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SMURFIT KAPPA EUROPEAN OPENJuly 4, 2007David HowellSTRAFFAN, IRELAND STEVEN FRANKLIN: Nice to see you back on Tour and thanks for waiting around for this interview. DAVID HOWELL: No problem. STEVEN FRANKLIN: In the last three months, you have probably got used to waiting around a little bit; how are you feeling? DAVID HOWELL: All things considered, very well. With the wrist still not feeling great, I hit balls Wednesday, Thursday last week and had a bit of a reaction after that. So I had to hold off again until I got here Monday night. Saw my Australian physio, Dale Richardson, and he sort of gave me the go-ahead to resume hitting balls. And working through the forearm, it's just a bit tight basically but something that should get better during the week rather than trying to play a couple of weeks ago, there was a fair chance it was going to get worse. I'm right to be here and looking forward to getting back out there. STEVEN FRANKLIN: How was it today playing out in the Pro-Am? DAVID HOWELL: Delightful. Funny enough, I am clearly rested because I did enjoy it, even though the wind and the rain were coming down and none of our team really played fantastically, I still quite enjoyed being out there. This course is a real slog in these conditions. It's 7,300 yards and it's playing about 8,000 yards long I think. I think we are going to see a few forward tees come tomorrow. If we don't, then scoring is going to be very difficult. Q. Some players can struggle when the manufacturer that sponsors them require them to change to new equipment; has this ever affected you? DAVID HOWELL: No, it hasn't. But there is an issue though obviously that hopefully every tournament, whichever manufacturer you're with, it's an improvement and not just a change. But I think we're all pretty strong with the fact that we'll only use something if it will enhance our game and not hinder did. Changing it is something that the modern professional has to do if you want to be sponsored by a club company. But there's a professionalism that has to go with that; that you're not going to change just for the sake of it, and you have to stick by your guns if you think something is not quite right. I've never had any major problems with it. But you do see some guys that do change clubs and they struggle, and it is an issue, but it has not really affected me. Q. Is the injured wrist playing on your mind every time you hit the ball? DAVID HOWELL: No, I don't think so. The beauty of it is the ground is so wet, it's actually quite a good week from that point of view. Had it been a firm links course or something, that would have been more of an issue for me. So the soft ground is to my advantage. And no, I've hit balls for a few days now and I've played two rounds of golf and I didn't give it one single thought today, which is really nice because even flying up on Monday, I wouldn't say I was 100 per cent fit. The arm has just got to a point where I think the actual inflammation in the wrist has just gone now, but it's left a residual problem of the muscles being a bit tight. So this is the right time for the physio to get into it and do a bit of work with it, so I have no problems with it whatsoever. Q. And how's the back? DAVID HOWELL: Funny enough yesterday -- in the back but now it's just across the typical golfer's back which is gone today. I did some work with Dale yesterday and I feel better now. So as I sit here now, I feel fine. Q. How frustrating has this been for you? DAVID HOWELL: Yeah, I've got a bit down with it this time I must admit. I took seven weeks off in the winter to prepare for this season properly and get over the rigours of last season where I was in a poor state the last three months of the season. I worked hard on my fitness with my trainer and the physios and the first seven of the events through the Masters I was fully fit, playing crap, but I was fit, which was a good thing. Then I took a three-week break trying to guarantee being fit for this next part of the season, up to and including the U.S. Open and The Open, and it was during that period that I became injured. So to pick up an injury when you're at home is obviously very frustrating when you are somebody who gets injured as regularly as I do. So it's been a testing time mentally. The original injury was reasonably serious. It was creating stress in the bone in my sacrum, which is the first stage of a stress fracture really. It was a worry when the scans showed that. I think it was something I was trying to do with my swing, which we surmised was putting stress on the area, so had to back off from that. On top of that, a wrist injury when you come back, that was really frustrating, because just when I -- it's been one of those injuries where I thought I was going to be all right for the BMW Championship and then thought I would be fine for the Memorial. And it was always one of those ones, I just kept putting it back a week and then I eventually took the view that, okay, let's have a clean break and I'll come back at the U.S. Open and that should be plenty of time and then I go and hurt my wrist. The last three weeks I've been really low with it, I must admit. I'm a golf fan and I like watching a bit of golf but it's become frustrating watching everybody out there fighting to win these excellent tournaments I've had to miss. At one stage I sort of felt like I was never going to get back out here and fortunately we're here. A couple of good weeks I'll put it behind me I'm sure and it will be all forgotten, I'm sure. The big picture in general, is that it's getting very tiresome. I've made some great strides the last four or five years up the World Rankings, but golf is all about momentum, and if you keep getting taken off golf for two or three months at a time, that momentum gets taken away from you, and it is frustrating. However, I guess it's down to me to stay fit really. A little bit of bad luck involved maybe, but obviously I am not doing enough things to stay fit and not managing myself well enough, and that's something I've got to change. Q. Did you find yourself thinking you would have had a chance when you were watching the U.S. Open? DAVID HOWELL: I wasn't sitting there thinking, "Crickey, I'm sure that could be me." Angel played great in the U.S. Open before. He's one of the world's great talents. I wasn't too bad at that point. I haven't played golf for six or seven weeks anyway. Not being able to play was obviously a blow but getting there and seeing that course, my chances of doing well at the U.S. Open were gone by the time I hadn't been able to play an event prior to it. I took it on the chin really. But then missing France; it gets you. I was still watching the golf and watched Graeme win last week, a fantastic effort. I watched Angel start to finish and it was great golf to watch but obviously I would have rather taken part. Q. You say you got really down. Was that just with this injury or was it the result of a cumulative effect from all the injuries? DAVID HOWELL: It was a cumulative effect. I think to a degree the last year was, you know, a big disappointment not to win the Order of Merit. At the end of the day, my body let me down to some degree on that. There's no guarantee I would have won the thing if I would have stayed healthy but I would have won a few more quid and stayed closer if I had stayed particularly healthy all year. On top of that, I've had a slow start to this year, worked on a few things, probably the wrong things and I've hurt my back and the form has been good. Valderrama last year was the last time I played well and we're getting on to three quarters of the year. Added to that, put it all together, yeah, it's been a bad year. I think I need to turn around, and no better time to start than now. Q. Inaudible? DAVID HOWELL: Well, it was a funny one because I was playing golf at home. I was actually enjoying my three weeks off from the Masters, after the Masters. I was playing a bit and had a week off. Got back in the gym, did a bit of work and I was really enjoying the week and the weather was nice. I just played one day, with a niggle in my back and played another couple of times and it sort of got worse. I had no reason to believe that there was anything majorly wrong. And then I got to Wachovia Championship. And again Dale, my physio, saw me on a Monday and assumed it was a very normal problem for me, in the lower back, SI joint area, the problem I've had before; did the same treatment normally would, and showed signs of getting better actually the first day. Then Thursday came along and as soon as I hit my first shot on the course, something was seriously wrong. Should have walked in to be honest. After ten days I had not recovered, and it was getting worse rather than better. I got home from the TPC and had a scan and showed stress in the bone, which no one had any reason to believe or to think that I was doing that and that was happening. It sort of came out of left field really. Obviously I had to try to work out why. I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm healed, but why was the problem there was the big question. We put two and two together and hopefully came up with four, something it I was working on with the swing. But we don't know for sure; you can only surmise. Time will tell, I guess. I've gone away from what I was doing and if I stay fit, we'll have to assume that was the problem. Q. At one point last year you said you had accepted that your body was going to break down from time to time. It seems that this year things have gone above and beyond what you had accepted? DAVID HOWELL: Yeah, to a degree. You can cope -- I get a lot in my upper back and shoulders and that's generally where my problems and been and I'm working hard to solve that problem and so far I have. I haven't had a problem in my upper back or shoulders all year and that was what plagued me at the end of last year and had done at numerous times. Now it's switched to my lower back, so done with one problem and picked up another. So it's slightly concerning. Golf is a long career and I've got a lot of golf ahead of me and hopefully my best years are still to come, and if that's the case I have to stay somewhat healthy but I didn't done that for the last couple of years. For all of the time and effort I've put into it, I'm just not doing it at the moment. So I've got to change my ways again probably and reassess how I've managed my time, my practise, my body in general. I've got to be very-wise and clever with it, which possibly I haven't done or I didn't do as a young professional as a lot of guys don't. It's very hard to picture what life's going to be like when you're 35 or 45 when you're 25. You all think you're indestructible at that age, and the older generation, back then, they said it: "You have to watch yourself, you'll get old before you know it." But until you do put those years on and all of that stress on the body you don't realise what's going to happen. So have to be a bit more -- less practise and even more constructive time in the gym and with my physio to try and keep my body in as golf shape as possible. Q. Goals for the year going forward? DAVID HOWELL: Well, I'm in an unusual position. I don't know where I am in the Order of Merit, I'm 130 or something which is a million miles where I've been in the last few years at this stage of the season, or 129 places from this time last year I would say! So obviously I need to put in a strong end of the year just for that. I think my lowest position in the Order of Merit has been 70-something the year I broke my arm. So just for my own peace of mind, I want a strong finish. I want to finish somewhere respectably in the Order of Merit, even if that is not in the Top-10 and we've got Ryder Cup points starting fairly soon. So I'm not sure how my time is going to be spent in the next couple of years in terms of America and here. It looks like I may not play the 15 in America this year, which may change my schedule in the next couple of years, and I'm not sure how the U.S. Tour will deal with me. I'll deal with that but time will tell. Ryder Cup as we know, no one loves it more so than me, and it will be my main goal will be to qualify for that, and I guess I will do that predominately by The European Tour again rather than trying to play a more worldwide schedule. Q. Was it difficult to stay positive when you are out for so long? DAVID HOWELL: Yeah, certainly had my low moments. Badly is probably how I handled it. Yeah, watching 24 and Prison Break and Homes Under the Hammer at ten o'clock in the morning. I know when I'm up for that and I've got my Homes Under the Hammer at 10.00, that's good. But at times you sort of pinch yourself that I was doing more with my life a few weeks ago. But it's only three months. It's not the end of the world. I mean, I've been off before. The hard thing with this one was I broke my arm in 2002 and I knew I was going to be off for eight weeks, six at the absolute best, or ten to 12 at the worst and I could accept that. The problem with this one was it looked like I was injured, and then it looked like maybe a couple of weeks and it turned into ten. That's been the difficulty with this one is I wasn't able to really get away from it mentally and I was trying to keep the rest of my body fit so that I could -- when I had my lower back, I was trying to keep my shoulders strong because I felt like I could be playing in three weeks time and then my upper body would give away. Still working in the gym and physios, but in hindsight that was probably wasted and would have been better off six or eight weeks completely and trying to do that at a later stage. But that's just not the way this period has worked out so just have to be miserable some days and speak to nice people and remember that my lot is not all so bad. Q. How will you schedule going forward? DAVID HOWELL: Well, I've got a bit of a master plan up my sleeve in that when I won Dubai I had just had eight weeks off, and that was my second week back. And when I won in Germany, had five weeks off and that was my second week back; and the BMW last year I just had a month off and that was my second week back. So by all rights, I should win my next event and it could easily be The Open. Hopefully that trend will continue because it's a good time to be playing well. Joking aside, I think I do come back with a bit of a clean slate generally when I have a period off. For whatever reason I seem to play some nice golf. I'm obviously hoping that will happen again. But that being said, it's a difficult time of year to come back after everyone is fully prepared for The Open, or they are trying to be. I would obviously rather be in a nice run with some confidence having had some good results and a couple of wins going into major championships but that's not the way it is. Q. So you're playing now and then what? DAVID HOWELL: I'm hoping to play the next six, next week, The Open obviously, and then we have Germany and the PGA; my health accordingly and that's my plan. I need to get some momentum going. There's no point in me being at home practising and playing when I could be out here trying to win and trying to get some much needed confidence and results in good tournaments. So that's my plan. Q. You're very capable around the greens. Is putting psychological or a matter of practice for you? DAVID HOWELL: It's funny how we look at golf, isn't it. Some guys come off from tournaments and say 'only if I could hole a few putts, I could be winning'. And that's an accepted form of speech for a golfer. And if you come off and say, 'if only could I hit some decent shots, I would be winning': that would sound stupid. But that's the way it is. It's all part of golf. And it doesn't matter which bit you're good at. You've all got a number at the end of the day and if you hit it, you come up with a score and it all matters and the best players deal with it well. That's just the way it is. So players that hit it well would say I'd much rather be a great putter and trust me at times someone that struggles a bit from tee-to-green, I long for the day when I hit 16 greens and have 33 putts and shoot 69; they are rare. But I would rather hit it all over the place and win the championship and shoot 68. You can't have your cake and eat it, you know. Q. At one stage earlier you said you thought you might never come back. Was that because of how serious the injury was, or simply because you were feeling so low? DAVID HOWELL: Oh, no, no, it was never that serious an injury. That was just my -- when the wrist problem came back on top of the back problem, then you just think, well, what's going to be next, what's going to happen next. When you see it going on -- not never maybe, that's an exaggeration, but if something else crops up, is that going to be another month. When I first got the injury I had a little chat with Nick Faldo funny enough just in passing. We were chatting about, you know, golf and my golf and whatever and he said, well, first thing's first. You've got to get your back strong and maybe make a plan forgetting back for The Open and at that stage I was like what are you going on about. I'll be back next week. That was my mind-set at that stage and as it turns out-wise old guy that he is, he's pretty much spot on and all I've managed to do is get myself back just before the open. I just never saw it going that way. That was the frustration really. Funny enough I was reading one of the golf magazines the other day saying how Nick Faldo was actually very lucky, with all of the balls he hit trying to change his swing, he was that fit and he looks back now and he's amazed that he did. He said he was fortunate that was the case and if he did it now he would probably do it slightly differently in hindsight. He was fortunate that he was such a fit man, which obviously he won six majors, has been. Q. (Inaudible). DAVID HOWELL: Looking that way, isn't it. That's a good point. Obviously Augusta was a nice easy major in the season traditionally, a birdie and an eagle on the back nine but as you know it was different this year. We saw what Angel had to do at Oakmont to win and Carnoustie has the got reputation that we all know of. So from what I've heard obviously they have set it up differently than last time when Paul won, but it's still Carnoustie and if the weather is not great it's going to be a deuce no matter what. The majors are very different. It's a different mind-set you need. I think that's one of the things when you first start playing in the majors; it throws, you realising that 12-over par might be good on any given week. It's a tough mind-set to go from that -you get to the majors, then get to Germany and it's 20-under par; it's hard mentally to get control of. Obviously once you've played a few, you learn that. Yeah, to play all four, it would be a tough year for them. STEVEN FRANKLIN: Thanks, David, good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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