home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

QUINN DIRECT BRITISH MASTERS

May 11, 2006

Jarmo Sandelin

WISHAW, ENGLAND

RODDY WILLIAMS: Jarmo, thanks for coming in. Perhaps you could start off with telling us how you got to 67.

JARMO SANDELIN: Out of bounds on the first (laughs) well, I started with a driver on the first hole. I hit the bunker. I had an 8 iron, tap in for birdie.

The second hole, 3 wood 9 iron, 2 putt from seven meters.

Driver, 8 iron, sand wedge from 100 meters to two meters, birdie.

4, that's the magic hole. I took a 3 wood, tried to be smart, I hit in the rough to the left. Then I shanked a second shot, hit the water, jumped up. (Laughing) I always play that hole really bad, really bad, honestly. I mean, three years ago, I couldn't make a par on that hole if I remember right. I chipped it up seven meters away and made a bogey.

It jumped up. When you was a kid, did you skim over the water that with the stone?

RODDY WILLIAMS: How many bounces did you have in the water?

JARMO SANDELIN: Probably one.

On the fifth hole, driver, pitching wedge, made a putt from four meters.

The par 3, seven, hold a seven meter put.

Driver on the ninth. 6 iron, was way short, ten meters, I holed it; thank you very much.

Then the par 3, the 12th, I tried to be the hulk. I hit a 4 iron too hard. Hit the bunker to the left, two bunker shots one putt from half a meter for bogey.

Then 16, driver, pitching wedge from 113 meters, tap in.

Then 17, driver, 3 iron, and I had 54 meters to the flag, and that was a tap in.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Finished second last week; form is pretty good at the moment.

JARMO SANDELIN: Yeah, I tried to do exactly the same things I've been doing last week, the last five months. Actually, the last five, six weeks, I've seen some scoring results. I always know that I have it inside but somehow everything gets complicated, and when it gets complicated, and you can't do it easy on the golf course, it's very hard to score.

My course management is really good for the moment, and I'm very calm when I play. I think it's the result of hard work during these four years of struggling, and I really hope that I get some fruits from the hard work. I know golf is very unpredictable; for me it has been. I can only do my best and take one day at a time.

Once again, I don't think I would be sitting here if I don't make the decision to work with Robert Baker. I come back to that all the time. I know there is a lot of good coaches out there, but Robert, he's not hitting the shots but he's been giving me tools to hit the shots that I'm hitting today. I will always be thankful for the new tools I've been using and hopefully I can win more tournaments than I did the first ten years on Tour with my homemade swing. Only the future will tell.

Q. How much of a wake up call was that for you, losing your card?

JARMO SANDELIN: That was a very, very severe wake up call. When you're in the situation where your livelihood is disappearing; I've been living a comfortable life, I haven't been winning like the great big boys, but it has been good, if I look at my background.

But I think that when I lost the card was a very good wake up call for me. When I actually lost the card, that was the moment when I decided to make really another important decision. Whatever I do for the moment, I always think, firstly, is it good for golf. If it's not good for golf, I probably don't do it. I put golf in the first room again. I eat golf, I sleep golf, I think golf. I hope that is one reason why I can keep it together a little bit better. I've been doing it for five weeks now. So the weeks that I take off, that's when I don't think about golf at all.

Q. What would you have done if you had not got your card back?

JARMO SANDELIN: To be honest, I think I would have been playing on the Challenge Tour. I've been playing this game for so long I mean, all the golfers out there, we should be very grateful because it's a fantastic livelihood if you're on the Tour and you can make your living. You can make your own decisions, when you go up and what to practice and where to go, when to go and nobody is telling you to do that, and you're very fortunate.

But I think I would have come back to the Challenge Tour. You know, it's hard. This is what I'm supposed to be good at. I would not have given up that easy.

Q. After the Ryder Cup how did it get so low?

JARMO SANDELIN: I think after the Ryder Cup, being in the Ryder Cup, it happens to a lot of players that's been on the Ryder Cup the first time and the Swedes. You look at Haeggman and after the Ryder Cup and he didn't do too well. All the players, it's different circumstances why things go bad. I think after Ryder Cup, my priorities was not golf; it was family, I got married, had children. I mean, I've been working so hard since I was 14 years old when I started to play golf. I put all my time and energy to that. And Linda caddied for me for six years and I felt she had been putting all her time to me. So we made changes and I thought that would work to play and practice less and practice during the time when I played the tournaments, but it hasn't worked.

When you have a homemade swing, you need to hit a lot of balls to keep it going. Honestly, I put my head in the sand and thought everything would work out like it always has, but it didn't. I lost my card, and like I said before, that was the most important wake up call. If you don't wake up when you lose your card, then you're never going wake up.

Q. is your swing much different?

JARMO SANDELIN: It is. It's a huge upgrade in the system. When I look at my swing just before I started to change, when I put them together like that, it's night and day. You know, it's has always been, I play with feel I use a lot of hands, I had no plane. I was coming inside and then outside and then I try to squeeze the club. Now I try to be more on plane and I think that's one of the reasons why I'm more consistent.

That's the technical part. Then you have to mentally sort it out and think that you can score. I mean, we have so many good ball strikers out there, but somehow they can't score. Basically I think it's up here. You have to get comfortable with yourself out on the golf course and know actually what you're doing. At the moment, I'm doing a lot of things right, and I hope I find my new path. If I compare myself in '99 when I won twice, it's different, it's much better. That's my feeling.

I actually never worked with a coach the way I've been doing the last one and a half years, I believe the coach he gives you tools that you can sort of use that you haven't done before. Then I have to physically and mentally be able to use it. It's not easy just to go to the best coach in the world and he tells you, do this and do that. It's not that simple. I'm quite relieved, given it's the first day, 67. Whatever happens tomorrow, I know that I've been doing really good.

Q. Does it feel strange to hit shots in a regimented way rather than by feel?

JARMO SANDELIN: I still use my touch. But this is my handbook on what's happened is I'm still using the same feeling I have, but because my technical part is so much better I don't have to put so much time to get it right. If you go and look at my swing, I mean, two years ago, I'm coming up here and then somehow I manage to squeeze the club like that. You can imagine trying to do that (laughter).

I was standing like that, reaching like that. And now it's more, it's a big difference.

Future will tell how good it will be, but for the moment, feels very comfortable. So tomorrow I will do the same thing I did today, tee it upp right side of the tee box on the 10th, hit a 6 iron to the pin hole.

Q. You say your priorities have changed - does your wife mind being number two?

JARMO SANDELIN: She is never number two. My family is never number two. They are above number one.

Q. Having worked so hard to get in the Ryder Cup, was there a struggle to match that?

I don't know. I don't know. It was a fantastic experience, and I really hope some day, some year in the future, I will be in again and I hope that the captain whoever it is has more confidence in my game, so at least I get to play a little bit before the final Sunday.

But like I said, great experience. I said to Mark James, I always feel like this on a team, whatever the captain chooses to do, that it's his decision. I can only support that because I play for the team. I don't play for my own success. I play for the team's success. If it would have been another coach, he would probably maybe done something different. But every, each coach has the responsibility to make the decision, as the player, whatever sport it is, should be there to support, as long as he is the captain.

Q. What was the low point?

JARMO SANDELIN: I think it was those 82s, 79, missed cuts like six in a row, seven in a row. That's quite low. When it's been there as a winner, at least I did five times, suddenly you're facing the fact that you don't even make the cut.

And I have to say something. During these four years, it has given me opportunity to improve something I would otherwise never improve. There's only a time you can improve the bad things in your game is when you play bad because then you see how bad it is. And during these four years, I learned a lot about how bad I can play. And that is one strong that I have taken weekly when I play good. But it has been hard to see the positives, like how will I get up there and be a winner when I've missed the seven eight cuts in a row. I have to remember the good things that happen and then improve the bad things that have happened. That's the way it is.

RODDY WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297