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DUBAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY DP WORLD

November 25, 2010

Robert Karlsson

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

First Round 64 (-8)

MICHAEL GIBBONS: Robert, thanks very much for joining us. An eagle, eight birdies and three bogeys, give us your assessment of a 65?
ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, it's the first tournament around here, and I played a couple of practise rounds. I was here in January and I had a practise round, and obviously the Pro-Am. So I didn't know that much about the course, except that I know there's been a lot of low scores last year.
I think it's one of those courses, when you're playing well, it's easy to get close to the pins because they sort of feed to the pins very often. But if you're off the sort of bowls of the pins, it's very difficult to set yourself. So I think that's why my score today was a bit like that. Made a lot of good stuff and when I missed it, it was difficult to save myself.
MICHAEL GIBBONS: Your form has been good, Japan last week, and you've been playing very well.
ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, I'm happy with the way I hit the ball well last week; and a complete opposite compared to this, tree-lined golf course and very soft greens. So it's probably the compete opposite. But coming in here playing well, obviously feeling good.

Q. The word is this week that it would be harder to match the aggregate winning score that Lee posted last year, but you're indicating that that might not be the case.
ROBERT KARLSSON: Well, that was one round. There's another three to go. I guess; I don't know how the course was set up last year, but I think it's not too far away.
One thing that's quite different is to play here from November from February or January, but it seems to be the greens are a lot softer because there's more moisture in the air. So the greens are way more receptive here than they have ever been in Emirates or Qatar or wherever we play.

Q. Can you judge, please, for us, technically like human beings, from the two persons who are now on top in Graeme and Kaymer, like technical?
ROBERT KARLSSON: From where I am at the moment?

Q. This moment.
ROBERT KARLSSON: I'm playing pretty well. I have most of the shots in the bag. I mean, I feel pretty comfortable with where I am in the game and I mean, there's no blindness at the moment or any other diseases, so things are good (laughing).

Q. What was your target heading into this weekend?
ROBERT KARLSSON: I don't really have those kind of targets. I just try to go out and play my best golf four days in a row and we'll see where I end up. It's very important for me to get to sort of -- if think about numbers and things like that, then it's usually not very good for my game. So I just try to leave as much behind as I can, and playing one shot at a time.
Obviously it's a low-scoring course, so you need to keep it going, very important.

Q. Can you take us through from 14 onwards, please?
ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, 14, I hit a great drive. It's just a little bit too narrow there on front left pin. I didn't really fancy going in with a 3-wood and laid up with an 8-iron and give myself a really good yardage with a wedge and one bounce in.

Q. What was the yardage?
ROBERT KARLSSON: 114, something like that, 110.
15 was a 5-wood off the tee, 8-iron, 35 feet, two putts.
16, driver, 9-iron, probably 20 feet.
17 was a 5-iron, 15 feet.
18, I hit my tee shot left. I was in trouble. I was lucky to have a shot that I can get out and then at the end, I was short and right of the green in three and I tried to sort of pitch it past the pin and left it coming back, but I didn't hit it hard enough. So gave myself a 15-footer and just didn't break as much as I thought.
So, 31, back nine with a bogey on the last is quite good I think.

Q. Did you know what the record was?
ROBERT KARLSSON: No. Still don't know it.
MICHAEL GIBBONS: 64.

Q. You said the greens were relatively receptive, but what happened to them during the course of the morning?
ROBERT KARLSSON: There's not much difference. I think they are the same as Tuesday roughly.

Q. They were 13 and a half on the Stimpmeter or something at the start?
ROBERT KARLSSON: Oh, speed-wise. Yeah, they are quicker than they look. Especially I came from Japan, they were 13 on the Stimp as well and they looked like glass and these ones because they are bermudagrass, they don't look as quick.
So I had a problem on the putting green; for two days I hit it like six feet past all the time. So I give myself some long putts and try to hit them short on the putting green and I got the pace pretty good on the course.
But they do -- I would say they grow a bit, and they are quite soft on top. You can see when people are a bit clumsy with the feet, you can see how the grass sort of stands up. Bermuda is very harsh, you can get some bad spike -- they are not really spike marks, more like you brushed up with your feet, a little grain, it sort of stands up. But they are in really, really good condition.

Q. I remember you coming back last September from the blindness, as you called it; refresh my memory what else happened with your hell?
ROBERT KARLSSON: I had a glandular fever this spring. Couldn't really play to any sort of standard for about two months. Since then I've been good. But it takes time to get back. It's taken a longer time than I was hoping, but it's starting to feel good now.

Q. It looks as if Martin is going to have a fairly big cushion over Graeme McDowell at the end of today, can you give Graeme any sort of words of hope on this course?
ROBERT KARLSSON: I don't know what the situation is. I don't know what Martin has to do or what Graeme McDowell have got to do. I can only go back to my own experience, and I know, I talked with I think it was PÃ¡draig and I talked a bit about it; it's a horrible situation to lead Order of Merit, especially if you're not playing well.
If you are coming in the tournament and Martin is having a good round today, he'll be focusing on winning this event which is why he's here. If you go and end up just being in the middle of the pack and whatever you're doing is not making much difference, you just become a leaderboard watcher the whole week, and it's not good. I had that situation in Valderrama in 2008.
The best thing for Martin is if he can keep playing this way, it's going to make it harder for Graeme obviously. But the way Graeme has played, if he gets his irons going around here, you can shoot a very, very low score. It's not going to be easy for Martin, that's for sure.

Q. I know there were good health reasons why you didn't play in The Ryder Cup this year, but do you think not playing in it and the way it was won and all of the profile of the players that have got, do you think for yourself and Henrik and Sergio, is that a motivation factor going forward?
ROBERT KARLSSON: Well, when you've been in one Ryder Cup, you want to come back to it. That's just the way it is. It's a fantastic event and something you want to be a part of.
If you're not in it, you try next time. Obviously it was fantastic for Europe to win it, and a lot of the players are taking -- kept playing very well, like Francesco and obviously Graeme and Poulter. You can't miss at the moment.
So, it's good. Everything is good for European golf, and for us, we have been in it, so we are going to have to try to get back to it again.

Q. Just taking it away from this event, I've been following you on Twitter and I think you have been really a very different kind of Twitter -- your response on Twitter has been very different to almost all of the other players. You seem to take on a lot of technical questioner ease from those that are following you and you seem to spend a lot of time answering them. Can you just tell me how that thought came to your mind and how you are going to take this forward?
ROBERT KARLSSON: Well, for me, when I get questions where I feel like I can contribute something to the person or who is asking me the questions, I try to send as honest an answer as I can. I mean, it's something I don't do it every week. Do I it when I -- if I have a week where I'm on my own and I'm not doing much in the evenings, it could be something that's good fun. Like sending SMSs to friends, even though you don't know them exactly. It's something that's quite enjoyable to do.
But it's not -- it's not like a plan that I'm going to be some sort of Twitter guru or something like that. It's more a good, fun thing to do. It's good fun when people are coming to the tournaments and say, 'Oh, I got a Tweet from you the other week.' It's good fun.
MICHAEL GIBBONS: Thanks for joining us. Happy Tweeting.

End of FastScripts

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