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OMEGA DUBAI LADIES MASTERSDecember 13, 2011Laura DaviesDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES THE MODERATOR: Laura, welcome back to the media center. Can you just talk about how special this tournament is for you? LAURA DAVIES: I love it. I missed the first one, unfortunately, and everyone said how much fun they had, so came for the second version of it and fell in love with the place, love the golf course, the way the tournament's run. It's top class, high‑quality event, and yeah, love coming back here. THE MODERATOR: Obviously you have struggled a little bit lately, but what's the mindset coming into this week? LAURA DAVIES: Well, you know, I played pretty decent this year, but I haven't putted well, so I've got a new putter this week, and obviously didn't do well in India last week, but there were some weird circumstances there. But you know, hopefully get out there and get off to a half decent start and build on that and try and get in contention for Saturday. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Can you tell us a little bit of the weird circumstances and how you overcame it? LAURA DAVIES: I didn't overcome it. I missed the cut. I've only missed three cuts on the European tour. Q. (Inaudible)? LAURA DAVIES: No, it was my caddie. He messed up his visa, didn't turn up and ended up having to pull my own trolley round, which is the first time I've done that in 26 years on tour. I shot 3‑over the first day. He made it for the second round, but it didn't work out. I missed the cut. It was a disappointing week because obviously being defending champion you're always hoping something is going to go right for you. Q. What does that do to your mindset then? Did that completely throw you off? LAURA DAVIES: Oh, absolutely. You mean not having a caddie? Yeah. I mean the officials were like, you should take a local, but I was just irritated. So I just wanted to get out there, try and shoot something that wasn't going to ruin the week, and I ended up shooting 3‑over and the week was over before it got started. But these things happen, but it was a shame. Q. Is your caddie back with you? LAURA DAVIES: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Q. Is he forgiven? LAURA DAVIES: Well, I don't know about forgiven. No one likes missing the cut. I can't say it's his fault. I played the golf. He can only help. But I don't think it helped the whole week, but we're good mates. I've given him plenty of stick. Don't worry about that. Q. In Europe as well, what do you think ‑‑ to have won the Evian Masters, because of the prize money you almost automatically become the Order of Merit? LAURA DAVIES: I know. It's a shame. It's a shame it works like that because you should have to play a certain amount of events to be on this. I know Ai has only played two events, and it looks like she's going to win ‑‑ well, she is going to win the money list, but it's a bit ridiculous. If one of the regular European tour player wins it and plays 20 events, 15 events, then it has more behind it, but it's just a shame that one tournament can dominate the money list like that. Q. How can we change it? LAURA DAVIES: Have a minimum requirement. Obviously the Evian Masters and the British Open carry huge amounts of prize money and obviously Dubai is big prize money, but it's over I think 380 some thousand Ai won for winning. You could win nine tournaments and not pick that amount up. So what you could do about it is make a points system, but that's no fun because everyone likes to see in professional golf how much people have won. That's always been the judgment. Just have the leader of the money list have to play a minimum of five, six, seven events, some amount just so it doesn't mean that one tournament wins it. Q. (Inaudible)? LAURA DAVIES: No, because it's happened to me before.  Sophie Gustafson a couple of years ago, she finished second, I think, in the Evian. But it's happened to my advantage. I finished second in the Evian before and I won the money list, so at the end of the day you know you have to play well in the Evian Masters if you want to do well on the Money List, unless ‑‑ no, I was going to say unless an LPGA player, but Ai's not a European tour member, so it doesn't matter. I think there might have been a rule a few years ago where you had to be an LET member, but that's obviously changed now. Q. Just a more general question about women's golf. Obviously the men's we've been hearing top four from Europe are in the Top 5, and when you look at the top 20 with the world rankings for women, you see one. As someone who's been on tour for some time, is this kind of how it's always been, I mean or are we kind of going through a rough patch in terms of European women's golf? LAURA DAVIES: I don't know if you'd call it a rough patch. To be high up on the world rankings, you have to play in America or Japan. They're the two tournaments that create the most world ranking points. I mean I won five tournaments last year and my world ranking changed a little bit, but not markedly. If you win five tournaments on the LPGA, granted, that's harder to do. I'm not suggesting it's not, but no European ‑‑ no player that plays solely in Europe; i.e., Melissa Reid, is ever going to have a chance until they go to America to really climb the world rankings because our tournaments don't get enough points, even if you win them. Q. Do you think, again, kind of like you talked about the money list, do you think that's something that has to change or is it unfortunate that you ‑‑ is it what you're saying that there are a lot of good golfers in Europe, it's just because they don't play the American ‑‑ LAURA DAVIES: Well, no. I mean it's always been if you want to be the No. 1 ‑‑ when I was the No. 1 player in the world for those five years, I played virtually most of my golf in America, and that's the way you're going to do it. So if you want to be in the top three or four in the world, you have to play in America or Japan because they get huge amounts of points, too. You're never going to do it. Now, whether that's good or bad, I don't make the rules in the world rankings, but that's just the way it is. But it's always been regarded, if you are going to be the best player in the world, you have to be out there playing regularly. Q. Following up, I mean was there a time when a lot of Europeans were playing ‑‑ LAURA DAVIES: Oh, yeah. Q. What happened? Why has that changed? LAURA DAVIES: I think because a lot of the Asians now on the LPGA are dominating. It's harder to get on the LPGA tour. I don't know how many Korean members there are now, or Asian members there are now. It's a lot. But in the years when myself, Lotta Neumann, Helen Alfredsson, we had the Top 10 pretty much ‑‑ it looked good for us. Obviously the Swedish, Annika came along, but I think the influence of the Asian players has made it more difficult for some young up‑and‑coming players to even get out there. Q. Laura, you said obviously last year you were in the running for the money list. You won five tournaments, and I think at the time you said as long as I stay competitive, I want to keep playing. Now are for someone of your stature, I think competitive equates to winning. And this year obviously, for one reason or another, you haven't yet won a tournament despite winning one for every single year for 25 years, I believe. LAURA DAVIES: There was I think one year I missed out. I did actually win a tournament this year in Perth. It was a limited field event that I won, but it wasn't a European tour event. I don't count that in my list of wins, so in theory, yes, you're right. I haven't won one this year. Q. Do you sort of entertain ‑‑ LAURA DAVIES: I'm not retiring. Put it that way. If I went three, four years without winning a tournament, then I might start thinking again. I never have been. And that's never been my plan, but if you saw the way I played this year compared to the amount of putts I've holed, there's no comparison. I've actually played better this year than I did last year tee to green, and unfortunately in this game it's all about the putting, and I've just not been comfortable on the greens this year. Q. So you think you will get back to being where you really want to be? LAURA DAVIES: I want to still win in America. I mean I still play over there. I'm eagerly waiting for the schedule like everybody else is. I'm looking forward to getting out there and starting the year, I start obviously the year in Australia but then moving on to the LPGA tournament for the start of the year. So I'm still as keen as I ever was and ultimately believe I can still win over there. Q. Mel Reid was asked yesterday about your game. She pretty much said the same. She said in terms of hitting it pure and clean, you're hitting it as well as you have done for the past couple of years, but your short game is where perhaps you're falling down. LAURA DAVIES: Yeah. Q. So you'd agree with that? LAURA DAVIES: Oh, 100 percent. I know in China, the last two tournaments, two great golf courses for me, hit it really nicely. I think I finished 30 something and 50 something. You know, it just annoys you. It doesn't wear you down because I know how well I'm hitting it. Maybe if it was the other way around and I was hitting it all over the place and that was the problem ‑‑ I mean last week I played poorly in India. I didn't play well at all. If I did that for 20 weeks on the tour, then you wouldn't see me for dust, but I don't think that's going to happen because my game is still very good. Q. The Evian Masters and the money list situation, would you say it's detrimental to golf? LAURA DAVIES: No, it's not because the Evian Masters and the British Open‑‑ you gotta count the British Open as well because you win the British Open, it's 200 and something U.S. dollars to the winner of that, so in theory you could miss the cut in the Evian Masters and win the British Open and win the money list, so there's two tournaments that stand out money wise. But that's just ‑‑ for me, those two tournaments are the great tournaments, and the other tournaments need to step up money wise. If the other tournaments don't want to feel like they're outshone, they need to up the prize money. I'm not suggesting here because this is a really good purse as well, but what we need is virtually every tournament being 500,000 Euros and then the Evian Masters and the British Open don't become as important ‑‑ because if you're playing 25 or 22 tournaments for that amount of money. But you know, if you're playing for 200,000, it's very hard to make the ground up, but it's not if you've got bigger purses. So I'd say it's to the other tournaments to make up rather than the Evian Masters and the British to be seen as a shame for the money list. Q. Back to what you were saying about your short game, what do you attribute that to and what do you do to improve that? Is it a mental thing? LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, I've got another putter. My sponsor told me they would never compromise, and they would never compromise. I went up to the trailer about four weeks ago when I first got back from China and the guy set me up with a new putter and I've been practicing with it. I've been on the putting green and now I'm going to go straight back and just try and get a good rhythm for holing putts, but if you ask my caddie and a few of the other playing partners, I've had so many lip‑outs this year. I know it sounds like excuses, and golfers, we're all the same, but it has been extraordinary how many good putts haven't gone in this year. Now, what reason there is for that, I have no idea. Maybe my pace is wrong, I don't know what's wrong. But it's not like I'm pulling or pushing them. They're just not going in. And you know, I can't put my finger on it. The only thing you can do is try and find the putter that you feel really comfortable with and practice, and that's what I've been doing. I've been hitting more putts on the putting green this year than I probably have in any year in my career. Q. You mentioned the 25, 26 years that you've been playing. How do you feel about the new young European players that are coming through? LAURA DAVIES: Yeah, they're great. One of my good friends, Melissa, you just mentioned her, to stand and watch her play, you know, you see great potential in the future, and there's some young Spanish girls, there's a lot of really good young players. And it's fun to play alongside them, and it's fun to try and beat them. Q. Does that put any more pressure on you? LAURA DAVIES: No, I mean I don't feel ‑‑ the only pressure ‑‑ I suppose the only pressure is the pressure you put on yourself but the fact that they're young isn't (inaudible). I'm more childish than they are when it comes down to it. Age really ‑‑ in golf I've always said it. You can play as long as you want or if you don't ‑‑ that's just a sport you can go for a very long time at the top level. Q. Mel also said that the greens are playing immaculate here. Have you seen that yourself? Does that give you confidence that perhaps the ground underneath your feet will give you a bit of assistance? LAURA DAVIES: Absolutely. The best greens I've ever putted on were where we played the Australia Masters years ago. They're not as good now as they used to be, and at Mission Hills where we play the Nabisco Championship. And these greens, they've not been this good ‑‑ they've been good over the last four years that I've played here, but this is by far the best that I have played. They're greens as good as Mission Hills, which is quite a compliment, so yeah, I think that's hopefully going to ‑‑ I think all I need to do is hole a couple early on. But that hasn't happened. Maybe this week because as you say, the greens are unbelievably pure, and Johnny needs to make up for last week and read them well because my eyes are a bit past it, so it's down to Johnny and hopefully he'll do his bit. Q. And your reflections on the Solheim Cup where obviously with the European ladies (inaudible) the men and beating their American counterparts. How did you feel about that? I understand you made history. LAURA DAVIES: The only reason I'm top points scorer is because I've played all the Solheim Cups and I'm the only one that's done that, so if I hadn't got the most points, then it would be embarrassing. So I'm just glad that I have got that record. But as for the fun and the excitement of it, it was just fantastic. When Judy hit that bunker shot on 18 to get a half of me ‑‑ because it looked like I had won that hole and won the point, at that stage I thought, oh, my God, I think I might just ‑‑ and I've never done that before. I've never been in the position where my match was actually a bit of a swing point. But the girls behind us, they brought it home. Crystal, all of them, they came in, obviously what Suzann did was amazing birdieing the last three against Michelle, and Caroline Hedwall's had a great year, and I think that's one of the greatest things that she did was winning on those last two holes, so yeah, the excitement level was through the roof. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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