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OMEGA DUBAI DESERT CLASSICFebruary 8, 2012Alvaro QuirosDUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES SARAH GWYNN: Alvaro, thank you very much for coming in today. Dubai must be your favorite country in the world right now. Is it nice to come back? ALVARO QUIROS: No, my favourite one is called Spain. SARAH GWYNN: Okay. After Spain. ALVARO QUIROS: Probably the second one. You're right. I feel okay. It looks like I feel good in Dubai, you know, probably because the conditions are similar to Spain. Hot weather, nice weather, good food, good people. What else? SARAH GWYNN: You tell me. Is it nice to be back as defending champion? ALVARO QUIROS: Yes. Obviously just the idea to be coming back to a course that you have been successful on once at least is nice, is interesting. Not a lot of people can say that they are coming back to golf courses to defend the title. So I'm happy. SARAH GWYNN: What is it about this course here that you like in particular? ALVARO QUIROS: Probably ‑‑ this is not a typical golf course that I would think suits me. I mean most of the time a lot of the shots are from right to left. I'm not a big draw player, but at the same time we have been playing in tough conditions, windy, the greens are quick and tough, and at the end it's something that I feel very comfortable with. I'm happy. SARAH GWYNN: And how does your game feel right now? Is it good? ALVARO QUIROS: I'm practising. My coach is with me this week here, so probably we are working as hard as the last few months. And I'm happy. I'm excited to start the tournament already, to be honest. Sometimes it's too much time before the golf tournament starts, and in my case it's not any different. SARAH GWYNN: Do we have any questions? Q. Alvaro, what's your best memories from last year, and especially the final round? It was an interesting final round, wasn't it? ALVARO QUIROS: Yeah, it was probably the hole‑in‑one. Obviously the hole‑in‑one on the 11th was the key to the tournament, I have to say, or at least in the last round. After shooting a seven on the eighth hole, the hole‑in‑one was another good push. Q. Is there any shot in that round of 69 that you have forgotten? ALVARO QUIROS: In fact, I forgot all of them except the hole‑in‑one, and the one that I put in the palm tree, to be honest. They are the only two that I remember honestly. I need to see a little bit more on TV. Q. Just maybe talk a little bit about your start this year in Abu Dhabi and Qatar. It's been a little bit of a slow start. You struggled in Abu Dhabi. You played better in Qatar, but you still ‑‑ you weren't up there where you probably wanted to be? ALVARO QUIROS: Uh‑huh. Yeah. Q. Why? ALVARO QUIROS: That was the first tournament of the year. I was a little bit rusty. You know, I wasn't practising a lot in the winter time. And Qatar, well, it was a very strange tournament, three rounds, a lot of wind. The greens were not as usual. I mean they were slower. But at the same time I wasn't playing great. I was hitting the ball okay, didn't have to shoot to be at least in the top ten, but at the same time, expectations, a lot of different things are going on. And Qatar has been a golf course that I've been very successful on in the past. So it was a little bit of fight against myself constantly because I wanted to really go forward, and the scores were not good enough to do it. So it was just another week. This week is going to be different for sure, for many reasons. I mean, first of all, I'm not going to have the same mistakes as last week. I'll try to be on the top of the leaderboard from the first hole, because it's stupid to think about it. I mean the most important thing is to be fighting in the last round, not in the first hole of the first round, isn't it? That's the only thing that could change from last week to here. I'm hitting the ball good. As I said, my coach is here, and I'm putting good. So just trust, just believe that it's going to happen. Q. So what were you doing in the first two tournaments that you want to do better? You say you're hitting the ball well. Was it your short game or was it just ‑‑ ALVARO QUIROS: I was hitting the ball well, but not good enough, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have missed the cut in Abu Dhabi and I wouldn't have finished 59th in Qatar. But I think golf is something more than just hit the ball, right? Probably I wasn't in my best moments the last two weeks thinking and behaving. The most important thing is to be honest with yourself and at the same time analyse the thing in the proper positions of importance. And I wasn't able to do that the last two weeks. Simple as that. This week is a completely different week. The good thing that we have is once we take off in the plane from Qatar to here, a new week has started.  This is a completely different week. Could be the week that you hole all the putts, win by ten, or it could be another week play more or less and be closer to the next round. Q. And what does it mean to be defending champion? Does that give you some extra motivation? ALVARO QUIROS: No. I don't think so. What happened one year ago is not dealing with the present. I mean we are talking about one year ago. Golf can change from one hole to another. So how we can make that relationship between one year ago and now? Obviously it's nice, as I said before, because you know that you have been successful here. But that's all. Some of the ball can lip, touch the lip and finish in and some of them out. That's a huge difference in this course, and not necessarily in the way to play. Q. Have you thought of any specific things that you want to do this year? ALVARO QUIROS: Well, obviously it's a Ryder Cup year. Qualifying for the Ryder Cup team is the most important thing, I would say. But aside from that, if I ‑‑ it's very strange, but if I qualify for the Ryder Cup team and my numbers in the World Ranking are worse than the previous year, I don't think it's going to be a successful year. There's not only one thing in my mind. The most important thing is to keep improving, and if I'm successful in the way that I finish out the end of the season, I will be more on the top spots of the world ranking without being on the team, which is very strange, too, I will be happy, too. Q. Just looking at your Desert Classic win last year and the Dubai World Championship win, there was a huge difference in the way you approached the four rounds. Your consistency had improved a lot towards the end of the season. Is that something that you're targeting to do more often, to be more consistent? ALVARO QUIROS: Yeah. Obviously this is the target for the season. But more than technically, mentally, because at the end Alvaro Quiros is the same person. Different ways to behave, but the same person. What I cannot avoid, what I cannot do is change myself. For a good thing or for a bad thing, I'm the player that I am, I'm the person that I am. Sometimes in the good way, and sometimes in the negative way. Obviously what I'm trying to do is to fix, if you want to call it that in a negative way, or not a positive way. This is why probably I'm not ‑‑ I can say that I still have a long way to improve until something happens. Not everybody can say how can I still improve. I know that I can still improve, mentally more than technically. So we will see when I can reach my top spot. Q. Just on The Ryder Cup thing, what are your memories of The Ryder Cup? Being such a rich history in the competition, what are your earliest memories and why do you want to be on that team so much? ALVARO QUIROS: We were talking yesterday about it at dinner, and the few memories ‑‑ or the few pictures that I have on my mind about The Ryder Cup probably when one of the few first times of Torrance jumping on the 18th green. Another one was Olazabal dancing in his first Ryder Cup. And unfortunately the only one that I have is Justin Leonard jumping in the line of Olazabal, which is something not good. But these are the memories that I have. Apart of that, I mean everyone knows the Spaniards have been very successful in The Ryder Cup. We have people always playing in the last events of The Ryder Cup. So I want to be one of these players. I want to be one of the guys who have played for his country and especially for Europe. The most important thing is the group. It's one of the few times that you can really feel that you are in a group. Unfortunately golf is very selfish and difficult, and not too often do you have a chance to share a nice chat with a partner, with a colleague in the golf course without thinking that he can beat you later. Q. How do you think you'll handle the pressure? ALVARO QUIROS: It has to be something really, really huge. Obviously ‑‑ I couldn't say. I couldn't describe the situation, but I say, all the people, all the crowd, European crowd and the American crowd when it's over with different ways to see it, very noisy. It is something that's exciting. I like. I really want to be in that pressure, even if I miss. What I mean with this is you have to go through tough moments or under pressure moments to then appreciate it later. And this is what I want to do. Play my first Ryder Cup as soon as possible to be more successful in the following ones. Q. Alvaro, I remember after the Dubai World Championship you said that Martin Kaymer was the king of Abu Dhabi. With your record here are you the king of Dubai, and what is it about this place that brings the best out of you in your golf? ALVARO QUIROS: I said about Martin Kaymer, the king of Abu Dhabi because he was the last one to play great in Abu Dhabi. After this year he's not anymore the king of Abu Dhabi. In my case I'm not the king of the desert anymore either because I missed the cut in Abu Dhabi and I think I was 59th in Qatar. But as I said before, something is nice when you play here, the good weather conditions, the golf course is in great shape normally, in general. And in Dubai, you can always say that it was a little bit of luck to win two tournaments the same year in the same country. But if we see my scores in the Dubai World Champion two years ago I finished third, just one shot behind the play-off. So it could be practically the same tournament. I don't know. I mean I'm able to ‑‑ I'm not just the guy who won twice in Dubai. I won the Spanish Open. I won Leopard Creek. I won Portugal Masters. I think I have something more than just winning in Dubai. I'm improving. Honestly I think that little by little I'm becoming a player who can win almost every single week, if I have my week, obviously. That's the only thing. Q. What is difference between the tournaments in Europe and tournaments in other countries, like Qatar, Abu Dhabi or Dubai? ALVARO QUIROS: The difference. I mean the golf courses? Q. Is it more different than ‑‑ ALVARO QUIROS: No, no, no. Everything ‑‑ I mean it's difficult to play well, but it's even more difficult winning tournaments. As I said, whatever you want to call it, probably the weather, normally in these kind of countries are guaranteed good weather. I mean it's windy, but even hot. And this is something I like. When I went in Leopard Creek, we were suffering 42 degrees. I wasn't suffering. The others were suffering. For me it was something normal. So probably when we are coming to Dubai and Qatar, the weather is not that extreme either and I'm still playing well. As I said, I have more weeks good than just the ones that I play in Middle East. And at the end if you see the stats, winning ‑‑ being the winner of a tournament and finishing tenth is just one or two shots different, different statement and in mentality and the moment. If you make a bogey, you can be down for a few holes, lose the advantage or getting up with a birdie and keep going. It's as simple as that. The measure is so tight. Q. Do you feel you can win more tournaments now if things go for you. Does that apply to the Majors as well? Are you more confident coming into those? ALVARO QUIROS: I'm not saying that I can win Major tournaments. I'm saying that I'm able to win on more different golf courses. I'm a more complete player, and obviously why not a Major? I mean it's another golf tournament. And it's a little bit hypocratic, but the winner of the Masters will go through after the winner of the U. S. Open. What I mean is we are going to remember just the winner of the last Major, not who won ‑‑ you know. So it's a golf tournament. It's a Major. That's all. I don't think Montgomerie, for example, is a worse player because he doesn't have a Major. This is what the media can think or the normal people can think, but at the end somebody who won eight Order of Merits is a great player anyway. And at the same time I have to say that there are players with one Major and three victories in their careers. Are they better than others here, for example? We will see at the end. They're numbers, moments of life. It would be great if I can be in a major this year in contention. It would be another step up. SARAH GWYNN: That's great. Alvaro, thanks very much for coming in. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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