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BMW MASTERSOctober 24, 2012Liang Wen-ChongSHANGHAI, CHINA STEVE TODD: Welcome to the BMW Masters, big event for world golf and a big event for golf in China. What does it mean to you to have such a big event here in China. LIANG WEN‑CHONG: Well, I want to express my appreciation to BMW to host such a wonderful event, and also with the support from CGA and BMW, we are able to have 14 players from China competing in this event. Personally I have played lots of world‑class tournaments around the world, including the majors, and it takes a lot of World Ranking and Order of Merit from The Asian Tour or OneAsia Tour to be able to compete in an event like this. But this week with all of the help from CGA and BMW, local Chinese players, 14 of them are competing in event. I'm just so grateful, especially yesterday with the people, the officials from CGA and all of the players from China, we are looking forward to having a wonderful result and performance this coming week. STEVE TODD: Tell us a little bit about your game coming into this week, what shape you feel you're in and your expectations for the week. LIANG WEN‑CHONG: Well, I'm very confident, especially playing so well a couple of weeks ago, winning the Nanshan Masters. I cannot control how the other players can perform, but as long as I can do what I can and try my best and play up to my expectations, hopefully I'll have a wonderful result this week and hopefully other players in China can do like what I have done; hopefully somebody, especially me, will have a great result in the BMW Masters. Q. I've always been under the impression you're the No. 1 ranked golfer in China at the moment but that doesn't seem to be the case, even though you won the Nanshan Masters. Is that because your form has not been good or you've been on other tours or is it because of the state of golf in Asia with the rival Asian Tour and OneAsia Tour? LIANG WEN‑CHONG: In 2010, I had a few wins, a few especially on the one Asian Tour and my World Ranking was up to about 170 in the world, probably the best so far in my career but at that time I decided to make a few changes including my supporting team, including also technical swing changes. So the last almost two years I have made quite a bit of changes, and also with the support from my coach, fitness trainer, it's long‑term changes. After 110 weeks, I finally won the event in Nanshan, and it's not only my personal contribution, it's support and all of the team work. I'm grateful and that I won after two years, and right now my goal is to play in the 2016 Olympic Games. I believe that if my World Ranking will be within 300 in the world, I should be able to become a representative from China competing in the 2016 Olympic Games. I would like to see more huge tournaments supported by the CGA and especially a tournament like this, the BMW Masters. I still am really looking forward to performing well and hopefully will be able to represent China in the Olympic Games. Two weeks ago at the Nanshan Masters, I was so excited to come out a winner after five holes of a playoff, especially against a Major winner, Y.E. Yang. It's a huge steppingstone because of the self‑belief and self‑confidence, that I took from that tournament after winning that event will be able to bring me into this event and upcoming few major tournaments in Asia. Hopefully my good performance will keep going and I will be able to perform better, including this week. I had a wonderful time last week at Mission Hills Haikou playing in the celebrity Pro‑Am. I really enjoyed the wonderful time with basketball legend Yao Ming. Yao played only a few months in golf, but I'm so excited to see other athletes and celebrities bringing more golf fans to the golf course and I would like to see Yao Ming really enjoy the game and maybe in the future we can both enjoy the game of golf and promote the game to more different parts of China. Q. Talk about the opportunities for the 14 players given spots from the CGA this week. LIANG WEN‑CHONG: This week in the 14 spots offered from the CGA, there's one player from the OneAsia Tour, a Korean player. I don't know the exact reason, of all the players from China, there is one player representing the one Asian Tour, is a Korean golfer. But I'm very grateful that the CGA is grateful to come to terms with BMW hosting this wonderful, big prize money event with so many players from China competing. The most important thing, is more people outside of the golf society, especially the CGA, would be able to give more opportunity to the local player to be able to compete in this kind of event, and the more bigger tournaments they play, the better performance they will be able to come with. One of the spots offered from the CGA of the 14 spots is offered to Order of Merit from the OneAsia tour, but I think whoever the player is from the OneAsia Tour, he is heading to U.S. for Q‑School. So the Korean player is actually No.2 from the Order of Merit on the OneAsia tour and that's why he is in the field. I would like to see, because the CGA is also a member of the OneAsia Tour, I would like to see the OneAsia Tour hopefully hosting more events in China, and the higher prize money, the higher level of playing, more world‑class players coming to China would just help the local players to be able to compete against the better players. Q. What are your thoughts on your pairing tomorrow with Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter? LIANG WEN‑CHONG: I'm looking forward to playing with two Ryder Cup players in the same group tomorrow. I have played with them before, but I'm just going to try to focus on my own game and try to enjoy the game. And also, with my coach, spending time with him this week, to me it's not really any kind of last‑minute technical changes. Just having him being here, I feel a lot of support from my coach and I will feel a lot more comfortable. Q. Speaking about OneAsia Tour, I understand they had 14 tournaments on their schedule, and at least two have mysteriously disappeared. And with the Asian Tour not allowed to host tournaments in China, the opportunities for young Chinese golfers are very limited, especially looking forward to 2016 Olympics and trying to get World Ranking points. What do you feel about that situation? LIANG WEN‑CHONG: With the Asian Tour in the past, normally we have maybe three to five players from China who will be able to compete on any of the Asian Tour events. Even though there are not that many tournaments from the OneAsia Tour, but they allow maybe close to over 20 players, 20 spots from China, and if the OneAsia Tour is being played in China, you might see 30, 40 players from China will be able to compete. So that will allow more juniors, younger golfers will be able to compete. For example, like Ashun Wu, after getting a TOUR card from the Japanese tour, he won in Japan and he moved up from 500‑something in the World Ranking up to close to 200, and that's a huge jump. So the best way to get World Ranking points is to have the chance to compete hopefully in China and then from the OneAsia Tour or the local Chinese‑‑ local events, they will be able to go out and try to get a Tour card from Japan Tour, European Tour, or even the US PGA TOUR, and then from there they will earn more World Ranking points. In 2007 I won the Asian Tour Order of Merit and 2010 I was the money winner of the OneAsia tour. I don't understand the reason why there are two different tours in Asia, and I would like to see both tours merge into one and that will just make it a bigger platform so more players from China will be able to compete. Of course, my dream would be after competing all over the world, Japan, Europe, even some of the US PGA TOUR events, I would like to see much bigger China tour events. Q. Do you think the China Golf Association feels the same way? LIANG WEN‑CHONG: Whatever I just mentioned is my own personal opinion. With all of the growth from all of the economy in China and hopefully more corporations will get into the game of golf, sponsor more golf tournaments and I believe that maybe in a period of years, there will be more local tournaments in the year future, we will see more bigger tournaments in China and we'll be able to have a much richer China local tour at that time. We will just be able to support more local Chinese players so that this is also a steppingstone for people like myself after competing in local tournaments, I'll be able to move onto bigger tours like the US PGA or The European Tour. Q. What is your schedule? LIANG WEN‑CHONG: I'm looking forward to having a good result this week, and also, in the upcoming week, I'll be playing in the Singapore Open, the Hong Kong Open, and then the events in Asia and also maybe down to Australia. So there might be seven, eight tournaments coming up in a row, hopefully with my good performance in the recent weeks, I will pick up one or two more trophies in the upcoming weeks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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