By 2015 Open de Espana champion, James Morrison
It is always great to come back to a tournament and attempt to defend your title. Obviously, it would be nice to defend at the course you won on, but coming to Valderrama is almost even more special.
You could say it is the home of golf in this country and, having been watching the Masters unfold last week across the Atlantic, it’s almost the Augusta of Spain – it’s that good. Therefore, it’s safe to say it’s a very nice feeling to come here as the defending champion.
I played here back in 2010 and 2011, but with no real success at all. It is a course you need extreme patience on and really need to know well to do well. You need time to figure it out and map it out.
But I feel like I’m much more experienced than I was back then, with a few more years under my belt, so I’m looking forward to getting out there and playing it again. You have to know what you are doing and trust yourself - especially around the greens because it can be so penal in places.
Valderrama is a course you need patience on. You need time to figure it out and map it out.
James Morrison
Valderrama is all about managing your game really well. You are going to make a few bogeys and you just have to deal with it. It is a course you really have to be calm and analytical on – so that is what I will be trying to do this week.
But looking back to winning this event last year – that was really massive for me. It was a huge learning curve and a huge stepping stone for me. I won in Madeira six years before that and I was very inexperienced.
But this time I went on to have a very good year after the win. I finished second in the Alstom Open de France and had a few more good performances. So the victory was a good kick-start for the season and it showed that the hard work I was doing behind the scenes really paid off.
As a professional, we spend so many hours working away so it is a nice feeling to know that what you are doing is right and is working.
Coming into this week, I’ve made four out of five cuts so far this season and I’m playing some nice golf but with no real fireworks as yet! My game is in good shape, my body is in good shape and so it is a case of the old boring stuff – running your processes.
The season is really getting going now, though, so I’m looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into it - starting this week at this brilliant old course.
