	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

SAAB WALES OPEN

June 2, 2011

Keith Horne

NEWPORT, WALES

SCOTT CROCKETT: Keith, thanks for coming in and joining us, many congratulations on an excellent first round and an excellent first round in total at Celtic Manor, it's your debut here. Give us your thoughts on the course and on your play today, which clearly you're very pleased with.
KEITH HORNE: Yeah, I just thought the golf course today, well, it was playing probably as easy as it's going to play. The front nine was pretty tough because it was a bit cold and the ball wasn't going that far. So we were hitting a lot of long irons and medium irons into the par 4s.
The pins were I thought pretty difficult on the front nine and quite hard to get with the long clubs. Once it warmed up and once I started to warm up myself and make a few birdies, I actually really enjoyed the back nine. It gets really interesting.
SCOTT CROCKETT: "Frustrating" was the word you used on television to describe your form of late. What's turned it around, do you think?
KEITH HORNE: I don't know, we'll find out. We'll see if it keeps going for the next couple of days. I did some work with Hennie Otto on the range and I've been doing some work with my coach, but just a couple of key thoughts that I changed on to the golf course, and they clicked and I just stuck to them for the whole round.
I was a little bit too nervous to stray from them, and I think that helped a lot out there, because I couldn't get ahead of myself, the way I've been playing lately. So I just stuck to my key thoughts all the way around and got pretty comfortable.
SCOTT CROCKETT: A full card for Europe this year, is that helping you focus?
KEITH HORNE: It's exciting. I don't think it's changing my focus at all. I've been playing a lot of European events in the last five years, but it's just a lot more exciting, and it's made me work a lot harder anyway.

Q. How tiring was Monday? Did you do nothing Tuesday and just have a look yesterday?
KEITH HORNE: No, Monday was fun. It was fun on Monday funnily enough. I really enjoyed the change in playing the links golf course out there. It was a lot of fun for me, even though I didn't play that well, but it was a lot of fun, but I felt it on Tuesday.
I played 18 holes, a practise round, here and I was -- after 15 holes, I had nothing left. So I just took it easy and went to bed early Tuesday night and very early Wednesday night, did a little bit of work on the range Wednesday, and that was about it.

Q. Louis, Charl and Thomas; what is it you South Africans are eating nowadays? Does it give you a spur, seriously?
KEITH HORNE: I think so. The local tour back home has been going really well, as well, and Charl and Louis and Thomas are supported really well. And everybody just sees the level they have to be at the whole time and it just lifts everybody's games.
I think also you're playing against them week-in and week-out back home, and it does give you a boost and it does give you the belief that it's possible yourself, I'm sure -- it does for me, anyway.

Q. What was the highlight of your round today? Did you have one moment that you thought, wow that really sums up?
KEITH HORNE: Yeah, my 3-wood into the 18th hole. I had about 259 yards into 18 and I hit 3-wood to about 12, 15 feet. I've had a couple of those shorts towards the end of my round the last few weeks when I've been playing relatively well or close to the cut, and I've hit them in the middle of the soup. Today was nice to pull it off.

Q. I was just going to sort of follow-up on that sort of virtuous circle you're describing with the fellow South African players, but also playing on The European Tour, giving The European Tour success generally, whatever the nationality, in the World Rankings, that must inspire, as well?
KEITH HORNE: Yeah, I think everything. It's just the atmosphere it's created. It's like any business I suppose, when the business is doing well, there's a wonderful, positive attitude from everybody that's around from the people that are on the admin side, from the golfers; I think it's infectious.

Q. You left it fairly late to turn pro. Were are you always thinking that that's what you would do?
KEITH HORNE: I always wanted to turn pro. But my folks insisted I went to university first. I wasn't that good. I was good enough to play for my county or my province, and a lot of my friends were already playing for South Africa when I went to university.
So kind of like given up the belief that I would be able to be a successful professional, and then I went and worked at a golf estate with Hugh Baiocchi before he turned 50 and went and played in the States, and started to shoot some good scores. And Hugh hated teaching. So I turned pro and did a bit of teaching and make some extra money and at the same time, play a few events, and it just took off from there.

Q. What did you study at university?
KEITH HORNE: Labor law, industrial relations and labor law.

Q. Did you have any intention of going into that?
KEITH HORNE: Well, I don't think anyone's going to employ me, it's been 15 years since I did anything with it.
I sort of did it to get it behind me, and it was interesting at the time, but I never really had intentions of going into it. But it was good to get some grounding before I went out. I was a lot more mature when I came out on Tour than I think I would have been if I tried to turn professional when I was 22.

Q. Interested in your observations that it wasn't very warm on the warmest day this year in Wales.
KEITH HORNE: I am South African (laughing).
Well, I'm talking more about the length the ball was going. The first couple of holes were into the wind, and being that little morning chill was a good club shorter just with the chill. So the course itself played -- I wasn't that cold but the course itself played a little bit longer as a result of it.

Q. And your impressions of Celtic Manor?
KEITH HORNE: It's gorgeous. The front nine I think takes a bit of getting into, it's a little bit quiet. There's not too many holes that stand out, but as soon as you turn for the back nine, I think the back nine is very interesting. There are some really good holes.

Q. Were you back at home during The Ryder Cup or where were you watching -- I presume you watched?
KEITH HORNE: I can't remember where I was. Yeah, I think I was back home when I watched. I managed to watch the closing of The Ryder Cup, so I think actually I must have been travelling, because I managed to find a place to watch the last few holes of The Ryder Cup. I think I was in Asia.

Q. So the holes seemed familiar to you even though you had not played them before?
KEITH HORNE: A few of them do. It's very different from TV to the first time you're here. 18 and 17 does, but 15 looks completely different on TV. I didn't even know that there was a fairway on the left that goes around. Looked like you just hit it over the trees, so that was very different.

Q. And would you call the bunker shot a shank that they did on television on 15?
KEITH HORNE: No, that was a hard shot. I hit a 9-iron out of the bunker there. That's about a 40-yard bunker shot that's on a steep slope like that, and a lot of sand in there because it's pushed up the face.
So you have to hit it high and fly it to the back of the hole, I just couldn't get a sand wedge or even a wedge at it to get it that far, so I tried to hit a 9-iron out and it just came out straight right. It came out off the middle, just came out right. It's not often I hit a 9-iron straight out of a bunker and try and flop it. Just didn't work.

Q. Not a shank.
KEITH HORNE: Not a shank.
SCOTT CROCKETT: Just like to stress, not a shank.

Q. Coming to the game relatively late, did that allow you to pick up any other hobbies or pastimes, or shark fishing?
KEITH HORNE: No, nothing too interesting. I'm just into my sport like most South Africans, play a lot of cricket and tennis and things like. But no, no sharks for me.
SCOTT CROCKETT: Well played today. Good luck tomorrow.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297