Alvaro Quiros Interview “Golf has now become a job rather than a way of living”

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Transcript

00:00The UE has a special place in your heart. Is it nice to be back?

00:06Of course. I have to say, and I've always been saying the same thing, it's similar to home.

00:13That helps a lot to feel comfy in every single venue.

00:17Because the weather is normally good, sunny, even windy in some occasions.

00:24And that's why probably I feel more comfy, yes.

00:27Let's go back to 2011, Desert Classic, and then you top it off with the DP WorldTour Champs.

00:34How amazing were those two wins just down the road in Dubai?

00:38Well, clearly Dubai Desert Classic, it was a golf course that I enjoy a lot, always.

00:43And Dubai is a busy city, you have a lot of restaurants.

00:47It's nice to be able to disconnect from the golf, and in that case Dubai is nice.

00:53And then winning the last tournament of the year was obviously my biggest event back then.

00:58And it's still the biggest tournament that I have won ever.

01:02Two golf courses that I like, it suits my eyes, and that's why it was easy.

01:08And probably that was the best year of my career.

01:13I was co-leading at the Masters the same year in the middle of that season,

01:18so a lot of positive things that year happened.

01:21Dubai, as I said, was a golf course that even when you have to turn the ball sometimes left,

01:27I was able to manage, playing with my face or with my high ball.

01:32And then the Jumeirah course is a completely different one.

01:36It used to be a bomber golf course, a lot of blind shots to the greens.

01:41But again, I think the two things that I can really remember in common was my shape, my own shape.

01:48I was playing the best golf of my career.

01:51Luke Donald, just finishing in front of me, it was that year that Luke Donald

01:55ended up winning the European Tour of Merit and the PGA Tour of Merit.

02:00And he was the best result in the clubhouse right before me.

02:05It was an exciting, obviously, moment.

02:08It was a long putt, right, left, uphill, downhill.

02:12He had everything.

02:13But in my mind, I knew that if I make two putts from there, I won't defend.

02:18It wasn't easy, but I would have won it.

02:31Luckily enough, the ball found the hole and it was one of those rare moments

02:36that you can really express all the excitement that you have in a final hole to win an event.

02:44Sometimes in golf, you have to really be under control constantly of your own feelings

02:50and you don't have the ability or the opportunity to express that kind of excitement.

02:57And that was one of those moments.

02:59After I won the second event, I ended up like, I don't know, top 20 in the world, top 25 in the world.

03:06And I thought that it was time to become a little bit more consistent, technically speaking, with the short irons.

03:14I took the decision to change technically and clearly it wasn't a good decision.

03:21I started playing worse and feeling the swing kind of weird and out of place.

03:28And by the middle of the year, I started to feel some kind of pain in the wrist.

03:33I thought that it was all related to the technical change.

03:38And I remember by, I don't know, July of 2012, I could really barely hit the ball.

03:46I went to the doctor and the doctor says that I have a ligament partially broken

03:51and I have to have surgery at the end of 2012.

03:54Since then, my golf never ever become the one that I used to know naturally.

03:59And to be honest, I have never recovered a golfing level as I used to play.

04:07So it has an effect that gives me a little bit of a boost to change technically.

04:12But I have to say that that technical change didn't help to the rest of my career.

04:17So we take decisions, some of them work, some of them don't.

04:23And in this time, it was great to have those victories.

04:28But it wasn't that nice after that.

04:31Is it frustrating?

04:32A lot.

04:33Or is it upsetting? Does it make you angry?

04:36Everything. The full package. I have everything.

04:38I still have some moments, but in a way, I have learned to manage it.

04:45But golfing speaking, before it was, in my personal case, it was all enjoyable.

04:53Even when I hit a bad shot, I have the boost and my self-confidence

05:00to face the next shot as a good opportunity to hit a good one.

05:05When the surgery happened, then I came back in 2013,

05:09that situation never happened again.

05:13I haven't been able to find my own swing again.

05:17So in that sense, golf has become more of a job,

05:22more than a way of living as I used to.

05:27I was happy playing golf.

05:29Now it's my job and I have to do the best that I can.

05:32But I don't enjoy it as I used to.

05:35This year, you're playing this season on the Challenge Tour a bit.

05:40Is that tricky to accept?

05:43No, because it's not because last year I played worse than never.

05:50No, no, no.

05:51It's because probably last year I wasn't able to deal with my worst golf,

05:56which is different.

05:58So I've been playing poor or average for the last four or five years.

06:04Before, for different reasons, I was able to put myself

06:09at the end of the year in a position where I can save my car.

06:13But I wasn't really in contention anymore.

06:16I was dealing with a bad golfing level.

06:19Last year, unfortunately, it didn't happen.

06:23So it was something that you can expect.

06:27What I wish for this season is to turn around the situation a little bit,

06:33mentally and golfing speaking,

06:36like stroking the ball a bit better to give me the opportunity

06:40to fight for my European Tour card again.

06:46But as I said, things in golf are not magic.

06:50This is not like, oh, sadly. No, no, no.

06:53You have been doing the things OK or good,

06:56and as a consequence, you have good results.

06:59So I want to really feel again that I'm in that kind of path, positive path,

07:04to being able to say, well, I can shoot low or not,

07:09but at least I'm feeling that I'm doing the things properly.

07:19Perspective.

07:20Point of view.

07:21Opinion.

07:24It's difficult to make a judge when you are not in part of it.

07:32But what is clear is that from my point of view,

07:35every single player, as we are individual sport,

07:38is free to manage their own career as they want.

07:43But it's true, too, that we have rules

07:45in every single professional tour in the world.

07:50The differences are more in what are you expecting from your own career

07:58and what you want to do.

08:00Some people, because they have already experienced

08:02every single stage of their career,

08:05are maybe tempted by the money, as some of those Leaf players.

08:11Some people are younger, they are hungry for titles

08:17and they want to stick to the regular tours.

08:23And you have some people who just want to really play less and for more.

08:28I don't really know.

08:29Every single player has his own point of view about his career.

08:34So criticizing the different options is not my style.

08:39What I completely agree is following the rules.

08:44Some people play the PGA Tour.

08:46When you agree to the membership, they have a regulation.

08:49Same in the...

08:51Sorry, I was about to say European Tour because I'm old-style.

08:54But the Big World Tour is exactly the same.

08:57Having said that, I'm in the Challenge Tour.

09:01I don't have, unfortunately, those kind of decisions to make.

09:07And I have to deal with my own issues.

09:10Call it that way.

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