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THE IRISH OPEN


June 26, 2012


Simon Dyson


PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND

PAUL SYMES:  We welcome Simon Dyson, defending champion.  You said you played some of the best golf in your career when you won last year.  Different venue but hoping to recapture some of that form?
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, definitely.  The last nine holes of last year's tournament is without a doubt the best golf I've ever played.  So, yeah, I've got a decent record on links golf, as well, and just starting to hit a lot of that form, which is nice.
PAUL SYMES:  Ireland, a special place, but particularly Portrush?
SIMON DYSON:  I only flew in this morning.  I'm playing the Pro‑Am in the morning, and I'm really looking forward to playing it.  I've heard a lot of good things, and from what I've seen, it looks beautiful.  So I'm really excited to play here.
Always fantastic crowds when you come and play in Ireland, always.
PAUL SYMES:  You mentioned you hit good form.
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, the last two weeks, really, I've had the last five weeks off with my pelvis and come back and played the U.S. Open, and first time I've ever made a cut in a U.S. Open, which is really weird.  I had a decent weekend, moved up a little bit.  Then played some really good golf last week.  Started to find my swing and probably if I had been a little bit more match‑fit, could have contended.  But, yeah, it was second week back.  It was a good week.

Q.  How do you like links golf?  You were Top‑10 in The Open I think last year.
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, I love links golf.  I've won Dunhill and I won Kennemer a couple of times.  That's a links course, as well, and did well in The Open last year.
Links golf kind of suits my eye.  If I'm keeping with the form that I've got at the minute and then hole a few putts, I like it.  I like it a lot.

Q.  Would you almost be happier to come to a links course to defend your title than go back to Killarney, as happy as that was for you?
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, fantastic venue, Killarney, and I loved to play in it last year.  But I've got to admit, there was a smile of a little bit when I heard it was coming to a links course here.
It's what I grew up on.  Playing amateur stuff, you play a lot, a lot of links golf, and I lived ten minutes down the road from Ganton Golf Club, one of the good courses in Britain.  Yeah, links is my favourite type of golf, by far.

Q.  There's been quite a lot of talk in the build‑up with the work that the leading players, Darren, Graeme, Rory were doing; did you hear any of the chat?
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, we had heard‑‑ all of the boys had said that it was a fantastic place to be, to play golf, and I knew that they were promoting it really well, which, you know, it deserves.  The Irish Open is a fantastic tournament, and it's great that you've got the three guys that you said and that they are helping promote it.  It's set up a fantastic week.
The crowds are going to be great, and it will just be really good, really good.

Q.  What is it about links golf that particularly suits your game?
SIMON DYSON:  I think it's the fact that, you know, you stand on a tee box and you've got to visualise a shot.  It's not a 500‑yard par 4 where you know you've got to hit it 320; this is more about maneuvering the ball, which someone like Darren Clarke is fantastic at.
And I think that's probably the best aspect of my game.  I can hit pretty much any shot.  When I'm playing well obviously, I can hit the high draw, the low draw, the high cut, the low cut, and visualise; I like to visualise the shot.  A lot of the courses that we play now that are 7,500 yards, it kind of takes that out of the game, so it's nice to come back to how golf was first played.

Q.  With four Irish major winners playing here, which one of the four would you least fancy going head‑to‑head with on Sunday, and why?
SIMON DYSON:  All four of them I think are good down the stretch to be honest.  They are all Major winners.
I wouldn't know to be honest because all four of them I've played with and I've always done all right with all four of them, especially Darren.  I don't know, you kind of seem to want to propel your game when you play against quality like that, and it seems to work more times than not.  So I'm not bothered really.

Q.  In Portrush this week, as a major golfing capital of the world‑‑  the Irish Open, a big run of events, but what are your aspirations for major wins?
SIMON DYSON:  I would absolutely love to join those four guys, yeah.  It's something every golfer dreams of doing, it really is.  And the fact that they have all done it so close to each other is fantastic.  It's fantastic for Ireland.  It's fantastic for the golf, for European golf.
Yeah, obviously I'd love to win one.  It's very tough to win a major.  I mean, you look at the likes of Lee Westwood; he's as good a player as there is in the world at the minute, and he's never won one.  I mean, I think he will, but that shows how hard it is to win one.  I'll just carry on trying to win the European events and maybe a major might come along.

Q.  You talked about not being match‑fit last week; are there any issues still with your injury and how close are you to getting to tournament‑fit?
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, I think it will be a couple more weeks.  I still wake up in the morning and it's still more than anything, so it takes a good 40 minutes in the gym to kind of loosen out and once it does it's fine.
But match‑fit, I just meant like more sharpness.  A couple of‑‑ I got off to a good start in the last round and then bogeyed the fifth from the middle of the fairway with 8‑iron in my hand.  Normally when I've got 8‑iron or more, or 9‑iron or wedge into a green when I'm fit, that's when I'm shooting birdies, not bogeys.  And then missed a short putt at the last.
Then just disappointed, really.  But it's getting there.  So hopefully in a week or two, or six days, it might be, you know, back to where it can be.
I was doing a lot of running, doing a lot of training and I was doing about five, six mile a day, but I was doing it on roads, and just the constant banging.  I had a stress fracture in my right pelvis, which the fluid was pushing the sacroiliac joint into my sciatic nerve which was then going down my right leg and I just couldn't put any weight on my right leg at all and it was really painful.  Only thing I could do was rest it, so I had five weeks off.  It was horrible, it really was.
The first week was PLAYERS Championship, so I missed that.  Then there was a week off and then it was Wentworth, missed that; Wales; Sweden.  So Wentworth and Wales week, I went down to Spain and sat in the sun for a bit, try and not concentrate on any golf.

Q.  I remember Lee Westwood in a press conference saying that he didn't really understand why golfers would run miles on the treadmill because that's really not what golf is all about; in light of what happened to you, is that something you'll do less of now, even when you're back to full fitness?
SIMON DYSON:  Yeah, I mean, I'll just do more sprints instead.  I'm going to do a lot more biking and swimming rather than running.  You know, Lee has different‑‑ I enjoy my running.  When I was really fit, I played some of my best golf.  So that's not what golf is about; that's his been.  I disagree, because I want to be fit coming down the stretch.  So I'll get fit other ways; whereas he does more weights, I do more cardio stuff.
PAUL SYMES:  Thanks again.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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