|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
THE PRESIDENTS CUPOctober 6, 2009Ryo IshikawaGeoff OgilvyCamilo VillegasYong-Eun YangSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA MARK WILLIAMS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. We would like to welcome four members of the international squad. We have Y.E. Yang from Korea, Geoff Ogilvy from Australia, Camilo Villegas from Colombia and Ryo Ishikawa from Japan. Welcome, to all, we'd like to open with a quick comment from each player and then we will open up for questions. If we can just start with Y.E. and we'll go down the table, your impressions of the golf course today, and some opening comments. Y.E. YANG: The scenery is magnificent. I've been in California for about three days now, and what I can feel is that California is quite wonderful. Also, the greens are a bit slow. (Laughter). MARK WILLIAMS: Geoff, can you give us your impressions, and being a match-play afficianado, after winning the Accenture Match-Play Championship, what you're looking forward to this week? GEOFF OGILVY: This is a good week for us. It's probably the most enjoyable tournament that I play every two years for sure. We don't get to play in a team atmosphere very often. We did as amateurs, but turning pro we don't, so this is very exciting for us. The course, we are getting spoiled by the weather. I don't know where we don't play on the west coast more often, it always seems to be perfect temperature, perfect weather, the rough isn't crazy stupid, the greens are not crazy fast. It's just going to be an enjoyable week. I think the golf course will be part of the whole event, not a big talking point but it's where it should be in the tournament. It's going to be really enjoyable, I think, and it looks like we are going to get spoiled with the weather, as I said. As the guys who played at Turning Stone, and Ernie who played at Dunhill, a nice week of weather is going to be very welcome. MARK WILLIAMS: Camilo, you're one of the rookies on the International Team, if you can give us your impressions of being involved as a team member. CAMILO VILLEGAS: I'm excited to be here. When I walk in the room, it reminds me a little bit of college golf, where, you know what, we played 25, 30 events here, every year, we are grinding for ourselves, and just it's week-after-week, individual sport. It feels awesome to be part of a team. It feels great to have not only 11 other guys that are playing, but a captain and other assistants and other people to go to dinner and enjoy some good times and be a little more relaxed. But you just step it up when you get on the first tee and try to make birdies and win matches. So again, very excited to be here, very proud of myself for being here, and just ready to give it my best for this team. MARK WILLIAMS: And Ryo at the end, one of the youngest players on the team, just your first impressions of the week so far and what you're looking forward to, as well. RYO ISHIKAWA: (Speaking in Japanese). CAMILO VILLEGAS: I was going to say, I totally agree with what he says. (Laughter). RYO ISHIKAWA: It's a dream come true to be in this event, but I'm nervous at the same time. I'm going to do my best to put my efforts in to help the team win and with everyone's help, everybody is so great, and all of the other team members have been very nice to me; and I just want to have a great week and be able to contribute with them. Q. Geoff, this morning your captain, Greg Norman, mentioned because of his public announcement this past week, that he wants to deflect any attention, but he said it isn't a distraction. From a player's perspective, he's saying that you guys are fully on; have you tried to talk to him about it or sympathize, any of the players, as far as what he's going through? GEOFF OGILVY: What's he going through? Q. The announcement of his separation. GEOFF OGILVY: To be honest, the first I've heard about it all day is your question. So it hasn't been a part of it -- well, that's a lie. First time I heard of it was when he came out of here early on, was wondering why we were all talking about that and not the golf tournament. Q. What do you think of the golf course and the setup? GEOFF OGILVY: The setup is perfect. I really like it. It's typical, northern California kind of poa bent mix, I assume they are Cypress trees everywhere. The greens are slower than we play sometimes, but that's what you always get in California. They are really nice. The rough isn't crazy. It's probably just how the average San Francisco guy who comes to play this golf course, I assume, it looks really nice. Maybe it's not as good as this all the time. But we normally go to golf courses and the rough is this high and the greens are stupid and they have put new sand in all the bunkers, and I think that's a shame sometimes. I think this is nice, really nice, the conditions, and how you would like to see a golf course when you turn up. Q. Do you remember when you first watched Greg Norman play golf on television? RYO ISHIKAWA: About ten years ago, I watched Mr. Norman play on TV, and that was probably the first time I watched and that was kind of when I started playing golf, also. So that kind of leaves an impression on my mind. But in 2008, the British Open, even though it was in the middle of the night for us in Japan, I watched Mr. Norman play every day of the tournament. But to have a player like him pick me into this Presidents Cup event, I'm very honored and very excited. Q. You're playing this golf course when it's not the traditional finish, No. 18 is No. 15; do you have any feelings about not getting to finish on the 18th hole here? GEOFF OGILVY: Well, hopefully we do finish on the 18th hole (smiling). Q. But the old, traditional hole. CAMILO VILLEGAS: But it doesn't really matter. It's what it usually is, but it's not this week, so what difference does it make? We have 1 to 18 this week and it is what it is. I don't think it's going to -- honestly, I don't think it changes anybody's mind in any way. GEOFF OGILVY: Makes the course a longer walk. Q. In years past, it's been a team dominated by Australians and South Africans. Maybe this year is the most international of the International Teams. Do you think that that's a good thing or a bad thing in terms of the bonding of the players? Obviously a lot of different languages, Spanglish over there, a lot of different languages and cultures -- GEOFF OGILVY: Japanese right there (pointing to Andrew Both). Q. Is it easier for more difficult to bond? How does that dynamic play? GEOFF OGILVY: Those guys speak enough, that's for sure. The bonding just last night, you were here for two hours and we're all in the same floor of the hotel and you walk out of your room and everyone is there and everyone's pretty excited to be here already. I think it feels like a team already. I don't think -- I mean, everyone's got great English. We all know each other pretty well from the TOUR, anyway. I think the bonding has started already. It feels like a team already. We all had dinner last night, same place, we've already had a couple of bus trips together, and the bus trips are some of the things that really create that team bond. It's kind of like going back to school. Good kids sit up front, the bad kids sit in the back. No, it's been good. I don't think it matters where we come from. I think we are all pretty excited to play for the Shark and be here. It feels like a team already. Q. Can I ask Y.E. the same question? Y.E. YANG: There's no awkwardness between the players. We have all known each other for quite a long time now, and basically if we go out, we play golf. We don't talk golf. So it doesn't matter if you don't speak English fluently. I speak enough to communicate with my caddie. That's sufficient enough to communicate with my other teammates, as well. I think they understand it. Even with my broken English, I do think that I could probably talk about and consult club selection and yardages and left-to-right or right-to-left, up-and-down. That's going to be I -- I think the language barrier is minimal. As Geoff said, we hit it right at the beginning, I played pool with Vijay at the hotel, he won one and I won the next one. We have been out having dinner with the whole team, great atmosphere. The wives help, as well, too. So I don't really think that the diversity is a negative. It's only a positive. Q. I was wondering, did Greg call you guys or communicate with you guys prior to his making the picks? Did you guys have any input? GEOFF OGILVY: I didn't have any input to the picks, but there was definitely communication, some phone calls and a few e-mails back and forth. He was telling me he was talking to the rest of the team, too. He asked what I thought, but there was no really, what should I do question or anything. How we felt or who would we like to play for in fourballs and that sort of stuff. But he was definitely communicating from the British Open onwards, it was pretty full on. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|