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COMMERCIALBANK QATAR MASTERS PRESENTED BY DOLPHIN ENERGYFebruary 2, 2011Robert KarlssonDOHA, QATAR STEVE TODD: Thanks for joining us. Must be special coming back here after your victory last year, your first after your injury problems, must be nice memories. ROBERT KARLSSON: Yes, it is. I have always liked this golf course. I've played pretty well here before, as well. But obviously it was special to win here after being out for such a long time in 2009, so it was great. STEVE TODD: And obviously you went on to win in Dubai and fifth place last week; becoming a desert player. ROBERT KARLSSON: Apparently. Apparently so. I think if you have a look on the previous winners on most of the desert courses it is definitely set up for the longer hitters in general. Kaymer wins his second tournament here, and Casey, and pretty much the rest. If you look Abu Dhabi, it's a lot of long winners winning here. I don't know if it's the special setup of the golf courses or what it is, but the greens usually play pretty firm; so it's good to be closer to the greens. But no, I do like it here, and I've done fairly well. So it's good to be here. STEVE TODD: And just a quick word about the field this year, probably the strongest we've had in this tournament. It's going to be a good challenge to retain the trophy. ROBERT KARLSSON: Yeah, I never really think about it that way. I will have my name on the trophy, for, I hope, so for that matter, this is a new event and new tournament again, so just looking forward to playing again. Doesn't matter if I would have won it last year or not; it feels good to be back at a place where I've won. Q. You're in good company for the first two days, you have Lee and Steve Stricker. ROBERT KARLSSON: Luck of the draw. (Laughter). It's great. I played with Lee last round last year, so let's keep it going. It's good. I don't know if I've ever played with Steve Stricker -- maybe, but a long time ago. And Westwood is obviously great to play with. So that will be good. Q. I was going to ask you a question, what do you know about Steve Stricker? ROBERT KARLSSON: He's very good at putting and wedges, probably one of best ones in the world. Apart from that, I think he comes from the northern part of America, Wisconsin, and other than that, I don't know that much about him. He's really a guy that you don't see that much and doesn't make much noise. He's sort of quite a laid back, quite calm guy. Q. In contrast, you're a person that's travelled across to the States for many, many years; does it surprise you that he's only played one regular European Tour event outside of the British Open? ROBERT KARLSSON: Oh, okay. Yeah, it does surprise me. But some of the players tend to play a lot more in America. They have a very, very strong home tour, so it's hard to blame them. But yeah, it's got to be down to what you want to do yourself. And he's done very well, so it's hard to say. Q. Nobody has defended a title here in Doha, will you be able to break the jinx this time? ROBERT KARLSSON: As I said before, this is a new event and I will definitely do my best. And I think it's there's been one multiple winner, Adam Scott. So it's possible but so far no one's done it the year after each other. I mean, we'll see. For me, this is a separate event. It's a new event. Whether it's Bahrain last week or L.A. next where I'm going to play, it doesn't matter. And I'm not going to try to do anything different, because every shot I'm playing I give 100 per cent. I can't give 110. I only have -- I will do my best and I will treat this tournament as any other tournament. But obviously you have a lot of good memories, and it feels good to be back on the place which I won. Q. Is it putting any pressure on you? ROBERT KARLSSON: No. I've done well here without winning before. So I just try to keep those good memories and go out and play. Q. You've now played the four courses on the Middle East swing, and you're defending champion here, how would you sort of assess the toughness, which is the hardest one? ROBERT KARLSSON: I would say this is the one that's usually the hardest one. I think if you look on the scores, I would think this would be the one that's the highest scores around here. But it's also very often quite windier. And another thing that makes this course a bit harder, a little bit higher scoring is that the par 5s are long. In Dubai, for example, you have more easier, better chances on the par 5s, which you don't have here. And the wind direction is usually cross on at least three of the par 5s. And the first is really hard to hit the fairway from the tee and tee-to-green it's difficult. Yeah, I would say this is probably the harder one. But all of these courses, you can make any of these courses the hardest one just by setting it up differently. Because they have the perfect possibilities with the weather and the design on the courses, and just setting it up with rough and firmness on the greens. STEVE TODD: Thanks for your time. End of FastScripts |
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