home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

FORD CHAMPIONSHIP AT DORAL

March 3, 2005

Jose Maria Olazabal

DORAL, FLORIDA

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us for a few minutes. Appreciate you coming upstairs.

Great round today and excellent finish with four birdies on those last five holes, a great way to finish the day.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yes, it was a great day. It started good, too, so no complaints. I played okay today. I managed to make a few putts and obviously that's what you need to score well. I played steady all day.

Q. Is it any tougher for you to make out your schedule since you've had to get sponsor's exemptions and things like that? We talked about this with you last year with your status; do you know where you're going to be playing?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: That's the situation, I have to rely on invitations and I really kind of make the schedule not looking too far down the season. I know I'm going to play another four events around the Masters and that's all I know at the moment.

So it's been like that and I expected it to be like that obviously. The only way to change that is just playing good golf.

Q. You have been playing good golf these last couple of weeks, tied 6th, tied 7th; what have you found in the last month or so?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, I felt like I've been striking the ball better than the last year, obviously. I've been able to hit more fairways and that is very important obviously.

I think overall, I've been hitting the ball better than I did the whole of last year, and I think that has been the key. I mean, if you play steady enough, if you play well enough, you're going to give yourself birdie chances and if you manage to make a few putts here and there, it's going to be a little bit easier to score, without a doubt.

Q. Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo have just been named captains. Don't you think that you should have been considered, as well?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: No, actually no. I think even though I'm not very young age-wise, I think I'm still too young to be a captain. I think there is a bunch of guys that should be there before me, Woosnam, obviously, Nick, maybe even Sandy, Colin. I think I'm going to wait a few more years. I don't have nothing against that.

Q. How much longer are you off the tee?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I don't know. I haven't checked. I don't look at the numbers.

Q. Is that important to you? Is that something you try to work on?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I think it's important to everybody, don't you think?

Q. Well --

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: All right. Well, especially with the golf courses that we play these days, I think that you've seen the trend of making golf courses longer and longer. I think being long contributes to having birdie chances to score. I think that has been the point for the last six, seven years.

Q. My question is: When did that change, six, seven years ago?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I think pretty much since Tiger came onto the scene. I mean, obviously not straightaway, but you know when you see guys hitting the ball well over 300 yards, and playing golf courses with only wedges and sand wedges in your hands, that makes everybody I think on the PGA think about it and that's why they made the decision to make the golf courses longer.

Q. Do you get the sense now that even a long hitter, you come to a hole, it's 380, 410, was always 2-iron or 3-wood, and now some of the power hitters are just saying, let it rip and if it's still in the rough, I'm having a wedge?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yeah, I agree with that. That's the situation pretty much.

Q. It seemed like Vijay was doing that quite a bit last year.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, I think, you know, when you look at players like Davis Love, Phil, Tiger, Vijay, Retief, Ernie, you look at those guys, they can hit the ball miles. I mean, why not? You can hit the ball 330, why not just do that. Obviously, you have to hit it fairly straight but it's not just power.

I think it has been like that for the last four or five years, I guess.

Q. Do you feel that puts you at a big disadvantage, small disadvantage, any disadvantage at all?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: It is a disadvantage. I mean, I don't know up to what degree. Obviously, if you manage to hit only two shots from 100 yards from the hole, you're going to be okay too. I mean, it's no secret.

Q. With younger players coming up that have the same mentality of just smash it, do you think it's not too long before we lose the art of shot-making, when you get on a windy course or a soggy course, you need to start hitting shots; that they may have lost that?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, sooner or later there will come a week where you will have to do that. For instance, L.A., L.A. was a good example. The greens were pretty wet and everything was spinning big time, so all you have to do was just hit little punch shots and that's part of the shot-making.

When you play certain golf courses, MCI, for instance, the week after the Masters, I think that's a long golf course, but you have to shape the ball both ways and you have to hit punch shots in there. There is always going to be certain golf courses that are more suited to the shot-making and there are going to be a lot of golf courses where power is going to be key.

Q. Did you hear much Spanish out there, given that this is Miami, people yelling from the gallery to you in EspaÃƒÂ±ol?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Obviously there is a lot of Spanish-speaking people out there and that's nice.

Q. Are you impressed with what the organizers have done the last few years with this tournament and do you think that the Ford could be back on the top level of tournaments around the TOUR?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yes, you look at the field this week, you know, it's extremely good. I think there are nine of the Top-10 or 11, 11 of 12; so there you go. I don't think you can have a much stronger field than this one.

Q. Are you happy with your game going into the weekend? Do you see yourself as a winner come Sunday?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Before the weekend, there is a Friday. (Laughter.) I'm going to start worrying about tomorrow but obviously there is one more round to go tomorrow before the weekend.

As I said, I'm here just trying to regain my game and to start playing good golf and that's my main objective.

Q. If you get into contention, you wouldn't be afraid to go through with it, would you?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I think as you've been away or out of contention for such a long time, I think it's just a process. I don't think that you can come just straight into being in contention and just feel comfortable with it. I think it's going to be a process of me putting myself in contention for a few weeks and then feel comfortable with it and if you knock enough times on the door, most of the times it will open.

Obviously, you know, whenever you shoot 8-under par, I know the conditions were good today, but 8-under par, it's hard to shoot in any given golf course. I'm really pleased with that. You know, nothing wrong with that and I'm really happy about it, I know tomorrow is going to be a different day and I'm going to try to go out there and play good golf and see what happens.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Could you please go through your birdies today?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: We started on 10. 11, 3-wood, wedge, holed it from nine feet.

16, I hit a 5-wood off the tee and a sand wedge and holed it from nine feet again.

17, driver, sand wedge, holed it from 12 feet.

1, I drove it in the right bunker. 8-iron, wedge, holed it from 18 feet.

Then 5, I hit a driver, wedge, holed it from 12 feet.

7, driver, 8-iron and holed it from another 18 feet, 20 feet maybe.

No. 8, driver, 8-iron, sand wedge and made it from three feet.

9, 8-iron and holed it from 15 feet.

Q. Looking ahead to Augusta, when people talk about the back nine, there's a lot of emphasis on the par 5s. I wonder if you can speak to the two par 3s, how they factor into it and how difficult they are. Each seems quite different than the other, 12 and 16.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Yeah, well, they are different to each other without question. Obviously we all know how difficult 12 plays every time and mainly because we know the pin is extremely shallow, it's only like ten steps to either side of the green. The wind swirls around quite a lot and that's why it's so difficult on 12.

16, you know, with that flag on the left corner, you really have to hit a very good shot to have a chance of putting it close, because otherwise, if you're not in the right side of the hole, and if you're up at the top, you're going to have a hell of a time making two putts.

They play different but, you know, I think that's the beauty of that golf course. Every hole plays tough. I think that's obviously the par 5s there are the holes that you really have to take advantage of.

Q. Do you step on 12 tee and 16 tee if you're playing well and in contention and think, let's get out of here with par?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: I'll take 3 on 12 every single day of the rest of my life. (Laughter.)

On 16, most of the times, yes.

Q. Can you see how that would set up differently, both holes, for a lefty or a righty?

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Well, I look at the shape of the hole, the 12th green.

Q. Sunday pins I'm talking about.

JOSE MARIA OLAZABAL: Right. If you look at the shape of the green on 12, it's shorter on the left than it is to the right corner, so if anything, it favors a fade on 12, and 16 is just the opposite, everything fits from right-to-left and if anything, you know, a little draw into that left flag is the best shot.

So, you have to hit different shots into each of the par 3s on the back nine.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297