SLYNC.IO DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC

January 28, 2022

Richard Bland

Emirates Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Understandably, feeling a little hot after a disappointing finish but once more in the mix again. How much has your belief changed from where you were at this time last year to where you are right now?

RICHARD BLAND: Yeah, it's changed a lot. If anything, I think the most from last year I took away was at the U.S. Open, I know the week didn't work out, but I'm not the first person who is has ever -- and not going to be the last but I took so many positives. When I have my game that I know I can play it stacks up against the best in the world and I proved that, okay, not over 72, but sometimes you don't need to do it over the four rounds to get that belief.

Q. You got to do a little bit of work with Tim Barter at the start of this week. What did you try to put together? You tried to prep for this year but it didn't quite materialise.

RICHARD BLAND: Yeah, wasn't the best start to the year. Came back off the end of last year, and was due to fly out 3rd of January ask got COVID and then kind of cleared that up and then pulled an intercostal muscle trying to take the Christmas tree down.

Yeah, the Saturday before Abu Dhabi, I didn't think I was going to be playing. It was that bad. But it kind of got better a lot quicker, so I made the trip out. Yeah, I probably should have made the cut last week with no preparation.

But I got to see Tim on Monday, and yeah, we did a little work. We just work on the same stuff for so long that it's never going to get that far out; the foundations are always there. Kind of showed up a little bit today. I was a little bit ragged in places today but the nice thing is I'm never that far away. I'm always kind of in there. So hopefully I can just tidy that up for the weekend.