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ABU DHABI GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPJanuary 21, 2010Ian PoulterABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES SCOTT CROCKETT: Many congratulations on a fantastic opening to the tournament. You said you wanted to get off to a good start; I assume that fits nicely into that category. IAN POULTER: Very much. So I wasn't expecting -- I wasn't expecting to come out quite as fast as that, but you know certainly I'll take it. Hit it lovely. I got here Tuesday, or I got here Monday night, started practising, and I didn't feel 70 per cent, let alone the way it was today. So I put an extra long session in on Tuesday and on Wednesday, my hands were raw and sore. I've obviously done an awful lot of work, and it's definitely paid off. I hit my irons very, very solid and I holed some nice putts. One of the goals at the start of the year was to hole more 20-foot putts which I haven't done a lot of. I said today, I hope you're keeping count, a few of these are going to go in, and they kept going in, dried up a little bit on the back nine and a little bonus on the last. SCOTT CROCKETT: A theme to this, a similar break coming back to Singapore, a six-week break there, and now again you're off to a flyer, so there you go. IAN POULTER: I'm just fresh and ready. I've taken five weeks off or six weeks off before Singapore and put the clubs down for three or four weeks, and done very similar this time around and put the clubs down for 3 1/2 weeks and I got back to practise and I'm just sort of fresh. I'm keen to play golf. I'm hungry to go out there and perform, and I think to be honest, when you take a five-week break, you get some excitement back to go out and perform and I've done that today. SCOTT CROCKETT: Talk us through the last. That will be the one everybody talks about later on tonight and tomorrow. IAN POULTER: Downhill, downgrain, 70-foot putt. I haven't really had a putt outside 20 feet all day. So a 70-footer, downhill, downgrain, hit it way too hard, probably ten foot too hard I guess and it was online and lucky enough hit the back of the hole and popped up and dropped. Q. Really awkward bunker shot -- IAN POULTER: Not really, or it shouldn't have been. I opened the face out, so using a bit of bounce but earlier in the round of golf, I had another bunker shot where if you're four foot from the edge of the bunker, they have flat-raked them -- obviously early in the morning, they have obviously sprinkled the bunkers; and therefore, they will get very compact. You need to hit it very hard and a couple of inches behind the ball and stop it bouncing and the club just bounced and come out a little bit too thin. If you're in the flat-raked stuff at the bottom of the bunker, you're fine, but if you're around the edges, it's very, very compact. Q. Since you finished second in The Open and almost led The Ryder Cup teams, your results are getting more approximate Monday consistent, certainly with the back end of last year, you had a lot of consistent results in your game. Do you feel you're getting a much higher level all the time and does that change your confidence or do you remain as confident as ever? IAN POULTER: Sure, certainly 2009, I've come out with an awful lot of confidence. I've played very solid and I've had a slightly shorter schedule last year than before. I obviously play well when I'm rested. Every time I do step on the golf course, I'm hungry to go out there and perform. I know that my schedule is slightly shorter than what I have played in the past, however every time I step on the golf course I want to make sure I'm maximising my world-ranking position and I can keep putting decent points on the board. So I've done that very well in 2009 and I sure want to do that in 2010 and I would like to make obviously the Ryder Cup side and I'd like to contend in majors this year. That's what I'm hungry to do. Q. Just going back to that bunker shot, when it came out the way it did, was getting a birdie the last of your thoughts? IAN POULTER: Yeah, you don't really expect to hole a 70-foot putt downhill, downgrain on the last hole. It was just nice. I wanted to 2-putt, get out of there to be honest. It would be a shame to putt a bogey on the card after playing so well all day; it would be a shame to 3-putt. But I guess you have to play for luck of the draw sometimes and take it. Q. Have you worked out how many tournaments you are going to play this year? IAN POULTER: Not fully, no. But I've got -- I've definitely got a schedule that is I would say 85 per cent complete, and I don't really want to deviate too far from that. I'm very happy with the way it's panned out and how I can prepare for each tournament I'm going to play, I'm going to give myself the best chance to perform in the big tournaments. Q. Ballpark? IAN POULTER: I would think 25 events without some of the other bonus events which aren't really World Ranking events. Q. You spent a lot of time talking with Camilo walking around today. Do you find it helps you relax when you do that? IAN POULTER: Yeah, I guess I haven't seen guys for six weeks, so it's always nice to catch up. I think I'm fortunate enough that I can step away and sort of get into relaxed mode and turn myself on for the 30 seconds I need to. It's nice. It's certainly nice playing with Søren and Camilo, good friends, and we get on well, so it's nice. It's nice to play with people like that. Q. Would that be right in thinking that heading into the world Top-10 would be one of your eminent goals? IAN POULTER: Absolutely. Yeah, looking at how many places I moved up last year, I would think I moved up 15,16 places, and certainly want to keep going forward. So, yeah, but if I move a couple of spots forward, I will be in the Top-10, so that's definitely a goal. I do that, I understand that I'm going to be picking up World Ranking points and that should put me in a position to make certain things look good at the end of the year. Q. Do you have days where you reflect on the amazing journey you have been on and almost amazed at how far you have come? IAN POULTER: Often. It was quite nice -- I was with a couple of good friends at Lake Nona, literally last week, actually there are for my birthday. The guy that first sponsored me, he was there and there was two others that came to meet a friend of theirs that had a house at Lake Nona and came over, had a glass of wine and rolled back the years. It's been quite a journey certainly to have a chat with people like that who they know me from pro shop days and I was there for three years, and they are very good friends. It's nice to catch up with people like that and talk about the good old days. Ten years ago, it seems to have gone pretty quickly and yeah, I have to pinch myself an awful lot. I met them at the club when I worked at the shop there. Q. 6-under today, what do you feel will be the score on Sunday? IAN POULTER: I'm not sure to be honest with you. There's a lot of guys at 6-under on the board. There's probably seven guys on the board at 6-under right now. That's a good score on this golf course, so double it, and -- double it and add three I guess. I think that would be a decent No. 15-ish. I'd like to be a few more than that. Q. When you decided you wanted to be a Tour pro, how scary was it or were you completely confident in your ability that you would thrive on? IAN POULTER: I wouldn't say I was completely confident but I would say I was probably naïve to with a it actually meant to get to that level. I guess being like that, I went really afraid of it. I just felt as if it could happen if you've done the right things, if you practise hard enough, then it I guess I felt as if anything was achievable. So I never -- I have never, ever thought anything different. I just never thought -- it's always been, right, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that and don't think about anything else apart from that. So I guess a bit naïve, really. It's work. Q. Your first competitive round with the new grooves, did you notice any difference or did it influence your shots at all? IAN POULTER: I've only got new grooves in the wedges. I've always used V-grooves in my irons, so to be honest with you, I missed a couple of greens -- I'm just picking a shorter landing spot to be honest. Yeah, I'm obviously thinking about it on certain chip shots. The ball is not going to react the same. But if you keep hitting it solid and hitting in the middle of the fairways and greens, you really shouldn't be hitting wedges to be honest with you. So if you can do that bit right and concentrate properly, I don't think the scoring is going to be, you know, overly different to what it would be if we was using square grooves. So I just think the top end of the leaderboard, guys are not missing many greens in regulation, and I think a lot of players are good enough with their short game to have the right machination to just pick a spot shorter than they were at the end of it, so I guess it's a visualisation thing. If you can get used to where your landing spot needs to be, I think people will adjust pretty quickly. SCOTT CROCKETT: Thanks, as always. Well done today. End of FastScripts |
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