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OMEGA DUBAI LADIES MASTERSDecember 7, 2010Laura DaviesDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES BETHAN CUTLER: Welcome to the fifth OMEGA Dubai Ladies Masters. Joining today we have Mr. Mohamed Buamaim, organising promotor to the tournament; Laura Davies, current No. 2 in the Money List with five tournament victories this season, and the new golf in DUBAi ambassador in 2010. MOHAMED BUAMAIM: Good morning, and thank you for being with us today. I'm very happy, very privileged, very honoured to be sitting next to a legend, Laura Davies. We are also very happy to have her as a new golf ambassador for 'golf in DUBAi'. Golf Ambassador for 'golf in DUBAi' is really a simple job. It doesn't entail that much: Just wear the logo, go around to different parts of the world and hopefully make the name, Dubai, visible around the world. I'm sure Laura and all of our other Ambassadors will do a good job, and they did a good job, all of the ones we had before. Matter of fact, Adrian (Flaherty) was telling me the other day, he saw it on TV when she was playing in the U.S., and it works. I just wanted to welcome Laura to all of our family and wish you luck with this tournament, as well, and we will be happy to be partners with you for the next four years. LAURA DAVIES: Thank you very much. It's a definite honour for me. It's the icing on the cake to what's been an absolutely brilliant year in Europe. And when I heard the news from my manager that this was going happen, obviously very excited. Love this tournament. I think it is one of the favourite tournaments all year for the girls in Europe. And obviously being part of it, on a slightly bigger level now, being an Ambassador, and it's really nice and an honour to have that position, so I thank you very much. MOHAMED BUAMAIM: Thank you very much, Laura. Q. Can you talk about the changes to the Order of Merit, at 47, does this ever get tired? In the running for it at the last tournament of the year and vying for the No. 1 spot that, kind of thing? LAURA DAVIES: No, it's great, a after a winning start in January, you're trying to do well on both Money Lists. I haven't done well in America, but luckily played really well, really consistently in Europe this your. And to come here with a chance, Lee-Anne has obviously played fantastic herself, five wins as well. It's a pretty simple equation. I have to finish first or second or else I'm done for the Money List. It could be a really gait week for me if I could do that, but I'm under no illusion, Lee-Anne still a big favourite to win the Money List but at least I've got one more shot to try and turn the tables. Q. You mentioned a four-year association; do you reckon that will be a four-year playing association, do you think your career can span that? LAURA DAVIES: Oh, yeah, that would put me up for being 50. Tom Watson nearly won the Open at 59. So maybe I'll have 14 years, who knows. But I have no plans of stopping playing. If I'm competitive, then I don't really want to do anything else. I love playing golf. I love travelling the world. The trips I've been on the last sort of two months are incredible and you can't do that in any other walk in life. Well, I couldn't. All I'm good at is golf, and it affords me the privilege of going around the world playing. So really don't want to stop any time soon. Q. It's been a long, productive career. How long do you realistically think you can remain competitive at the top of the women's game? LAURA DAVIES: I've always said, if you can walk, you can play golf. It's not like you have to be running the 100 metres in nine seconds. Just walk around the golf course and if you're good enough, which obviously I still am and I don't see it ending, I really don't. I only have to use Tom Watson; a lot of people, I end up winning a tournament and people say, right, you're retiring and I'm like, I just won a tournament, why would I retire. I use Tom as the milestone now. And if he can beat those players at 59, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to play at 55, 56. Who knows, my not be playing well enough. As soon as I'm not playing well enough, you won't see me. You'll hopefully see me doing something in the media maybe after that, but if I wasn't cane, I'm certainly not going to be playing. Q. You've announced your foot on the lead; is that a level to be maintained or have you noticed anything in your game? LAURA DAVIES: No, my game really has stayed the same over the years. I just got a new driver in Portland which was good three months ago, 3 1/2 months ago and I immediately gained 15 yards of distance so length-wise. But the technology has kept my game level, maybe some of the other girls have gone past me now, Gustafson and Brittany Lincicome, very long, young and the young American girl here this week, Alexis; she's very long. So I'm not the longest anymore, but my game has stayed pretty much the same. Q. Being a major win or one or two regular tour wins away from the LPGA Golf Hall of Fame, what do you think about that? LAURA DAVIES: Well, I have to think about it in America, because that's all they talk about. But until I win, unless it's a major or until I win one more regular tournament, there's no real point talking about it as far as I'm concerned. Because I have four cracks at it next year in the majors to get in; or if I win say the first tournament of the year, every tournament becomes more important. But until I get to the point where a win gets me in the Hall of Fame, it doesn't affect me. So the majors, you think about it and the rest you don't. Q. Would it be a highlight of your career? LAURA DAVIES: Absolutely. I promised my dad, five or six years ago, I would do it one day, because he lived in America most of his life and the Hall of Fame is very important to him because he obviously travelled the Tour with me in the early days in 1998 when I went to America and joined the Tour. So I said, I would keep going for that, and I think I can do it but if I don't it won't ruin my career. I had so much fun and that would literally be the icing on the cake. Q. No. 1, how do you like Dubai? LAURA DAVIES: I love it, yeah this is my fourth year. I missed the first one and I just love coming back. Like I said it's one of the favourite tournaments of the players. You can judge a tournament by how the players get excited about coming to a place, and this is one of them. There's the Evian Masters, a few tournaments that are special, and this is one of them. Q. Next question is, in your opinion, who are the stars of the future? LAURA DAVIES: I think Michelle Wie obviously. She's had a rough patch. She had a rough patch about 16, 17 years old which seems pretty weird but she's back winning tournaments, but she should be, she should be winning on a regular basis with her talent. I think Alexis, she hits the ball so far; she could be another one coming through. There's so many young Korean girls that are playing well at the moment. So there's an incredible amount of good, young talent in the women's game. Q. And how do you see women's golf progressing? LAURA DAVIES: Well, it's purely because the interest of the youngsters now. I think you saw a lot of younger players coming through when Tiger Woods started coming on the scene. When I turned professional years and years ago, golf was seen as, how are you going with yourself, why aren't you doing hockey or soccer or else but now because Tiger did what he did; the age group has got younger and younger and I think the age group is going to keep getting like that, younger and younger. Q. Would you say that the European players are getting stronger? LAURA DAVIES: You would say in the men's game, they are really dominating. But in the women's game, you look at the Solheim Cup, and at the home, we are not quite as strong as them. But now we are starting to see much younger European girls coming up and eventually the parity will come there, which isn't at the moment but we can only hope. Q. What is your favourite thing to do in Dubai other than playing golf? LAURA DAVIES: I love watching football and you can watch any football game from around the world. So I spend a lot of time in the pubs watching football, not drinking necessarily but that's where they have the games on. There's so much to do, you can go down to the beaches. If you want to do something, you can do it in do you buy, the indoor skiing slope. Johnny, my caddie, won't let me go skiing but he was talking about doing it this week so I might go and watch him do a bit of snowboarding there but you can do anything you want here. Q. You mentioned this tournament being alongside the Evian Masters outside the majors as one of the girls' favourites. Can you enlarge on why? Is it the course? LAURA DAVIES: It's everything, really. It's the course, it's fantastic and it's a great course for women's golf. It sets up perfectly. The scoring is always very good for the leaders and if you're not playing well. You can see some nice scores, but it's a good setup. The way we get treated just around the clubhouse and the hotels and the way they look after us it feels like a major tournament but it's not a major tournament. The facilities, practise rounds, probably the best we have all season in Europe, putting green, fantastic, and they are the things that make pros happy and comfortable. You have the whole package here. Q. Anything outside of the Majors? LAURA DAVIES: I think the Swiss Open on The European Tour, that's another one I know the girls love to go play in. In America, the tournaments seem to blend in. It's nice when you go to some of the Asian events. It's a little bit warm out there but usually you seem to be more in a group when you go way from America. And obviously in Europe as well, and when you come to a place like this, everyone seems to be more grouped together and a more fun atmosphere and all of the parties that go on during the week. For most pros, they don't want to do that, but you tend to get everyone turning up for everything because they enjoy it. Q. The gap between men's golf and ladies golf, is it narrowing? LAURA DAVIES: I think it's probably getting bigger at the moment. I think at some stage, purely the Tiger factor is still there and it's hard to compete with that. I think Michelle doing what she is doing now, the pre-U.S.-open was a huge boost for us, and you're never going to get parity. It's not like tennis where they turn up at the majors and play the same; that's not going to happen. I don't think it has to happen. We play for fortunes around the world and as far as I'm concerned and a lot of the other girls, they are happy with what they have got. You always want more and you want to be closer to what they get but I don't think that's ever going to happen. Q. Ever? LAURA DAVIES: No, I don't think it is. They are the best golfers in the world. We are the best women golfers in the world and they have got their area and we have got our area and I think anyone who is not comfortable with where they are is wasting their time a little bit because this is what they have got and I think it's fantastic as far as I'm concerned. Q. The issues with the men's European Tour, playing the PGA Tour and playing The European Tour; it similar in the women's? LAURA DAVIES: Well, I've always done the same thing. I've usually played anywhere between 21 and 22 in America and I've always played about eight, nine, ten in Europe and this year it's been tight because the LPGA has been struggle and I think this could be my 17th European Tour event this year so that's an unusual amount. But next year I can see it reverting back -- I haven't seen the Tour yet but I understand there's a few more events so I'll probably go a little bit more in America than Europe next year but that's just trying to be competitive at this time because you have to play -- I'm 80th on the Money List in America because I haven't played. But you have to play as many as you can out there because the fields are so strong and you're just -- you miss two weeks and you drop on the Money List. That's the way my year is going to pan out. BETHAN CUTLER: Thanks very much for joining us today. Best of luck. End of FastScripts |
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