|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
COMMERCIALBANK QATAR MASTERS PRESENTED BY DOLPHIN ENERGYFebruary 1, 2012Lee WestwoodDOHA, QATAR MICHAEL GIBBONS: Lee, thanks for joining us. LEE WESTWOOD: Pleasure. Q. Talk about your thoughts going into the week. You started off the season last week. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. It was a decent start last week. I had a few sort of issues to negotiate. We've been working a lot on my fitness just recently, and I haven't played a lot coming into Abu Dhabi, notoriously slow start. Didn't hole as many putts or find the greens there, a little difficult to read. I think a lot of people do, you know. Heard a lot of people saying that they were struggling to read them. Had a bit of a shoulder injury the first couple days, which is gone now. Just needed to loosen up a little bit. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Was that the main issue? LEE WESTWOOD: No, not really. It was a combination of a lot of things. And 17 was a decent result at the end, I think. Looking forward to this week and playing a golf course I've done well in the past. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Yeah. You had I think third in 2010? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, third a couple of years ago, fifth in about '08. Apparently the rough's not as long as it was last year, but the weather man says it's going to be fairly windy. And when it's like that around here, it's a really tough test. MICHAEL GIBBONS: What are the main sort of characteristics of this golf course? LEE WESTWOOD: The greens get quite firm. Obviously it's normally windy here. So you really need to be in the fairway, have control of the golf ball. Greens are always pretty true, so you need to make a few putts. Length seems to be a deciding factor in the past on this golf course. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Lee? Q. You talked about your putting last week. Aside from the green, were you happy with the way the stroke was over the four rounds? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, it was one of those weeks it was quite frustrating because I felt like I kept hitting really good putts, just grazing the hole and it wouldn't go in. You have those weeks every now and again. Q. (Indiscernible). LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah, the ball is starting on line where I'm aiming, and my pace control was good. I only made one bogey over the weekend. Unfortunately that was a three‑putt from long range. I think I was second in greens‑in‑regulation, so my game is fairly sharp. Like I said, I'm a notoriously slow starter and it always takes me a bit to get going. Q. The 17 was decent, but two 72s was a tough start. You said the season you start a little bit slow, but what would it mean to have a good place or second‑place finish this early? Does it mean a lot to have such a strong start like that early on? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. Results like that are confidence builders, yeah. But you know, it's ‑‑ I'm kind of looking a long way into the future, two or three months. So good or bad results now aren't going to sort of affect the way ‑‑ I'm working on all aspects of my game. I'm quite happy with what I'm working on and I've got a route that I want to go down with the main ending being in check for the Masters. Q. You said the greens were really tough, but generally you came in obviously coming off Thailand. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. No, I was pleased with my game last week.  First couple of days I got it in the fairways, I didn't get it close enough. Mostly down to my shoulder. I've been working on setting the club higher at the top on the way back, and I couldn't really support the club with my shoulder and neck, so once that sort of started to ease off, I felt like I swung it a lot better over the weekend. Q. Can you talk about this course? In terms of difficulty what's the toughest of the three in the Middle East here? LEE WESTWOOD: I think if they were all sodded the same. If they sod the rough of last week, then this would be the most demanding test, for sure. Q. Can you put in perspective what Robert Rock did last week? Was that a big surprise? LEE WESTWOOD: Not really, no, Rock is a good player. He hits the ball well. Q. You've been there playing with Tiger before. LEE WESTWOOD: No surprise. Q. It's okay for you, you're used to it, but somebody like that. LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. I think that was his first time playing with him. So can be quite daunting to get used to the 150 people walking in between the ropes which you are one of. (Laughs). That can become a bit irritating, but if you get in your own bubble, it's certainly like playing with anybody else. Q. Sometimes that helps guys. LEE WESTWOOD: It can be, yeah. It focuses you more, yeah. I think it's slightly different because there were three, so obviously somebody else in the group. That will have helped I would have thought. Q. What about Jason Day? Have you played with him? LEE WESTWOOD: Played with him quite a bit, yeah. Played with him ‑‑ when was the last time I played with him? Probably the PGA Championship first couple rounds last year. Played with him in the U. S. Open the last round. Nice lad, talented, wonderful short game. Q. Is he one of those sort of new generation players, like Rory? LEE WESTWOOD: Yeah. I think so. I was asked at the end of last week, somebody said, who will have a big year, and the only one I picked out was Jason Day, not because he was the only one who will have a big year, but I think he's a talented player and people probably look over him, he gets so overlooked quite a bit. And obviously by saying that I put the curse on him and he missed the cut. (Laughs). Q. Your thoughts about the windy conditions. I remember last year it was really bad. It was like storm conditions. How do you play in the wind? LEE WESTWOOD: It's normally always fairly windy here. You get a 20, 25‑mile‑an‑hour wind blowing, I think. But this week the first couple of days, I think we're expecting gusts up to 40 miles an hour. So keep it down. And stay patient really. Sometimes you come to a golf course and you remember people shooting ‑‑ Adam Scott a few years ago shot I think 62 the last round to win. And you get it in your head that it's a 20‑under‑par‑winning golf course. But if the wind really pumps this week, it could quite easily be an 8‑under‑9‑under‑par‑winning golf course. You just have to play every hole and every shot on its merits and not get really too preoccupied with the previous years. MICHAEL GIBBONS: All right. Lee, thanks for doing this. 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
|