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COMMERCIAL BANK QATAR MASTERSJanuary 21, 2014Jason DufnerDOHA, QATAR PAUL SYMES: Thanks a lot for coming in, second time, back in Qatar, obviously enjoyed your debut last year. JASON DUFNER: Yeah, I had a pretty nice event last year. I enjoyed playing the golf course, a good challenge. Got a great field again this year. Looking forward to taking some of the things I learned about the course last year and applying them and hopefully challenging for the title. PAUL SYMES: What did you learn about the course? JASON DUFNER: It's tough. It's a long golf course. A lot of the par 5s are not reachable for me, so I need to be in the fairways. I need to wedge it well on those par 5s. The rough's up this year a good bit. Haven't really played the golf course in too much of a wind. I heard the winds can get pretty tricky so that can be a challenge. The greens are in much better shape this year than last year, so I think holing putts will be a little bit easier for me. So excited about the challenge the course presents. PAUL SYMES: You made a decent start to the season in the States.  Is your game where you want it to be at this stage of the campaign? JASON DUFNER: Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell. Played pretty well at Maui, was feeling pretty good at Sony and then I got sick. I actually got bronchitis and pneumonia when I was at Sony. So I've been trying to deal with that and trying to get healthier. We'll see. I didn't do much practising last week at home, trying to get healthy and flew over here. It's the start of the year, feeling things out and seeing where you're at and what you need to get better at. For me, I try to use the first three or four events to see where I'm at and get going with it. PAUL SYMES: Obviously had Phil in Abu Dhabi last week, we've got yourself this week, Tiger next week; do you feel there's a growing trend of Americans playing outside the PGA Tour? JASON DUFNER: Yeah, it seems like guys are coming over here, especially for this stretch. You always have a couple of Americans in each of these events it seems like. I enjoy coming over here and the weather is good. The fields are strong, the golf courses are good. I enjoy playing around the world. I've played three to five across the world here for the last couple years, and hopefully looking to expand that a little bit more this year, maybe play six to eight on The European Tour, maybe some on the Asian Tour, so I enjoy doing that. Q. Apologies if you were asked this question in Hawaii, but when you look at the major venus, apart from Augusta, what do you know about the other three venues? JASON DUFNER: I'm excited; the U.S. Open always excites me. I feel like that setup is probably the best for my game. Played Pinehurst but haven't played it since they made the changes. The coach I work with, Chuck Cook, obviously taught Payne Stewart, so he's got a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge about that golf course. I'm really excited about there. I actually have played Royal Liverpool a couple times. When we played at Lytham, I went over and played a couple times, and really like the challenges that course has. Never seen Valhalla. Watched a little bit on TV. I'm excited about all of the venues. I don't know much about Valhalla, but especially Pinehurst, a lot of tradition there and I'm a big fan of what Crenshaw and Core have done with their renovation project so I'm excited to get over there and see what they have done. Q. Sorry to ask this as well, but Dufnering was a big deal in 2013. How do you see that phenomena overall? JASON DUFNER: Pretty amazing. I couldn't quite believe how much it caught on and continued to kind of trend throughout the year. Everywhere I go, people are asking me about it, even in 2014. Maybe there will be something new and exciting for this year. But you know, I'm flattered by it. Everybody seems to identify with me with it, and it keeps going. I thought it would have quit a long time ago. Q. What was the story behind it? JASON DUFNER: Somebody was trying to catch me kind of zoning out and screwing off when I should have been paying attention and they were trying to kind of poke fun at me and maybe make me look in a bad light, but it didn't work out too well for them (laughing). PAUL SYMES: Thanks a lot, Jason. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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