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October 1, 2010
NEWPORT, WALES
PETER HANSON: It's great, to get a feel of this atmosphere this morning, I was down there watching Lee and I thought standing on that tee would be absolutely fantastic, I can't wait.
Q. Do you think that experience helped in terms of preparing for the time you do face it yourself; that you've seen what it's like?
PETER HANSON: It's going to be a tough shot and it's going to be nervous. And like Lee said, the other guys who have been playing so many, it could be a tough shot but I hope I'm ready for it.
We'll see what happens, if I get to play in foursomes, one guy has to get off the tee. But at the same time you have to enjoy it with the crowd behind.
Q. Monty said everybody would play the first day, he's going to be wrong by the look of it, but you must be ready to play in the foursomes; you must be ready to play presumably.
PETER HANSON: Yeah, he said everybody was going to play and hopefully I'll be out there tomorrow morning after these boys are done. Really looking forward to it.
Q. You have been practising with Jiménez, would it be mice to partner with him? Can we expect that?
PETER HANSON: Not really. Not sure about that. I can't say anything. (Laughter).
Yeah, it would be great, like we said, we try to maybe get some people, experienced people with some of us fresh guys.
Q. What's been the highlight of your week so far?
PETER HANSON: Everything. This crowd here is unbelievable, being here for so many hours and waiting for us to play, it's a fantastic week.
Q. How frustrating has this been?
GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, it's frustrating. It's frustrating for everyone. Obviously we have got the dry and all the food inside. These guys are the ones that deserve all the respect and need to give them a big thank you for standing around and supporting us.
The reception we got on the first tee was amazing and says a lot for what this Ryder Cup is all about. Let's hope we can get out there this afternoon and give the fans what they came here to see, some golf.
Q. How special was to be on the first tee with your fellow countryman?
GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, very special. Despite the rain, despite the kind of, how miserable I'm sure all the crowd felt waiting around for us this morning, they lifted our spirits and were loud and were great. We were able to feed off them.
As tough as it was out there for the Americans, we were getting energy from these guys behind me. They were really carrying us through, and you know, it wasn't raining much in The European Team room when we came off the course. We all felt pretty good and charged up and we are ready to get back out there again.
Q. Rory told us many times he was inspired by your U.S. Open victory; are you mentoring him?
GRAEME McDOWELL: He looks up to me and I look up to him a bit, as well, because of how talented he is. We have a great relationship from my point of view. I hope I can kind of add something to his career and he certainly brings a lot to my career.
I sort of said in the past, if I can slipstream him for the next ten years, I'd be pretty happy with that. There's no doubt he's going to win lots of majors and play in lots of Ryder Cups, and it's an honour to play aside such a talented, young individual.
Q. You did get to play a few holes, give us a take on what happened on the few holes you did play.
GRAEME McDOWELL: It was really difficult. The fairways were under water and nowhere to drop the golf ball. My second shot to the first was casual water and I just had to play it and the same with my shot to two and my shot to four. I realised that I could have taken relief but there was just nowhere to go.
The ball was not travelling very far at all. The greens are superb, though, I have to say, all credit to the staff here at Celtic Manor. The greens are in magnificent condition and running good.
And you know, we won the first with a par and we won the fourth with a par, says a lot about how difficult it is, if you do keep the ball in the fairway, you get in a lot of trouble.
Q. What are the main challenges, even though it's playable?
GRAEME McDOWELL: The bunkers have become real hazards. I drove in the bunker on 5 and just before play got suss approximate ended, I had casual water and I had to take a drop and it plugged and the bunkers, the rough is heavy, wet, nasty. So fairways become a priority. And when you are in the fairway, obviously you have to realise that you are going to be playing off very wet lies. You can't really get as steep as you normally do, you have to maintain your posture and your height and try to putt the ball off the top and realise there's a percentage of yardage that you're going to lose in this atmosphere.
Q. You played your first Ryder Cup in Valhalla the last time around, and you tell us the team spirit was very good there, is it different here?
GRAEME McDOWELL: Yeah, there's a different buzz in the team room this week. I said a few weeks ago that I felt like the X-factor was missing in the team room a couple of years ago. Monty has done a really great job for us this week. We have wanted for nothing.
We have got a great backroom staff with Thomas and Darren and ball and Sergio, and just a great team with a real mix of experience and young blood, obviously, some rookies. We have got an extremely talented team. Guys are playing great and just excited to go out and try to do the job this weekend.
End of FastScripts
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