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VIVENDI CUP 2010

September 22, 2010

Peter Hanson

CHAMBOURCY, FRANCE

STEVE TODD: Peter, many thanks. Important week for yourself, Ryder Cup next week, to prepare the game. How are you feeling after a couple weeks off?
PETER HANSON: Exactly. I was feeling okay up until yesterday. I got a bit of a chest infection, a bit of a cold. I could feel it yesterday and a little bit worse today, so not ideal the way I want to prepare this week, but like Colin said, we don't want to be sick next week, so I'll try to treat that and see the doctor and hopefully I'll be ready to play tomorrow morning. Decided not to go out and play in the afternoon, so there's a lot of colds and stuff going around. So hopefully I should be -- at least I will be ready, anyway, Monday.
STEVE TODD: Fingers crossed you get better before next week. In terms of this week, you've said before you like to play the week before a major, and obviously this is a similar sort of thing you're doing here this week. What shape is the game in at the moment.
PETER HANSON: I felt pretty good yesterday. I played 18 holes yesterday and been doing a lot of practising back in Sweden over the last two weeks, so else too like my swing is in a good groove. Like you say I wanted to come here and fine tune and work the last bit on my form and be really sharp next week.
STEVE TODD: Have you had a chance to look at the course yet?
PETER HANSON: This course or next week?
STEVE TODD: This course.
PETER HANSON: Yes, I was out yesterday and played one of the courses, pretty short. It's, what do you say, a lot of wedge game and I think if the weather stays like this, it's going to be very low scoring.

Q. How reassuring is it to be knowing you're getting a game on the first day?
PETER HANSON: It feels great. Just standing here listening, I was hearing it for the first time standing here as well, and like Colin said, it's going to help me a lot knowing that I am going to play Friday, instead of having a situation where you go out and play practise rounds and you don't really know as a rookie if you're going to get a game or not. So like you said, it's going to help me a lot, even knowing now that I'm going to play Friday so I can prepare myself 100 per cent and try to play my absolute best in that match.

Q. This illness, were you tempted to pull out this week, with such a big week next week?
PETER HANSON: Not yet. It's a chest infection; it's a cold. I have a little bit of fever today, so I didn't feel like I want to be out in the afternoon in this heat. I'm wearing a sweater, and it's when you don't know you're cold or you're hot. So decided to take it easy this afternoon and go back to the hotel and get some rest.
Not the way I wanted to fine tune my game of course, I wanted to practise and get another round in today would have been good, but I'm going to do everything to be ready tomorrow morning, teeing off 8.50 something, so I think it would be good for my game, next week, as well, to play here, get a few rounds into the system and start getting the ball in the hole again.

Q. If you feel tomorrow like you do today, would you pull out?
PETER HANSON: Yes, I would probably do it. That's more to do with next week, because if I feel as bad, it's no point being out here and wasting all of that energy instead of trying to feel better and fresher come mid-next week.

Q. Standing there listening to Monty, what do you think about Monty?
PETER HANSON: I think it's great, we had a love coming in here and we have so much fun. I've been playing under Monty one full team event in Royal Trophy and we had so much fun, we had a great team and we had a great team spirit. I think that's what's going to be the key thing, getting all 12 players going the same direction, and really being a good team and having a lot of fun.

Q. Had it been on your mind whether you were going play Friday or the first day? As a rookie, is it natural to get anxious, when am I going to play?
PETER HANSON: Absolutely, especially in my situation, qualifying as the last guy and if you look at the World Ranking, I'm around 40th and other guys are around 5 and 6 and 10 and 18 and whatever. Of course, when you're down the rankings, it's a situation where, yeah, I mean, over the last week, I've been thinking a lot about it and of course the Swedish press I've been doing back in Sweden have been asking, who do you think you're going to play with. I've kind of more been going on, if asked, if I get a game on Friday, that would be great and kept pretty low-key. Like I said, get myself ready and whoever I'm going to be paired up with, be ready to play.

Q. Now that you know you're playing, who do you think you'll be playing with?
PETER HANSON: It's a tough one. I don't really want to get into it. I hope that my character and the way I play the game would suit to play with quite a few of the players. I don't think there's only like one or two that is a possible match. But people have been speculating and I think maybe Miguel would be a good guess, we have been playing a lot of golf together over here in Europe.

Q. Anyone you practise with regularly that's on the team?
PETER HANSON: Yeah, the one I practise most with in America, Lake Nona is Graeme McDowell. We spend a lot of time and we played the Tavistock, I played with both Graeme and Ross Fisher this year in a team event, and Graeme and I, we played a fourball there and did very well. So I think there is a lot of possible pairings in this team.

Q. How surprised were you to hear that? You were standing there when Monty said that for the first time?
PETER HANSON: To be honest, I wasn't too surprised. I speak a lot with Colin and he's such a team player and he loves The Ryder Cup, and you could almost see that coming. We have a strong team, and like you said, I wasn't around when he played his first Ryder Cup in '91, and I spoke with, and the way Monty said it, the separation between the first players and the last players on the team back then was a lot bigger. So if I'm getting teamed up in the singles against Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods, I've been playing with them a few times in the majors and all of the big golf events, and we know each other pretty well.

Q. After the qualifying, you qualified last and then Luke Donald comes out and said, we should change the qualifying system because it's ridiculous, people like Paul Casey are not on there, how did that make you feel?
PETER HANSON: I haven't really heard that. Must have been in the English press. Surprisingly there has not been anything in Sweden like that. (Laughter).
The qualifying system, everybody knows, one year ago, everybody knows what the qualifying system is like. So if you want to change your schedule and really push hard to make the team, you know what you have to do. It's a World Ranking system and the American boys, they have four wild cards, and, yeah, I'm not even going to go in -- my first Ryder Cup, I'm not even going to push on those rules because I have nothing to say about it.

Q. Are you surprised that Paul or PÃ¡draig didn't do what you did and play at the Czech Open?
PETER HANSON: No. I wouldn't say something. I spent a lot of time in America, got a house in Orlando. I could see the point of playing in that big final. The FedExCup is a huge thing. They are both playing a lot of golf in America.
You put your schedule quite early, especially if you're in that situation being that high up the World Ranking, you know you are getting into all of the majors, you are going to get into all of the World Golf Championships, and both of them were hoping -- I spoke to Paul at Whistling Straits and he was really committed to push as hard as he could to play the best golf he could. He knew what he was going on getting in, and everybody was trying their best on either side of the pond to try to qualify.
STEVE TODD: Hopefully you get better soon, Peter. Thanks for coming in.

End of FastScripts

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