|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPJune 13, 2011Martin KaymerBETHESDA, MARYLAND BETH MURRISON: Good morning. Welcome to Congressional Country Club for the 111th US Open Championship. We're happy to be back here in the third time following wonderful U.S. Opens in 1964 and 1997. We're very happy again to bring the national championship to our nation's capital. We're happy to have Martin Kaymer with us, who is the reigning PGA champion. He won the PGA Championship last August at Whistling Straits and finished 8th last year at Pebble Beach. We were just discussing, you said you just arrived last night and haven't seen Congressional. What have you heard about it and what are you expecting this week. MARTIN KAYMER: Well, of course it's going to be very difficult, as every year. Obviously I haven't seen the last Opens that you played here, I was too young to see that. But I will go out later and play nine holes today, probably maybe 18 tomorrow and then I think I'll try to get ready for Thursday, only try to rest a little bit, practice and get ready for everything. BETH MURRISON: What have you learned in your previous three U.S. Opens that you take with you this week as you start championship play? MARTIN KAYMER: I know it's very difficult. You have to be very patient. I think patience is the biggest key and the most important thing that you need to have at those big tournaments, if it's the U.S. Open, PGA or all the majors. And obviously it will be always a long week, very tiring, because the golf course is so tough. It's tough to play and mentally very difficult. So it's important to rest, as well. BETH MURRISON: You just got here and you're going to have to get familiar with the course relatively quickly. Is there an advantage or disadvantage to getting to a course in relatively short notice and having to get familiar in a hurry? MARTIN KAYMER: You mean that I don't really have much time to see the golf course? Well, for me it doesn't -- I was never that kind of person who comes to the golf course a week before or comes two or three months before to play it, you know. I just do my normal routine, come here on Monday, practice for two or three days and get ready. I don't know if it's a disadvantage or advantage, that's the way I do it, the way I've always done it. So and it'S worked out okay so far. Actually I was at the Atlanta Athletic Club last week for the PGA Championship, because I did a Media Day there, and that was the only time I went to a Major golf course before I actually played the tournaments there. So that's just my routine. BETH MURRISON: Can you talk a little bit, I know that the NBA finals concluded last night, and Dirk Nowitzki had a large part in that. Can you talk about the excitement in Germany and his winning as part of that team? MARTIN KAYMER: Actually the last two or three weeks was huge, and the German basketball, it was all about Dirk Nowitzki. Unfortunately I never met him. But that would be one of my goals to next year, or maybe even this year, to go to a game of the Dallas Mavericks to see that. It's a little bit unfortunate that he doesn't get the recognition in Germany that he deserves, you know. Obviously basketball is not very big in Germany, but in America he's a superstar and a big role model, one of the best NBA players they have. And I think as a person, you know, the way he comes across in the media, the way he's acting on the basketball court, and it was funny to see yesterday when they won, you know, two or three seconds before the game was over he left the court, went to the locker room and -- you know, I think he's not the kind of person, like the very outgoing person. He's more enjoying it for himself. And for me he's a big role model. That's the way I am, as well, a little bit. I'm not very outgoing, so I can compare myself a little bit to him. And obviously it was huge for him and I think basketball in Germany, as well. That was the only championship that he hasn't gotten yet. And I hope those things will help to grow sports in my country. Q. You talked about the importance of patience in playing in major championships and now that -- what are some of the other aspects of playing in a major now that you've won one here, that you can draw upon and that you can point to as necessities for the kind of mindset you have to have to win one? MARTIN KAYMER: I think, you know, in normal, regular tournaments you need to play fairly aggressive from the first day on, from Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But at the majors it's important to avoid the big mistakes. It's easy to kick yourself out of the tournament on Friday already. So I think it's all about giving yourself a chance on Sunday to win the tournament, to put yourself in position and be really patient with that, even though, you know, let's say you have a lot of birdie chances on Thursday and Friday, but they don't go in. One day they will go in. And if they don't go in, it was just not your week. But you just need to be patient and wait for your chances. If it happens then you might have a chance on Sunday. And if not, then you wait for the next major. Q. Did you ever play basketball, and why not? MARTIN KAYMER: I did. I played in school. I was in a sports school so I played a lot of basketball. It was one of my big subjects I had in school. Q. Secondly, on a little more golfy note if you don't mind, of the three Opens you've played, which has been your favorite venue so far? MARTIN KAYMER: You mean the U.S. Opens? Q. U.S. Opens, yeah. MARTIN KAYMER: My favorite place was last year, Pebble Beach. Because that is, I think, one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world. You don't mind if you have to wait for a little bit, just look around. Obviously I haven't been here yet. I haven't seen the golf course; maybe it's better than Pebble Beach. But so far Pebble Beach was my favorite. Q. I was thinking this when you were talking about Dirk's influence on you. And I remember I think it was in '99 at the PGA Championship at Medinah, I was interviewing Bernhard Langer, and we feed back to Germany, and I asked him to speak in German. And he laughed, and he said why, he said we have German broadcasters. He said no one gives a damn about golf in Germany, and he was laughing about it. Do you think that was true then, you as a young fellow? And how much of what you've been able to accomplish, how much traction does that get back at home? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, I don't think it's the same as 12 years ago. I think people care more about golf now. And of course it has a lot to do with Bernhard Langer. But the last year, since I won the PGA, a lot has changed. You know, actually today there's a TV channel that's coming to, yeah, here to Washington, a huge TV channel in Germany, and that has never happened before. So you can see very slowly golf is growing. But in general the sport in America becomes more popular in Germany. Obviously what Dirk did last night and I think it was the MVP, '06, I think, and now I'm trying to bring golf and make golf a little bit more like bigger in Germany to bring it closer to the German public and to introduce the German public more to golf. So you can really see the last year, year and a half it has changed a lot. And now we are playing next year the BMW Open in Munich. And the media interest has never been as big before. What I heard from the BMW guys, it will be amazing for Germany how much interest the tournament became. So, you know, very slowly golf is growing. For me it's fantastic, and I really enjoy that. And you have more recognition and it inspires you more, as well. What Dirk did last night and the last year, I mean pretty much since he's in America, since '98, I think, I think it's amazing. He came here with pretty much nothing. He made his way up there like to one of the best players ever in the NBA. And that is very -- I think you should have a lot of respect for that. And I would like to meet him one day and just talk to him a little bit because he's a very nice person. That's the way you want to be as an athlete, I believe. Q. You're playing with No. 1 and No. 2 this week. What are your thoughts on that and do you think that you will get wrapped up in a little battle or is there a bigger picture? MARTIN KAYMER: No, I think there's a bigger picture for sure. I've done that before. In Dubai early this year it was Tiger and me, we played together. And Doral we played together, Luke and me. So at the end of the day you're still thinking about the tournaments, it's not about the World Rankings. Q. You mentioned before the Masters that Augusta didn't suit your game. I guess you went in thinking I'm not sure I'm going to do very well. How do you feel on a U.S. Open setup? I know this is only your fourth. MARTIN KAYMER: Definitely way better than the Masters, that's for sure. I did play well last year at Pebble Beach. In general, all the other Majors are fine, it's just the golf course. And Augusta really doesn't suit my eye and doesn't really suit my game. But besides that I'm always looking to play big tournaments, and U.S. Open is obviously one of those. Q. In one of the first two rounds you'll start on the par-3. Does that make much of a difference starting a round in a major championship starting on a par-3, par-4 or par-5? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, it depends on how you play it in the end. But obviously par-5 is fantastic, you know. If you start off with a birdie, straight away, okay, I'm 1-under par, par-3, I think statistic-wise, you make more bogeys on par-3s than par-5s. And probably more bogeys on par-3s than par-4s, as well. But I think it's one of those things that you have to make up your mind that, you know, if you make bogey on the 10th hole or on the 1st hole, that's where you make a difference, if you make it early in the round or later in the round. So for me it doesn't really make a difference, no. Q. How would you assess your game? Because you kind of haven't been as prolific on the leaderboard as you were last year and earlier this year in Abu Dhabi, for example. You did say your game has gone through slight changes. You also changed your caddie. Have you got a permanent arrangement going forward and how that has impacted your feeling about life? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, I've changed a few things in my swing, just some adjustments. And it's a slow process, long process. But I'm feeling -- every week I feel better about my swing. Actually the last few weeks that I played, you know, I played the match play in Spain and the Wentworth, and I feel fantastic about my golf swing, about my ball-striking, but it just didn't happen. That's fine. I keep working on my swing. That's coming together very slowly. Maybe this week, maybe in a few weeks, but I'm very patient with that; I'm not in a hurry, I'm not in a rush. And with Chris Donald, I don't know how he is as a caddie. I know that he's a very nice guy, a great personality. We get along very well. We will try out a few weeks and then see how it goes. But I think it's important that the personalities, that they fit. His experience that he has, you know, from his brother, he caddied for him for seven years and a year for Paul Casey. So I think that shouldn't really be a problem. But obviously this is our first week, so it would be a little bit difficult to get used to each other straight away. But now we have three days. Today we will spend a lot of time together, talking, about distances, about how I approach a golf course, a little more aggressive or defensive, you know. And he just has to know me. And then I think, you know, we just see how it goes. Q. Last week Jack Nicklaus was talking about how he had to adjust his mindset when he approached golf courses that he didn't particularly thought suited his eye, and he thought that great players had to do that. So I wanted to ask you about what you intend to do with Augusta National and how you're going to approach that in the future. MARTIN KAYMER: I have no idea. To be honest, I have no idea. I tried a lot of things already. But yes, it is a big tournament, probably for a lot of people, probably the biggest tournament, the most important tournament. But, you know, for me it's now important to play the U.S. Open here. I'm not thinking about Augusta now. I will think about it a month before. But now I think we should focus on the U.S. Open. Q. You're part of the group of I think we've had ten different guys win at last ten Majors. Anything from you on why we're seeing that, why so many different players are stepping up now to win? MARTIN KAYMER: I think it's nice. It's exciting, isn't it? It's nice to have different champions. It's interesting for golf and the world. It's nice that K.J. Choi, that he won TPC recently. It's great for Asia, as well. You can see the World Rankings, it's changing every week, every month it's something else is going on. So I find it very exciting. And why it is like this? I have no idea. Obviously Tiger, he hasn't been up to his best form recently, the last two years. That's why he probably didn't win. The last 12, 24 months, but I think for us Europeans obviously it's fantastic, it's very exciting to see us up there. Q. Just to clarify, in Germany, are you and golf considered bigger than Dirk and the NBA right now? MARTIN KAYMER: Not right now, I don't think, not at the moment (laughter). Q. Heading into this NBA Finals, though? MARTIN KAYMER: Maybe -- you should ask my press officer, obviously, he knows the numbers. I believe that, yeah, he's more popular than me. People would know his name better than my name, you know. If you asked a hundred people in the street who is Dirk Nowitzki and who is Martin Kaymer, they would know him better than me. But I'm working on it (laughter). Q. And secondly, you brought up Tiger; does it seem strange not to have him at a U.S. Open? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, it's sad. I played with him at TPC, only for nine holes. You could see the spectators get less on the back nine when he left. Obviously it's always nice to have him at tournaments, it brings in a little bit more attention, more people come out to see us, which is always more fun to play with. When you have people around you, I don't really know what the deal is, but I can just say, you know, hopefully he gets well soon and we can play against him. Q. You and your fellow players often talk about the strength and depth in the modern game. How many players in this week's field do you think have a genuine chance of winning the title? MARTIN KAYMER: Maybe 30 players, 30, 40 players, you know. Probably 10, 15 years ago it was -- there were only 10 or 12 players, but now it's so spread out. What you said earlier, you know you have 10, 11 different major winners the last majors that we've played. It's so open. It can be a young guy. It can be Ishikawa, it can be Rory McIlroy, or it can be David Toms, you know, what you saw at Sawgrass. It's very open. It's tough to say. But I think definitely it's very open at the moment. But I'm looking forward to guys from the morning drive talking about it the young guns and the old guys. And I think they're going to figure out some players who can win, but it can be anybody, 30, 40 players is my guess. Q. Your modesty is legendary; you very rarely boast about your accomplishments. Are you thinking that this can be your tournament, and if so, how do you feel that you're going to do it? What do you have to do well here, beyond the obvious? Do you have to start well? You mentioned being patient. But I'm wondering if you think you can go out and win this. MARTIN KAYMER: I have to start okay. If I have an okay start to put myself in an okay position for the weekend then I'm just looking for that great round on Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes that great round is not even necessary, just playing solid and avoiding double bogeys, triple bogeys, stupid mistakes. And I think the majors is one of those things you approach and hope that you will have a great round, one of those four days to put yourself straight up there. But it's more about, you know, playing your way along, waiting for your chance. And if you are patient and just wait for it, you know, one of those four majors you might get -- you might have a chance to win. And it's nothing that you can push or try to force. It's just a waiting thing. I really enjoy that, to play difficult golf courses, where you can't force anything. It's not a putting competition. You need to play smart, you need to think a lot and you need to wait. It's mentally very tough. And I think 30, 40 percent of the field, they get really frustrated if they don't see the birdies happen, or they make bogeys, they get frustrated with the golf course. But a lot of people who struggle on those golf courses, a lot of people will make bogeys. It's just tough to score well. And it's about waiting, waiting for your chance on Sunday. BETH MURRISON: Martin, thank you very much for joining us today, we wish you well this week. MARTIN KAYMER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|