural, the dynamic runs out a little bit and how does that change and happen tactically? GRAEME McDOWELL: I think myself and Rory, there's no doubt our personal issues have been well documented the last couple years. And I believe that we've both come out of the other end of that probably better friends than we were going into it. So our personal issues are not a problem this weekend, so that's a fact. I think tactically, you know, Rory and I's golf dynamic has changed significantly from the first time we ever played together back in 2009 or at the Seve Trophy, whatever it was, when perhaps the older brother/kind of younger brother leadership role that maybe I had with him, that's changed. He's the world's No. 1 player. He's a four-time Major Champion. The dynamic between him and I is changed forever. He would now be the leader of the two of us and perhaps the dynamic doesn't work as well as it did in the past. Perhaps I'm the kind of guy that needs that leadership role a little bit, who needs to feel like he is on at least on a level with the guy he's playing with. I'll be the first to admit it. Medinah a couple years ago, and Rory and I spoke about this, I found the better ball format very difficult with him because he likes to go first, I let him at it, and I kind of comes second. You know, he's standing there beating it 350 down the middle, and I put my tee in the ground thinking there's not really a lot of point in me hitting this tee shot and find myself throwing myself at it, and literally it kind of didn't help my game much at Medinah playing better-ball with him. Foursomes I think is different. I think we could still play foursomes really well together. Q. Would you enjoy that? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, absolutely, I love playing off his tee shot, as anyone would, 350 down the middle works everywhere, every week, as he's shown that lately. There's no doubt the dynamic, and I've spoken to McGinley about this, as well, because he felt like himself and Harrington were the same way. They gelled well as a partnership in their early days, but when Harrington became the star, the dynamic changed from a tactical point of view. It just didn't work so well anymore. So I kind of feel that's kind of the way Rory and I are viewing this week. I think the great thing and the bad thing on our team this week is that we have so many options. Like I say, that's a great problem. It could be construed as a tough thing, as well, because the pairings are not so obvious this week, and the captain has a little bit of work to do sort of Wednesday, Thursday, in regards to putting those teams together. I would really embrace the opportunity to play perhaps foursomes with Rory at some point this weekend. We are both up for it. And like Paul says, though, he feels like I could be best used somewhere else, kind of like we alluded to earlier, and Rory certainly can play with anyone. So we might be best served apart. So, who knows. Like I say, I would love to play with him again this weekend, and we'll really see what happens, but we'll certainly do what's best for the team, as well. Q. As much as Poulter has thrived in this Ryder Cup, how different do you think it will be this time with him being such a focal point, more than he's probably ever been before, going into The Ryder Cup? GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, I think Ian's up for it, as always. I was hitting balls with him at Lake Nona last week on the range. I've never seen a guy so charged up 10, 11 days before a Ryder Cup. Standing on the back of the range at Lake Nona, literally, the guy is just fizzed. It's very infectious to be around that type of passion. He embraces the Mr. Ryder Cup role, I really believe that. His game is probably, by his high expectations, not where he wants it to be coming in here, but he's been working really, really hard the last few weeks. You know, the guy's level of self-belief has never been under question. This normally kind of signals the green light for him to start playing well again for the next six months. Like you say, the pressure continues to intensify for him as regards the weight that kind of goes on his shoulders. But if anyone's ready for it, he's ready for it. He's certainly one of our leaders within the team room, one of the vocal people within the team room. I expect him to be himself this week and be up for it, and probably back it up with some great golf, as well. But like you say, I know Captain Watson singled him and Rory out yesterday as the guys on our team with targets on their back regards points that the Americans want to put on the board when they are on the course. Like I say, I couldn't pick two better guys to handle that type of pressure. Rory, obviously it goes without saying, he's the best player in the world, and I expect him to win several points this weekend. And Poults is just Poults, so he'll be ready. Bring it on. STEVE TODD: Thanks for joining us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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