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OMEGA DUBAI LADIES MASTERSDecember 9, 2014Gwladys NoceraDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES THE MODERATOR: Welcome back to Dubai. For purposes of everyone here, Gwladys won her 13th Ladies European Tour title at the Hero Indian Open on Saturday which is an amazing achievement, and now you're ranked second on the Order of Merit. Almost 23,000 Euros behind Charley Hull, so a chance to win this tournament and the Order of Merit this week. How exciting is that as you look ahead? GWLADYS NOCERA: Well, I didn't expect to be in Dubai and be in that situation. So it's kind of new. I heard, you told me on Saturday, that I could win the Order of Merit. Obviously it's always a big goal to be able to win the Order of Merit. I don't want to think about it too much. I want to play golf. The course, it's a really good course. It's tough. The field is very strong, so I don't want to think about something that will only happen if I play really well. So first, I want to focus on my game. My coach is here, so it's really nice because he keeps my feet on the ground and we work on different things. So obviously I'm really happy to be here and be in that position but I know it's going to be a tough week, so we'll see. Q. Is it nice to come in here on the back of a victory with that confidence? But on the flipside, it is difficult to follow up from a win. How do you feel coming into this week? GWLADYS NOCERA: Well, I feel good because I feel good. I feel a little bit tired because we travelled a lot lately. I went to China, went home for a week, went to India and came here. It's a lot of travelling and a lot of jet‑lags but I'm hitting the ball really well. My putting is coming back but that's always the main issue with my game. So I'm feeling confident and I'm feeling good. As I said, winning the Order of Merit wasn't on my list five days ago, and now it's something that can happen. So I just want to play golf and see. I mean, there's really no pressure for me. Just it will be awesome to win it again but again, I have to play so good. So first, I have to focus on each shot. Q. Does it help that mentally you've come in and it's a surprise that you could do it? Does that take a lot of weight off your shoulders? GWLADYS NOCERA: I don't know, because when I won in 2008, that was the plan from the first of January, or just after Dubai, the year before, I said I want to win the Order of Merit. I said that's something I really want to do and that's all I thought about the whole season and that's what happened. So I like to have goals. I like to have things a little bit hard to achieve, so I keep on working. But, you know, it's not because it's the way you like it; that's the way it happens all the time. Obviously that's not the way it's happening this year. You have to take it the way it is and adjust. That's golf. I mean, you have to deal with what's going on on each day. So maybe it will be good because I have no stress. I'm not the one going for it‑‑ I'm the one going for it but someone is trying to keep the thing. Maybe I'm in a better position. Q. An elaboration on that; do you feel having done it before, is it better to be chasing rather than defending? GWLADYS NOCERA: Well, I guess it's always better to be in your own shoes. I take the position I'm in. I don't know if it's better but that's where I stand and that's what I have to deal with. That's a pretty good problem to deal with to find a way to play good enough to win the Order of Merit, so I'm not going to complain. Q. Just on the players you're playing with‑‑ obviously you're playing with Charley the first two rounds, and Pornanong who won last year. Nice group of players. GWLADYS NOCERA: Yeah, it's a really good group. I played with Charley a lot of times this year and last year, and she's obviously a great player. She's done so well in big events, so I know she's really good. I don't count on her to play bad, so I know she's going to play well. She's a great player, so I know she will play well. And Pornanong, she is also a great player. I played with her a couple times when I played on the LPGA. She's really nice, so it's going to be a good group. And I think for me, the main thing will be to stay focused on my own game and do my thing. Q. Would another Order of Merit mean as much to you as it perhaps would to Charley, do you think? GWLADYS NOCERA: I don't know, you have to ask her. I don't know, for me, it's‑‑ for her, I guess she's the beginning of her career and I'm at end of mine. So you know, I want to tell her, just leave to me, it's fine, you will have plenty more but that's not the way it works. I'm sure she wants it really bad. We all do. That's why we play golf. We all want to win events and to win the Order of Merit. I'm sure she really wants it bad. Q. What would it mean to you to add another one? GWLADYS NOCERA: Well, it would mean a lot, because I guess when you have a goal and you achieve it for the first time, it feels great. You think that, okay, you've done it, and when you decide to do it again it's harder. And to be able to achieve that six years after, and being 39, I think it's pretty cool. I'm pretty proud of the work I've done and what I did to be here today. So it will mean a lot, and I guess I will get points to get in the lifetime category, lifetime member, and that's something that means a lot to me. It's all bonuses. It's all plus. But it's a lot of work for four rounds. THE MODERATOR: Is there anything else you'd like to achieve? Solheim Cup next year, that must be a goal for you, as well. GWLADYS NOCERA: Yes and no. It's a goal but I'm not going to focus on it like I did last year. I was very disappointed not to be on the team last year, and I learned from it, so I'm just going to play golf. If I'm on the team that's going to be for sure one of my best achievements because Solheim Cup is probably the best event I've ever played. I played three times but we never won when I played so I don't know if I should be on the team really. But I made a lot of points when I did play. Yeah, it is a goal but I don't want to think about it. THE MODERATOR: When you won last week, you said you still have some special goals you'd like to see out before the end of your career. GWLADYS NOCERA: Yeah, I want to go to the Olympics. That's the major goal. I want to do this and the ideal plan is to play Solheim, to go to the Olympics and then put the bag in the garage and do something else. And being in the lifetime member category just for my personal satisfaction. Q. I remember in Slovakia when you won there, and it had been a while since you won on Tour. You were very emotional out there, and it seemed like there was a lot of emotion that came out. Since then, it seems like you've been playing good golf very consistently. Can you just talk about what was happening before that and since then? GWLADYS NOCERA: So I won the Order of Merit in 2008 when I won five events the same season. 2009, I played in Europe. I played good. I felt like I was playing bad but I was playing good. I think I was Top‑10. I played the Solheim, played really solid at the Solheim Cup in Chicago. And then end of 2009, I went to Q‑School in the U.S., so got my card. In two 2010, 2011, I stayed in the U.S. Played really well in 2010; finished second in one event, sixth in another one. And after that, it just went down. Everything went down. In golf, I didn't have a coach anymore; with my caddie was a little bit difficult; at home, things were not easy with my mom having some health issues. So everything was really complicated and I‑‑ it's not that I lost my game but I lost confidence. And after that, I didn't know if I will win again, and the plan was to come back to Europe and be better than I was when I left. I didn't want to leave because I still had my card in the U.S., and I made the decision to not go back to the U.S. because it didn't suit my life, it didn't suit who I am, and the Ladies European Tour is to me so much better. So that was really a decision that was not like, okay, you don't have a card anymore, so you go back to Europe. It's I decided to come back here because here it's better for me. And to be able to win, coming back from where I stood at that time, was very big, because I didn't know if I was about to do it again. And it's like when you do it, everything just drops, and yeah, you become very emotional. Q. And the confidence? GWLADYS NOCERA: Slovakia, it's not the biggest event of the season, but it's not about the size of the event. It was about the meaning for me to win an event and be as good as I was before. It meant a lot and from that moment, I knew I could do it again, and now I know I can do it. Now I have no doubts and that's why I keep playing. The day I know I don't have the skills or the strength I need, I'll stop. THE MODERATOR:  Can I just ask you to expand on why you prefer playing on the Ladies European Tour? It seems that a lot of French, Spanish, European players do prefer to stay at home. Why is that. GWLADYS NOCERA: Well, I don't know, I think we all have different reasons. My main reason is I work really hard to be able to play good golf and to win so many events, and, you know, when you're 20 years old and you go to a foreign country and you start from scratch, your career, you can take the bad things, the bad sides of the job. But when you are 35 and you have a life and I have my own place at home, my parents are getting older, my grandma is older; you think differently. You think, yeah, maybe that's my job but that's not my life. My life is not on the golf course. And to me, it was just‑‑ it didn't make sense that you work so hard to have your own life, if it's to destroy it in a year, there's no point. So that's why to me it's better here. And the atmosphere on the Ladies European Tour is much better. I have my friends, we travel together. In the U.S., I was alone. My private life is at home. So to bring everybody to the U.S. cost me too much money and I can't afford it. So being at home close to my family is what I need to be able to play well. Because you can be in the U.S. and play very good golf; if you're not happy, you're not going to play well. That's what I learned. In Europe, I'm happy, I'm playing good. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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