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THE BARCLAYS SCOTTISH OPENJuly 9, 2009Richard GreenLUSS, SCOTLAND MICHAEL GIBBONS: Richard, fine start, just talk us through that a little bit and what went right today and what went wrong. RICHARD GREEN: Yeah, it was just a great round of golf, solid, very much under control and a bit of a contrast to yesterday. In the Pro-Am yesterday I hit it pretty poorly but seemed to work my game out a little bit yesterday on the range, and got my swing back on plane again and hitting green. Tee-to-green today was excellent and I made some putts when I needed to, really, on the round to get momentum going and it was good. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Good result here last year and the last few weeks. RICHARD GREEN: Yeah, it was a bit of a hard one to come back to a tournament you've played well at before and you get high expectations and all that sort of stuff. I didn't want to go into today or into this week with the expectations that, you know, can obviously wind you up a little bit too much and get too much pressure on yourself. So I did my best to not do that, so that's a pretty good score. I was pretty relaxed and sort of took on the attitude I took on here last year, it seemed to work. So it's good. Q. How come you hate this golf course so much? RICHARD GREEN: I don't really dislike the golf course. I love the place. It's a fantastic place. I think there was just a period of time through maybe the last sort of six, seven years where the golf course is very wet and very heavy and just never suited my game. Last year was great. I remember the first time I came here, my result was great, I finished fourth or fifth in the Loch Lomond World Invitational when it was here and just loved the place. But there was a period of time where I didn't play well here at all and struggled. When I got here last year, it was the first time in a while everything seemed to agree with me and played very nicely again. Q. A couple of shots off the course record here for a first round; how do you consistently keep that up across the four rounds? RICHARD GREEN: Very difficult to sort of keep that up. You know, all I can do is just go out there and take on each day as it comes, each shot as it comes, and take on each challenge I'm faced with. Every time I go on the golf course, I have to deal with what's there. Today was very easy for us and seemed very easy for me. I never ever expect it to be the same tomorrow. You never play the same golf shot twice, so you just go out there and do your best with what's being asked of you at that time. So that's all I'm going to do, and hopefully things get right and you just keep playing stress-free golf and things go your way. Q. How concerned were you after the Pro-Am, and how big was the problem? RICHARD GREEN: I was a little bit, but it's never a long way away. It's just a matter of finding that little swing thought that gets you back online or back on plane again, and fortunately, you know, I've got a few triggers that I go through when I practise if things are not going right to try to work that out, so fortunately I seemed to hit the nail on the head pretty quickly. Most of my practise last night was good quality practise doing the right things and it got me in the right frame of mind last night and got my mind back on track. Q. How long did you spend? RICHARD GREEN: Probably an hour and a half working away. It's never usually a long way away, and I think as long as you can sort of go through those little check points and make sure you get things back on track, it's good. It was just a bit of a surprise. I had been playing so well for three weeks, and all of a sudden I go out in the Pro-Am yesterday and couldn't find it. It was difficult, but I'm pleased I've worked it out a bit. Q. Just checking your World Rankings, 90th at the moment, I know you all want to be higher than that, but is that a true reflection on the golf this year? RICHARD GREEN: Well, probably. I had a lot of time off at the start of the year which is never going to help your ranking obviously, but I think the way I'm playing now, I'm coming into form and the ranking is sort of heading in the right direction again. I've spent a lot of time, three or four years, around the Top-50 in the world I suppose and just try to get myself back to that position again. That's where I sort of like to pride myself to be, I guess, anyway. Hopefully the way I'm playing now is good enough to be top 20 in the world I would say. Q. I was going to say, last week Martin Kaymer shot very low in the first round and gave him a lot of breathing space, too early to be talking about similar things, but will it make it easier over the next couple of rounds? RICHARD GREEN: Yeah, obviously the better you score, the better you're positioned, and the guys have to do a lot more work to try to catch you. Obviously if I can play my game the way I'm playing it, I can see myself going forward, so that's going to take guys I guess a lot more work to try and catch up. It always good. There's always someone that comments out of the blocks and a few that try to catch up at the end. You just have to try to keep your head above water. Q. Did you have to sacrifice anything by going back out on to the range last night? RICHARD GREEN: No, just got out there and did what I needed to do, and that was my priority. The only sacrifice was sitting on the couch, so there wasn't a lot to sacrifice, no. Q. Your sponsor -- RICHARD GREEN: They are a transport logistics company in Australia who have been supporting me for a good five years now, so it's been good. Q. Do you think you've won enough over the years, considering the number of times you've been in contention? RICHARD GREEN: Probably not. There's been a lot of opportunities presented itself to me. I haven't handled the pressure quite as well as I would like to, but you know, the more I put myself there, the more and more I feel like I can do it. There's certain courses around the world that I feel I can win on, and it's just a matter of getting myself into those positions and at the right time doing it. But probably not with the amount of opportunities I've had probably three or four wins so far. Q. Is it enough just to sort of be up there and not win, is there a danger of slipping into that rut? RICHARD GREEN: Yeah, you know, you can. There's a lot of money out there every week for us and you can get up there and just be content with earning a lot of money. Depends what you want out of the game. I've always wanted to win golf tournaments and wanted to be one of the better players in the world, and you know, so that's sort of my plan I guess and if I can keep following those sort of goals and ambitions, hopefully a win will come along as I guess the by-product of that sort of Top-10 results. Q. Do you have shots you might play this week with next week in mind? RICHARD GREEN: The game or swing didn't really change. It's just generally the condition that change around you, the surface you play on, the firmness of the fairways, the firmness of the greens, and it's just a matter of adapting to it next week. The way I'm flighting the ball, I'm going to try to be doing exactly the same thing next week. I naturally hit my driver lower than most guys do anyway, which I think I shouldn't have to adjust anything going into next week. So yeah, it should just smoothly follow through. Q. Given your good result a couple of years ago at Carnoustie, how much are you looking forward to going to Turnberry? RICHARD GREEN: It's the highlight of the year for me, that's for sure. Like I said before, I just have to be careful I don't have too high of expectations of myself and go out there and enjoy myself and play good golf shots and hopefully let the score do the talking at the end of the day. That's kind of where I'm at. It's nice to sort of know that the result a few years ago, I know I can do it and compete with the best in the world, and the right conditions, the right time, the right day, who knows what can happen. Q. What is the best advice you've been given about handling pressure? RICHARD GREEN: Pretty much try to not do anything out of your own ability. Try to stay within your own ability or see what you can achieve and do it, not try to do what someone else is doing. You've just got to do the best you can with what's in front of you, and try and stay in that moment. You know, it's been a pretty common thing to do. Q. What exactly was lost yesterday, was there anything in particular? RICHARD GREEN: I think apart from sort of being not mentally as sharp as you are in a golf tournament, the swing was just a little by off. My setup was probably what went away, and I just needed to sort of get myself back set up properly again to hit the golf ball and commit to a good, full golf swing and that's what I did. Q. Any particular shot that you felt yesterday -- RICHARD GREEN: I could just feel it when it's not right. You can feel it by the poor shots you hit or the direction the ball is going. You just know when it's not right. And I was saying to my caddie all day, got to get out and do this work on this and work it out for unfortunately not every time you find it straightaway but it was nice to yesterday. Q. If there was only one shot you could rely on today, which would it be -- RICHARD GREEN: Probably the eagle putt on 13. I started a little bit sort of scratchy. I bogeyed the 12th hole from a sort of slightly poor tee shot, but I hit two great shots down 13, great drive, great 3-wood on the green and rolled in a putt that was breaking probably eight feet right-to-left from 35 feet away. Just kick-started things along again. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Richard, thanks for coming in. End of FastScripts |
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