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BMW INTERNATIONAL OPEN

June 18, 2008

Henrik Stenson

EICHENRIED, GERMANY

RODDY WILLIAMS: Welcome to the 20th BMW International Open, and a tournament you won just a couple of years ago. Always nice to come back to a tournament you've had success.
HENRIK STENSON: It always gives you a nice feeling when you come back to a course where you've played well in the past, and this one is no different, so it's good to be back.
RODDY WILLIAMS: What was the course like out there this morning in the Pro-Am?
HENRIK STENSON: It's good. I came in Monday. I had an early exit from the U.S. Open, so I was there on Monday morning and thought the greens looked really well; obviously when it gets a bit of rain and a lot of people walk on them. But it was really a pure surface on Monday, so I thought the course was in really good condition.
RODDY WILLIAMS: Obviously disappointing week for you last week at Torrey Pines.
HENRIK STENSON: Yeah, I was struggling all over really. I think I hit about 50 per cent of the fairways and 50 per cent of the greens pretty and not too many putts made. So it was overall just pretty poor performance really.
RODDY WILLIAMS: Something you want to correct this week?
HENRIK STENSON: I would hope so, yes.

Q. Were you trying to analyse why you had better results in the winter than in the summer. Have you come any further with that?
HENRIK STENSON: Obviously not. I always take the week before Wentworth off. Wentworth, I was kind of ill the whole week and then I had two weeks off and then tried to prepare, but obviously didn't get far enough in the preparations. And now it's just a bit off when I came to the U.S. Open, and I couldn't quite work it out during the week.
So now just put that one behind us. There's still two majors to go this year and obviously a good tournament this week. The game feels like it's moving in the right direction. Might not be all the way to feeling really confident but you can only keep on working and taking the steps in the right direction.
RODDY WILLIAMS: Paul was talking about this time of the year with The Open coming up, and this week, it's an important part of the year, isn't it. What's your focus at the moment? Asking about Ryder Cup as well; what are you focusing on?
HENRIK STENSON: Well, I made a different approach to this season than the previous year. I played more in America last year and I'm playing a little bit more in Europe but still trying to keep the numbers down to about 24, 25 tournaments.
I'm still going to have a few weeks off in the middle of the summer, something that I haven't had in the past, when all of these big and good tournaments are coming up. So I'll try and still be rested and try and play well when I play.
So that's been the thought for the season, and it's worked pretty well so far, even if I haven't had any wins. Still there have been quite a few close ones and a couple of Top-10s, so I guess I can't complain with the results too much this year.

Q. You say you will try to keep the number of tournaments down; but would you like to play more?
HENRIK STENSON: It's just with all of the travelling really, it's hard. I've been so jet-lagged this week, finally didn't sleep one hour last night or the night before last, and I think I got three hours in and so it just wears you out a little bit too much going back and forth. I played some tournaments in Asia and some tournaments down in Dubai and the Middle East there and America and Europe. I think it's hard to play close to 30 weeks if you're doing all that travel.

Q. Is it hard to keep it down?
HENRIK STENSON: Just maybe a little bit. During the summer, you know, in Europe, we have all these great tournaments, and I've always played in them, and then all of a sudden, you're making a slightly different choice. Of course, you can miss not playing a few of them, but it should all work out better in the end I hope.

Q. I saw you playing on a golf cart this Monday morning. In 2006, early in the morning were one of the only players to play then; is that one of the reasons why you are confident that you can win here again?
HENRIK STENSON: I think, as I said you always get good memories when you come back to a course where you play well. It's more down to the form of the week and how well you're playing obviously.
But I hope I can be a contender for the win this week and I'm going to head out there when the rain stops and work a little bit more, so we're even better tomorrow.

Q. And you're looking for a Swedish hat trick?
HENRIK STENSON: Absolutely. I think Niclas and I, if we can just keep on going every second year, that would be nice. It's obviously my turn this year then. (Laughter).
RODDY WILLIAMS: Henrik, good luck.

End of FastScripts

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