DP WORLD TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 17, 2022

Kipp Popert

Jumeirah Golf Estates

Quick Quotes

Q. So here we are in Dubai for the final week of the Tour. How excited are you to get this underway tomorrow?

KIPP POPERT: Really excited. It's a great challenge, this golf course, the rough is thicker and tougher than last year as well. So I'm very excited and it should be good fun.

Q. It's been a ridiculously good year for you. How much would it mean to win here in Dubai in this event in this setting?

KIPP POPERT: I feel very prepared. I worked extremely hard the last few weeks and into year, and the competing, that's the easy bit. You just let it happen. Whoever lifts the trophy on Saturday will deserve it. Just see how we go.

Q. Apart from just saying very good, how do you assess your year?

KIPP POPERT: How would I assess it? I think it's just been really eye opening to be honest. It's been a great experience playing on the tough courses that the DP World Tour have and just eye-opening getting to know my fellow competitors more. We have all used golf to sort of better our lives and overcome hurdles, so it's been really good fun.

I think the stuff off the golf course that has been as good as the stuff on it, and also on the golf course, apart from saying very good, I think it's just been very enjoyable. Holing putts to win is always what I've dreamed of and worked towards, and to see it come off -- when I'm hitting a shot under pressure, I'm not really thinking. I trust that I've done all the hard work and it will come off sometimes and it won't others, and you just keep going.

Q. You've seen some great courses, from an outsider's point of view, Valderrama, Wentworth seem to stand out. Is there a particular course one you look back on that you're most pleased about.

KIPP POPERT: I think both BMW at Wentworth and Valderrama for different reasons. Before the BMW at Wentworth, I did a piece for The European Tour called Roots, and they asked about my cousin, Archie Bruce who passed away three years ago. He was a professional rugby player, so we were very close because we both wanted to achieve things in life and in our sport. Obviously the raw emotion of all of that coming back up, and my win at Wentworth, thinking of him -- think of him every day but thinking of them then meant a lot to me personally.

From a golfing point of view, Valderrama, a course that the tour pros have always said is the most challenging, for me to go around there and play the way I did, that was really nice, and I've hit it really well. It was nice because it was always very similar to Wildernesse Golf Club where I grew up playing, very tight, greens are small. So it felt very homely to be honest.

Q. Going back a few years, would you have believed if somebody said you would be stood here about to play in Dubai in the DP World Tour Championship season finale?

KIPP POPERT: I wouldn't have believed it would have been two years. I would have believed if they said five or six. As a lot of people know, my aim is to really use this platform and progress to the next level and continue to grow disability golf as well.

I've always had aspirations to play against the best players in the world, be it in able-bodied golf or disability golf, and the opportunity the DP World Tour provide for me to learn out here and compete out here against my fellow competitors on really top-notch and tough golf courses to tight pins and tough greens is just something I'm relishing.

So yeah, I would have believed them but maybe not that quick a time scale because that's what I want to achieve.

Q. You touched on it there. How important, not just for the growth of the Tour but golf in general for players with disabilities, to get it out there and encourage people with disabilities to take up golf, whatever level they end up playing, how important is it to get that message across?

KIPP POPERT: Yeah, absolutely. I got into the EDGA and disability golf after watching it on -- Adam Wahbi, a good friend of mine from Belgium who has also cerebral palsy, watching him play in The Scottish Open on The European Tour in a few years ago. If I'm stood here now, why can't you be, right. Work hard, enjoy it, and I'll see you out here.

Keep working hard is the secret.