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OMEGA DUBAI LADIES MASTERS

December 5, 2016

Suzann Pettersen

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

BETHAN CUTLER: Welcome to the OMEGA Dubai Ladies Masters.

SUZANN PETTERSEN: It's amazing that it's taken me this lock to come here because from what I've heard, this is the best tournament all the year around on the European schedules, not just from the girls, but from the guys when they are here. Great golfing town and great city, obviously great everything. I'm very happy to be here. I got in last night. It's a little bit warmer than I expected but excited to be here.

BETHAN CUTLER: You warmed up at the Olympics, and do you feel ready to win this event, or what's your goal here?

SUZANN PETTERSEN: I mean, the last part of the season, the LPGA got better and better for me. I played really good through the Asian swing. I played decent in Naples a couple of weeks ago. Since I knew I was coming here, I've been testing and practicing and kind of trying to prepare as good as I can to come here.

So I'm excited to see the course. Obviously I've seen it on TV a million times but it's always a little different when you see it in person. But so far, great atmosphere, great experience.

Q. What inspired you to do the Sports Illustrated body issue?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, back then, when I was young -- I actually thought it was an honour to be asked to join a club of the best athletes in the world, any sports, and I actually think the Sports Illustrated body issue is as clean as it gets, taking drugs and all other things apart. The body is kind of our tool, and I think it's quite clean how they present it, even though the shoot itself was the most awkward I've ever done and I'll never do it again.

But I thought it was -- when I look back, I was honored to be asked and to be part of that group of athletes. But that's quite a long time ago now.

Q. You said after Rio that your game sort of woke up. What did you find in your game, and you also talked about you went back to an old-style putter, so interested to know what happened there.
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Yeah, I mean, obviously the Olympics has been on the agenda for the last five years, so it was quite a big buildup. That's where I felt like my game was back to where it was a couple years ago. I've done some changes in mind knowing that I had a couple of -- well, almost a year and a half, to kind of get the game ready for the Olympics.

Unfortunately, I wished I could have moved the Olympics maybe a week or two further down. It was a good start. But it just made me more hungry to do another Olympics. So instead of putting an end to it in Rio, I'm going to go for it in Tokyo. It's another four years.

Q. What did you find in your game?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: It's just like sometimes, you just feel confident. You feel like you own your own thoughts, your own swing. You know your fixes and faults. Like you can fix it yourself.

So I mean obviously, it's a confidence thing, as well. But like I said, the last two months in Asia, I started to play really good, and I think I even sent Butch a text saying, "I finally feel like I kind of own this swing now." It's taken almost a year and a half to do the changes and adapt and feel comfortable with it.

Obviously with Nike releasing the news of stepping out of the equipment side, it opened up a lot of doors for us athletes to start looking outside the Nike box, which I don't think any of us really knew what was coming. So that's been taking quite a lot of time off the golf tournaments.

On the putting side, I tried to go back to what I used before Nike, which was eight years ago. It's hard for me to remember kind of what I liked then. It's not like I've been hoping to play any other clubs, because I feel like I've been playing with the best for the last eight years.

So I just had to really open my mind and went into my garage and picked out a few old pieces. Thought I found one, and then I actually phoned up Peter Hanson and asked if I can go in his garage, because I knew he had a lot of similar-style putters from TaylorMade. Actually ended up taking one of his putters. The current one I have, I think he played The Ryder Cup with in 2012. It's got some good energy in it.

Q. There's a buzz around Scandinavian golf, Denmark winning the World Cup of Golf in men's, Henrik winning The Open Championship. Is there any reason why Norway has just seemed to be a little lacking in its development?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: It's a good question. It's quite impressive to see how Denmark has grown into the world of golf in the men's side as much as the ladies. Now I think on the Ladies European Tour, you have three, four, five, quite a few good Danish girls, and I'm sure you'll see some of those Danish girls in the future Solheim Cup teams. They are good players.

Sweden has always had the reputation of bringing great golfers to each and every tour, and obviously Henrik has had a phenomenal year. Anna Nordqvist; skiing in Norway is still very popular, more so than I think Sweden. And obviously in Denmark, I don't even know if they have a hill to walk on.

But we've had a lot of great boys coming through the junior programmes, playing great in the world championships, world team championships, and then as they turn professional, they just seem to fall off, lose interest.

So I think we've got to go back and work with the programmes. It's obviously the federation's responsibility to keep the talents and mature them and kind of prepare them for what's to come.

But it's a work-in-progress, and it's fun to see young golfers come up and kind of bloom. But if you look at the rest of the world, on the LPGA, I think the average age this year total of all winners was 22.2 years. I mean, they are so young. So I mean, sports has changed. At a very early age, you have to be able to take on the world on the biggest stage. It's fun to see.

Q. Can I ask you, what kept you away from here so long, and now that you are here, what do you like about the golf course, now that you've had a look at it?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Ever since I -- obviously our season is long enough, usually January through November. So for me, through all these years, I've always given myself, December golf-free. So this tournament has always fallen in the one month where I kind of try to do something but playing golf, and I've usually spent it back home in Norway.

So that's probably the only reason. Had it fallen anywhere else in the year, I think I would have been here a long time ago. But I think it was time, and I was due to come to Dubai.

Q. What do you like about the golf course?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I haven't seen it yet. I think I know every hole in my head but it looks like it's in immaculate shape, so fun to see.

Q. What motivates you?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: What motivates me? To get better. Break my own records. I like winning. I hate losing. And I still feel the desire every morning when I wake up to go out and try and become better than I was yesterday.

And fortunately, we're in a sport where you have age on your side. There's always bits and pieces you feel like you can do better, improve. So losing is probably my biggest motivation.

Q. Just a quick question about your stablemate, Tiger Woods. We see that he's made his come back at the Hero World Challenge. What do you make of it and do you think he's going to win another major and get back to some sort of form?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Well, I guess he proved us all wrong; that he won't be back. There were a lot of people that doubted that he would ever come back from all the injuries he's had.

Fun to see him back, but also knowing him, he's too stubborn to let go. He's going to prove to himself that he's going to come back from this challenge that he's had over the last two years with injuries. Fun to see him back on the golf course.

Tiger is still Tiger. He creates the buzz he's always done. And you know what, just to see him swing a golf-club pain-free, kind of leads to the next step, which will probably be to go out and win tournaments again and for him to put in the reps that he feels like he needs.

For him, it must have been a huge relief to have been able to compete this last week. And will he ever win a major again? I really hope so, because I'm a huge Tiger fan.

But the world has also developed since his absence and golf is in a great place talent-wise. I mean, you have great Europeans, great Americans. You have Jordan Spieth, I mean, you have Dustin Johnson. The competition has only gotten harder, so it's not going to be easier for him to come back to where he was. I'm sure he's going to make a huge effort.

Q. Playing both on the LPGA and the LET, who are the young players that you really see coming on strong and that you root for, even when you're playing?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I mean, I root usually for myself. But on the LPGA, there's so many young, great players. I think Brooke Henderson from Canada, she's a girl that's going to be around forever. She's kind of a natural talent. She still has a little bit of that junior game in here, which I really like.

Ariya Jutanugarn who won the RICOH British Open, for example, and she also won the CME. She's probably the first real power that we've seen on the LPGA. I've never seen anyone hit the ball like her. She hits it so far.

And then you obviously have Lydia Ko, who has been around for a couple years, two, three years now, and been dominating. So it's all different types of players, which is -- there's not like one stereotype that can go out and be dominating the sport. It's always a lot of great mix and different personalities, different characters, different games.

I mean, Lydia, you would probably say her strongest part is her putting, short game. And then you have Ariya who is like the power. She's got everything she needs from the tee and still has finesse and short game that kind of puts a good score together. It's a mixture.

Q. This is your first time here, but do you think you can challenge this week, and do you see it as a battle between you and Shanshan, possibly head-to-head between the two of you?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: I mean, I usually to show up to win tournaments if I show. So since I'm not a no-show, I'm here to win.

And yeah, I would love to take on the challenge with Shanshan but hopefully also some other European players coming down Sunday.

Last time I played with Shanshan at CME in Naples, we made a deal to see each other on Saturday in the final group this week. So the challenge is on.

Q. We just had Paige in here and she talked about the battle she's had. Following her debut last year with depression and bullying online, we all can recall the Solheim Cup situation you went through and the trauma that you went through there. Sort of two-pronged question: Is it something you've had to deal with, online bullying, is that something you've had cope with post the Solheim, and how do the ladies on Tour see Paige and what she's doing for the game?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: You know what, to be quite honest, the most bullying I had on social media was when I congratulated Mr. Trump becoming the President a few weeks back (laughing). I mean, people have opinions. Social media has now become the new platform for people to express their feelings, in all ways, in all kind of different ways.

If you join the platform of social media, I think you've also got to be prepared to also take the criticism as much as the support. It's a great channel for us to communicate to our friends and fans around the world, and for them to follow us on whatever we do.

So there's obviously pros and cons with everything. I have experienced both. Solheim Cup last year was very challenging to say the least. But at the end of the day, you grow from it. You learn. At the time, it might feel like the most miserable time ever, but like I said, you try to take some good advice on the way.

And like I haven't been quite up-to-date with her kind of entrance to the golfing world. I think it's phenomenal that the promoters and the tournaments invite different people. I think it's great. There's no rules, right or wrong, of who is given invitations. That's clearly up to each and every tournament. Glad to see her back. I don't really pay too much attention to all that stuff going on.

Q. How do you square up against Shanshan? What's your history of Shanshan? Between the two of you, is there a bit of rivalry, healthy rivalry?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: Healthy, well, we've known each other for years. We've been in the LPGA for years, she's a little bit shorter than me -- she's not as old as me yet.

We've had a great couple of weeks in Asia, back and forth, where she kind of came out on top. And I feel like The European Tour kind of belongs to us, so let's keep it on the European strong side and not give it away to China.

Q. Everyone talks about how competitive you are. Can you give us one example where it really shows? Suppose you are playing golf with your kids somewhere down the line, would you let them win or will you just try to beat them all the time?
SUZANN PETTERSEN: You have got to teach them right from wrong from the very start, don't you? I would never let anyone win off of me, of course. I think it's a healthy way of growing up, in a competitive environment. I have two older brothers and for me every day was a fight. It could be anything from who got the best seat in the car to who was winning the car games. It's silly things, but it's the little edge that kind of probably has made me become who I am and it's a big part of me.

If I didn't have the competitive edge, I don't think I would have been here. I think as much as you love sport, you love golf, the passion for the game, you learn on the way. You start as a kid, any sport, and then you end up doing one sport full-time, you turn professional.

At the time where you actually choose to do one sport, I don't think you're in a frame where like, oh my God, I can play golf for 20 more years; if you actually do well, you can have a good living. You're fortunate to pick the right sport at a young age but I think what really drives you is the competitiveness. You kind of learn to love the game while the competitiveness is kind of what brings you there.

BETHAN CUTLER: Good luck.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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