HERO CUP

January 12, 2023

Victor Perez

Abu Dhabi Golf Club

Continental Europe

Quick Quotes

Q. How is it being here in a team environment at the Hero Cup this week?

VICTOR PEREZ: Being in the team environment, we are very fortunate at the start of the season. After a long break, it's always difficult, you come out, just incredible people feel rusty. You've been training but you haven't been competing so it's like the best of both worlds.

Obviously it's still a fun event in a sense. You want to compete. You want to win. But you're in a setting against twenty guys or ten guys on each side where you're able to compete and get those competitive juices back on before the season starts, so it's great.

Q. Give us an idea of the environment. Is it competitive? Relaxed?

VICTOR PEREZ: Yeah, it's competitive, relaxed I think is the best way to put it. We both sides know that still we are fortunate to be here. We have earned our qualification fair but at the same time it's not like life or death like a Ryder Cup might feel and there's maybe not as much hatred towards the other side. But equally, we are all competitors and when the bell is going to ring tomorrow, I think everybody is going to be ready to go.

Q. Guido told me a great story, he was an the toilet when the phone call came through and he thought it was a windup. Where were you when Luke called you?

VICTOR PEREZ: Luke called me, I was in New York, actually. I was training with my trainer and he actually just picked me up and we were just in the car and then he called me, and Luke told me I was on the team, so it was great.

Q. I take it that was a short conversation?

VICTOR PEREZ: Yeah, I think you're not going to ask too many questions. It was great. You know, you always feel like you've played good enough to be on the team and it's a great goal to be on the team because it's a great lead-up as I said. It's a perfect way for most of us to start the season.

I know some guys played in Hawai'i a little bit or in the fall a little bit or on the PGA TOUR, going to South Africa or Mauritius, but for me it's great, I haven't played since the DP World. It's ideal.

Q. What have you done during the break?

VICTOR PEREZ: I didn't may for three weeks. I did no gym, no golf, nothing for three weeks which was great. Then I had five weeks to train and do the gym, golf, gym, golf, back and forth. I always say during the year, you don't have that luxury. You can either rest and not practice, or don't you rest and you don't practice. But it's hard to do both because you don't have enough time. If you have two weeks off, you're going to take two or three days off, and then you're going to try to get some work in.

But you have to make sure you stay competitive and you don't go down a team hole in technique or stuff like that. It's obviously a little bit trickier to get. And the winder break basically gives you that chance, so I think you have to take it because once the season starts, you won't get it again.

Q. What about your schedule this year? Talk us through kind of where you're going to be and is it all geared towards making that Ryder Cup Team in September?

VICTOR PEREZ: I mean, I think making the team is more a byproduct of playing well, and it's which schedule gives you the best chance to play well in the big events. Then I think obviously there's going to be times, the way the schedule is built this year, there's going to be bigger blocks of golf where you might be forced to play more golf and there's a bit of a break in March to the beginning of April is empty as well.

The guys are going to playing in America until basically the first week of May in Italy. The schedule is split, the Middle East start, going into Asia and a break in April and May once you get back into Europe when the weather is good, basically, then it's a big stretch of golf.

I've given myself the option to add events here and there if I were to be on the line to qualify, and sometimes you have to be willing to play more to get points to qualify. Hopefully I won't need to, and the job will be taken care of before, which is obviously ideal which gives you more resting time. Obviously it's a great goal to make the team but there's no point to make the team if iron going to be gassed and play crappy.

I think you want to make the team and win. It's like players, when you start, it's great. But just being happy to qualify for a major, it's not going to change your life. Like you're going to get a badge and you're going to be happy and be there? The goal is to perform and be there and win big events and Top 5s and stuff that are actually going to do something.

And even Top 5s, if I were to ask 15 people that are in the golf business who finished second at every major last year, besides Rory at The Open, nobody would remember anything. You always remember winning, and that's the cutthroat nature of our business. But you want to make the team, be ready and then be able to provide points and help win The Ryder Cup back.