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PORTUGAL MASTERSOctober 10, 2012Martin KaymerVILAMOURA, PORTUGAL PAUL SYMES: Welcome, thanks again for coming in, you're playing with José Maria and Francesco Molinari in the first couple of rounds, I would imagine you have a few things to discuss with those guys, a few memories to relive. MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, it will be very nice to play with them again. I played with José Maria, I think in Holland before the Ryder Cup, and then obviously we had great success and a great experience during the week in Medinah.  I think we will reflect a little bit on that week. Obviously Francesco, we get along very well, so it will be a very nice couple of days. PAUL SYMES: Have you lost count of the number of times people have come up to you and congratulated you since that day? MARTIN KAYMER: No, and they can keep coming. That's a good feeling. Obviously every time, it gives you a little bit more confidence. PAUL SYMES: You've got a very good record here, you must feel confident every time you tee up here. MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, I played very well here in the past, and at the moment, I feel very happy the way I hit the ball. Unfortunately last week my putter was very cold. Probably left everything at The Ryder Cup. But that's why I spent a little bit more time on the putting green yesterday and today and hopefully will be ready for a good round tomorrow. Q. What was going through your mind before that last putt at Medinah? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, I did hear that a lot of times. What I said many, many times already, it's just one of those things that you know exactly what you have to do, and you don't really have time and you don't even spend any time on thinking of something apart of, say, besides that particular putt. You don't have room. There's enough focus on the 6‑footer, and I think if you waste any thoughts on something different, then you completely lose your focus on the main part. And again, you know, I knew what I had to do. I knew that putt needs to go in to retain The Ryder Cup, and yeah, it went in. Q. You talked with Bernhard Langer during The Ryder Cup; after The Ryder Cup, what were your conversations? What did you tell him? MARTIN KAYMER: He just sent me a text message that he was very proud and very happy for me, and obviously it's a huge step for my career. I said I would like to talk to him once I'm done with all the tournaments. Obviously last week was very hectic. This week is a little bit more quiet, but I'm playing a golf tournament, so I will call him probably after Portugal. Q. You were No. 1; what is missing in your game to be in the Top‑10 for World Ranking? MARTIN KAYMER: Not a lot. I changed a few things in my swing, and it's getting quite nicely‑‑ where I feel quite nice about my game at the moment. What I said, I worked a lot on my swing that I didn't have a lot of time to work on my short game, and I think once we can get that going again, I will be able to compete more often and put myself up there. Q. You have a good record here in the Portugal Masters. Do you have any other memories from Portugal? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, I've been here many times in the past with my parents and my brother. We played a lot of golf here. I think Quinta do Lago, Pinheiros Altos, those golf courses. I've been here many times, and every time it's nice to come here to get more experience about the place. But it's just nice and a very big tournament, as professionals we are very glad to play here. Q. How does the sensation of holing that winning putt at The Ryder Cup compare to holing a putt at the US PGA Championship, and if you had to give one of them up, which would it be? MARTIN KAYMER: None. I can't make a decision between those two. Both had a huge meaning. I don't know if I would have made the putt at The Ryder Cup if I wouldn't have made it at the PGA. So both, they go a long‑‑ well, they both have something in common and one helped me more than the other. I'm just proud and very thankful for that moment; that I was able to make the putt. Q. And was it a different sensation holing the putt for that team rather than holing that putt at the PGA for yourself? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, you could see my emotion. My emotions were completely different. I haven't seen myself on a golf course like this. So it was a lot of pressure but a huge relief, for not only myself, but for the team, because it was‑‑ I felt like I'm not playing for myself, those two, three last holes. It was about‑‑ there were 11 guys behind me, and so obviously they can add a little bit more pressure. But I could use it in a very positive way. Obviously, you know, you're a little nervous, but I wouldn't say really nervous, like a little bit. It was more exciting, very exciting to have the possibility to make something historical happen. Q. What's it going to do for your season, it must be quite hard to motivate yourself again after that, but it could be the opportunity to reignite that modest season by your own high standards? MARTIN KAYMER: I think it's completely the opposite. I think it gives me more motivation; it's great, if something that big happens to you, because there's never, ever going to be a putt more bigger or more important for me in my life. So I mean, if that doesn't motivate you, I think that you don't have the right passion for the sport. Q. This year the course will be a par 71, and some people say that they would like next year for it to be a par 70. Does that make a big difference when you play the course? MARTIN KAYMER: No. You have a couple less birdies on the scorecard but that's it. If you play 70, 69, 72, at the end of the day, it doesn't make a difference. If there's a par 5 or a par 4 on the board, if it says 4 or 5, you know, it's just mentally if you don't make a birdie, that you made a par, or a bogey, or whatever you make on that hole, and you remind yourself of last year, maybe you made 4 and it was birdie, but besides that, there's not a big difference. Q. Pádraig Harrington was saying there is a certain pressure on a course like this, because if you are not making birdies all the time, then you are losing on the leaderboard. Do you feel the same, or for you it's different? MARTIN KAYMER: It's definitely one of those golf courses where you have a lot of chances, yes, but that's why I think you have to prepare yourself mentally that you will have a lot of chances. It's just about giving yourself chance and chance, you can't force it. If you force it, then they are not going to drop. So I think it's about the mental aspect; that you approach the golf course in a way that you will have chances, it will happen, or it won't. It's just important to put yourself obviously in good positions and not get too greedy. Q. I heard you are a football fan, right? MARTIN KAYMER: Mm‑hmm. Q. Can you tell us about that, do you practice football? Do you cheer for a certain team? MARTIN KAYMER: I started playing football when I was three years old, and then played a long time until I was 15. I'm still a big‑‑ I'd say I'm a fan of Köln and a supporter of Bayern Munich, because over the years, I got to know a few players, and obviously through that, you get a little bit more into it. Q. What position did you play? MARTIN KAYMER: I was trying to make the goals. (Laughter) I was a forward. Yeah, that's my history of football. Q. Do you know any Portuguese teams that you like or players? MARTIN KAYMER: We always try to win against you in the world championships, but you're definitely not bad, yeah. Q. Portugal earned the prize last week as the best golf destination in the world. Would you say to your German fellows, yeah, come and play in Portugal in the Algarve? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, what I said earlier, for me, it was always nice to come here with my family. The people are always friendly, they have good golf courses, and they are not too, too, too ritzy. They are quite place to play and you have a lot of them and obviously Portugal needs that a little bit, the tourism, in order to‑‑ let's say to promote golf even more here. For me it was always very nice to come here. Obviously we Germans, we like to go to Mallorca a lot, but I think Portugal would be quite nice to come, too. Q. We've had a German captain winning The Ryder Cup and a German player holing the winning putt; do you think in your career, you're still a very young man, that you will see a Ryder Cup happening in Germany, and is that something you would actively promote? MARTIN KAYMER: We are trying to get it for 2018 already, but I think it was not‑‑ not that well prepared unfortunately, and I was not very involved in it, too, because I was just on Tour for two or three years. I didn't really know what to do and how to handle everything. But definitely I hope that we will get another chance in 2022. That would be great, for my country, and for Bernhard and for me it would be huge; for him as a captain a few years back, and hopefully until then I've played a few more Ryder Cups to have an even better understanding of what The Ryder Cup means besides playing it; to promote it and to act in the right way. Q. Some Portuguese media wrote last week that this tournament is starting to have champions with very low scores, score, like 20‑under par or something like that. In a player's view, is it nice by the end of the season to play tournaments where you can score where it's not as difficult as, for instance, you play during the summer? MARTIN KAYMER: That's a good question, if it's good or bad. I must agree, the golf course always played fairly easy compared to others. The winning score was always very nice. I think you can argue in both ways, you know, on one hand it's quite nice for the spectators to see a lot of birdies; to see us happy. On the other hand, it becomes a little bit of a putting competition, because there's not a lot of rough, so once you hit the ball on the green, most likely you can get the ball somewhere on the green from the rough, because it's not very thick. So it's not so much about ball‑striking. It's more about putting. So however you want to see it, for some players, they probably like it more if it's like this, if you don't have a lot of rough. And for a lot of other players, for Francesco and for me, we are fairly consistent and we hit a lot of fairways and greens usually, this may be not the best. But you can argue both ways. For me, I'm just very glad that we can play every year because it's a great golf course and a very nice tournament to play. But it would be nice that maybe one year if the golf course changed a little bit to make it a little bit tougher to see the difference. Q. You may have been asked this, but you didn't come to Gleneagles for that last tournament; you wanted to be in The Ryder Cup obviously and you ended up holing the winning putt. But if you had not got into The Ryder Cup, how would that have affected you‑‑ the fact that you didn't come was a bit of a surprise? MARTIN KAYMER: It was a surprise for a lot of people, but I thought about it for a little bit, and then it was fairly clear. Because in the end of the day, it's a team I haven't, and I didn't play any best golf until then. I didn't play very good at all. It didn't make sense for me to go to Gleneagles again and have an okay finish, and maybe just make The Ryder Cup Team. Then I didn't have really much time to practise, because two, three weeks at that stage, it was not enough for myself. So I thought, you know, I'd rather stay in America, see what happens, if I make The Ryder Cup Team, it's fantastic, because then I have five weeks to practise and get ready and that should be enough. And if I don't make it, then someone else, he deserves it more and he will be better for the team. At that stage, I was not good enough for the team. So that was the only reason why I didn't go. At the end of the day, it was a team event and it was not about myself, and then I had time to get ready. PAUL SYMES: Thanks, Martin. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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