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ISPS HANDA WALES OPENAugust 29, 2013Paul McGinleyNEWPORT, WALES Q. First time you've seen Kofstad play? PAUL McGINLEY: First time we've played, yeah. He's a big hitter. He's the kind of guy that does well on The Challenge Tour. He's a massive hitter, good short game, and he played very well today. He deserved that score to be honest. He hit a lot of fairways. He hit it a million miles off the tee. He putted extremely well and deserved the score. Q. Easy game when you do that. PAUL McGINLEY: Absolutely. When you hit it a million miles and straight, it makes the game very easy, I have to say. I saw it last week with Shane Lowery and now I've seen it today with Espen. He played well and deserved his score. Obviously got a few breaks at the end there, but he deserved his score. Q. And your own game, a bit of a nervy start off the first tee? PAUL McGINLEY: Not really. I nailed it. I was trying to draw it and hit it dead straight. It didn't draw. I can't hit it left because the bunkers I can't carry. I nailed it. Just didn't draw it and got a terrible lie in the rough. I had to lay it up short. But yeah, it's a tough hole. That first hole is a tough hole for me because I can't carry the bunker, so I have to draw it around. Q. After that to shoot 1‑under, and a relief to get in underway? PAUL McGINLEY: It's not so much relief, no. It's a sense of excitement. It's a sense of excitement that it's up and running and every shot counts. And guys are very much focused now on the fact that Ryder Cup points have started, on both sides of the Atlantic, and it will give me a little bit more of an interest watching the American golf at nighttime. Q. When you play good, having a score like that, first round‑‑ it is only the first round ‑‑ PAUL McGINLEY: Maybe it's a good omen. Maybe it's a good omen, I don't know, we'll see. There's a huge amount of golf as we all know. As I said yesterday, so much of the next few months for these guys is so important to use it as a steppingstone to get into the last Race to Dubai series, and from there, get into the majors next year, because that's really where the massive points are in terms of Ryder Cup. That's the importance of a tournament like The Wales Open. To perform well around a golf course like this, which is an ex‑Ryder Cup course, is obviously a good indication. Q. Did Espen talk to you about The Ryder Cup? PAUL McGINLEY: No. We didn't talk‑‑ they asked me questions, if I'm busy. I think the whole Tour can see how busy I've been, and they all notice that, and that's about it. Just focusing on our game and chatting, and as I say, he played very well. All credit to him, and John played well, too. Q. How difficult or easy is it for you to concentrate on your own personal game? PAUL McGINLEY: There's no doubt it's challenges. Every captain in the past has told me that it's extremely difficult to focus on your own game, and they have been proved right. I agree with them all, but I still don't want to use it as an excuse. I feel that, okay, there's pressures on my time. My preparation for the tournament this week and last week weren't ideal because I had so many things to do outside of the tournament, but that's understandable. And when I took the captaincy, I knew that was part of the deal that there would be a lot of media and promotion, ambassadorial stuff for the Tour to be done, so I'm certainly not going to complain about it. It's about kind of being organised and structured in what I'm doing and giving myself time. Q. Will you have any say on EurAsia Cupcaptaincy? PAUL McGINLEY: It looks like I'll have input. I have no idea where I am going to go with it. At the moment, I want to get the Seve Trophy over first, see how that evolves out and then we can move on to the next step. As I say, there's stages along the way and I would like to have the continuity for everything towards September and see how the Seve Trophy evolves; and then sit down around Christmas and decide what is the best way forward with that; sit down with the Tour, as well, and what their views on it are as well, too, and see where we are going. There's about three stages before that. Q. But the captaincy, EurAsia captaincy, will be after the Seve Trophy? PAUL McGINLEY: Yeah, I won't announce that until maybe around The Race to Dubai or around Christmastime I would say. Realistically, around Race to Dubai, around that time, will be a good time scale. I need to get a view, as well, too, to which players will be playing. Might have to wait a bit longer than that, which players are going to play and not going to play and how far down the list it's going to go. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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