	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

PORTUGAL MASTERS

October 15, 2009

Padraig Harrington

VILAMOURA, PORTUGAL

Q. So Padraig, 69, how did that feel out there?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I was happy to finish with 69. You know, I just didn't hole the putts out there. I missed three short ones and didn't hole anything else.
So you know, a perfect day out there, it was great for scoring, you want to hole a few putts, you're going to shoot a really low score. So 69 is a reasonable return considering.

Q. Your assessment of your game right now?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I can hit the shots. Sometimes I make some mental errors out there, and if I can eliminate them, I certainly seem to be able to hit the shots when I'm focused on that. Yeah, there's possibilities I would say.

Q. You talked at the start of the year about swing changes.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, I can't wait to get to the winter to work on them. I'm clear on what I want to do and clear where I'm at.
Basically that clarity has helped me to perform on the golf course. I've started making the changes but I haven't really got into it at this stage in terms of really going at it so I'm waiting for the winter for that.

Q. Your language suggests almost major changes.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Yeah, no, it's a change. It would happen if I did need to work on it now from going forward it would happen anyway because I'm aware of it, and any time I make a bad swing I'm aware I didn't made that bad swing so obviously over time I will do it less and less. Is it a major changes? Not really, but certainly, if I was trying to find it like I was for the first seven months of the year it would be a major effect on my game.
But I think I'm on top of it and I think I know what -- I think I'll be able to get a good bit done during the winter and come out playing next year rather than trying to find something that I was obviously struggling to find at the start of the year.
It wasn't the changing that was the problem. It was trying to find what was up was the problem.

Q. A lot of chat in the press of late about tournaments, The European Tour, what-have-you, there's a players meeting tonight and my understanding is you're going to it.
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: George asked me to come along, I assume to give an alternative opinion. Obviously I play a good bit of golf around the world and I want to make sure we do everything we can to foster our relationship with Asia and not alienate any of their events and encourage as many players as we can regardless to play our tour, as many of the top players. I'm all for opening it up. Obviously there's a consideration on the table to in some ways narrow down the qualifications a bit, and you know, it's fine in itself, it wouldn't be an issue in particular that rule. But where is the next step sort of thing and if you have to play four out of six in Europe, how do the bigger events in Asia feel about it.
You know, the committee is going to make the decision. There's 15 of them they should come to the right decision at the end of the day. My opinion, I don't know what all their -- I talked to a few of the guys but my opinion is obviously a little bit different and hopefully it will moderate what they are thinking.

Q. Are you personally hoping to come out with this at the end of the day?
PADRAIG HARRINGTON: I think they are pretty set in the ways of what they are going to go forward. I would personally hope that they don't -- that the next step, you know, last year they moved from 11 to 12 events. This year they are going to play four out of these six events or so. They have to consider that there's some very strong events in Europe, or in Asia, it's probably our biggest growth area, Asia.
If we are going to have -- if we are going to compete with the U.S. Tour, you have 40 events of $5 million plus, you have to think Asia is the place to be. It's the biggest area of growth in golf and you've got to embrace these things rather than close it down a bit by focusing more on Europe. We have some great events in Europe but the growth has to be around the world when you think about it. And you know, you've got to encourage as many good players to play our tour as we can. The Race to Dubai was fantastic in doing that, the players who joined our tour, it was the first time that a lot of U.S.-born players joined our tour by choice. They had their cards in the States but they wanted to play on The European Tour. That's what The Race to Dubai did.
You know, obviously players are concerned that maybe one or two players might get a bonus at the end of the year that maybe they didn't earn, but it's still good for our tour that they are here, and it's still good that we have an extra 15 marquis names probably who joined the Tour. And I want to make sure that we keep as many of those going forward as we can. You know, strengthen the Tour for five, ten years time, a bonus or two might go astray at times where a player qualifies and he really hasn't played too much to get that, but the sacrifice in the long term is maybe all of the bonuses will go up and our tour will strengthen and we'll have more events to play, big events.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297