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PORTUGAL MASTERSOctober 12, 2011Martin KaymerVILAMOURA, PORTUGAL MARTIN KAYMER: A lot of things that happened this year, because actually the opposite, it was a very good year making experience in different areas in my job, so that's why I don't regret anything. Q. You said that "the way I play golf at the moment," was the phrase you used, what do you mean by that? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, the last, I think in April, May, June and July, I needed to be a little bit lucky to win golf tournaments, because I was not that confident on the golf course because I had tried to adjust my swing to certain things but now, you know, I'm happy, and I can enjoy playing golf again. I don't need to think so much anymore. Q. Have you established a target -- MARTIN KAYMER: Of course. My goal is to finish as high as possible, and the highest possible is to win, and I feel like I can win. Otherwise I wouldn't have come here. It's a big tournament on The European Tour, and talking about The Race to Dubai, you know, you can still make a lot of points at this tournament in order to move up a few spots. It will be tough to get Luke but I'm sure a second or third is still possible to do. Q. Are you a soccer fan? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, I was surprised at Sweden yesterday, that they qualified for the European Cup next year. Of course, I watch a lot of soccer. Especially last week, I had one Media Day with BMW and I was in the soccer stadium in Cologne with my club that I am a fan of, and I played soccer for a lot of years. I think 13, 14 years I played soccer and that's still my passion. It's nice to go to the stadium once in awhile and obviously soccer is our biggest sport that we have in Germany. Q. Do you have favourite athletes? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, I would say I'm a huge fan of Michael Schumacher and Dirk Nowitzki, just the way -- especially Dirk, the way he's acting, the way he's playing basketball. He went to America in '98, and he made his way up there without having anything pretty much, and sport was everything for him. He didn't speak very good English. It was a tough time for him and now he achieved pretty much everything you can achieve in basketball. So that's quite impressive how hard he worked and how confident he was in his skills. Q. Are you still playing football yourself? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, I play once in awhile. I obviously -- even after my accident that I had, you know, it's not a great feeling in my left foot to be honest, it's just a pain that everybody can survive from. So it's not a big thing. I just really like that sport. I had actually some emotional feelings last time I was in the stadium, I was on a soccer pitch and it was so nice. You are was the only spectator but then you are on the grass and with a goal keeping legend from Germany, Toni Schumacher. It was quite a special moment and to kick the ball around reminded me a lot of the past and it was a nice time. Q. Which stadium was that? MARTIN KAYMER: Which stadium? In Cologne. It was a promotion for the BMW Open that we are going to play in Cologne next year. Q. Sergio GarcÃÂa, who plays quite competitively, says if he gets injured that's just life; he's not going to stop doing his favorite sport because of golf; are you more wary? MARTIN KAYMER: I think if you go too crazy, we should not live in a little bubble at home. Obviously you have to live your life besides golf, as well, or it becomes golf-orientated. It is a lot, and you should do a few other things -- if you don't get hurt by a soccer pitch. But I saw Sergio playing last year or this year in Sawgrass, and it was a few players got together and we played against a local team and that was a nice time. We just played for fun. Obviously we are all very competitive and we want to win in the end, so once in awhile, it became a little serious, which is fun, which is nice to do. But I would not -- I wouldn't miss that sport for golf. Q. Maybe karting? MARTIN KAYMER: Absolutely. I like to do those things, and I don't really think they are that dangerous. If everything you do and everywhere you go, something can happen, so obviously you can force it. But if you don't drive like a maniac on the go-kart track, I think it should be fine. Q. Can I just check, you changed the way you are trying to draw the ball? MARTIN KAYMER: No. Q. What change did you make? MARTIN KAYMER: I was just -- when I saw my swing on TV sometimes, I was not happy the way it looked. And obviously when I came to Augusta, I was not happy the way I was approaching the golf course and it was a really hard time for me being that the tournament, knowing that I was just not able to hit that draw, and. I had talked to my coach about it and I thought -- and we both thought, there is room for improvement and you can be a little about the more on plane because my swing was always a little bit more outside, inside. It's made for a cut which is great on most of the golf courses, but I was struggling to draw the ball in general, and it was not because of Augusta only. It was just something that if you can add another golf shot to your, how do you say, to your. Q. Repertoire? MARTIN KAYMER: Repertoire, it would be nice to have, because it gives you another option. It gives you more alternatives on the golf course and that's why I was trying to, yeah, to improve my swing a little bit, to get it more on plane or to feel more comfortable and to play better golf. And especially in Germany, a lot of people, they were saying, you know, you were a Major winner, you became No. 1 in the world why do you change. And it's not about that, it's about knowing that you can become a better player so you want to try to -- you want to try to attack it. I want to play better golf and I'm only 26 so I don't want to keep playing like this for the next 25 years. I would like to become better. There's always a time where you don't play great golf, where you don't win, but I'm not a machine. I'm not a robot but in the end of the day, I know I've got to be more happy and I will probably play better golf. Q. Any word from Faldo? MARTIN KAYMER: It's just a matter of how much do you -- how much passion, how much work and time you want to putt into your job, into your golf swing, and golf, it is my job and it is my love and it is not something that I have to do. I just really want to do it. That's why I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't approach it that way. Q. So can you now draw the ball at will? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, with irons it's no problem. With woods it's a little more difficult. With driver it's tough but it's been a long process. I didn't make a dramatic change but with the irons, it's no problem at all which is nice already, if you are in-between clubs and the pin is in the left side of the green, finally I can take the shorter club and draw it towards the hole, and I was not able to do that in the past. It's getting to the right direction. People don't really see it through the results yet, but for me, I'm moving forward, which is a nice process. Q. How does it feel to be the world No. 1 -- MARTIN KAYMER: To be become No. 1 in the world, if you are an American player or English player, or Spanish, wherever you are from, it's probably a little bit easier than being a German, because we had only Bernhard Langer who was one of the best players in the world, and he was the first No. 1 in the world, so when I became No. 1, it became big in Germany again, and there were a lot of requests from people; I should do this, I have to do this now. I got invited to a lot of events, and some it's nice to do, but some you don't want to do, because it's overwhelming a little bit. After a few months, you realise, there is a reason why you became No. 1 in the world, not because you were sitting in the studios talking about how good you are and those things. There was a reason, because you were on the driving range, you did the things that you want to do. And then at one stage it became like the people told you what to do, and sometimes it's difficult to say no. But in order to play good golf, you have to say no. You have to think about yourself, you have to think about your job, what you like to do, what you love to do, and that is something that I needed to figure out after a few months. It's not -- it takes some time. It's a learning process. So from that point of view, it was a successful year. If I become No. 1 in the world again one day, then I know what's going on, and I know how to approach it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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