In this week's player blog, Rikard Karlberg talks about defending his title in Italy, why his moustache is better than Rickie Fowler’s, The Ryder Cup, and not recognising famous footballer Alessandro Del Piero in the Pro-Am...
I’ve watched my play-off win against Martin (Kaymer) a few times, as recently as three weeks ago was the last time actually. I just love watching it. Defending here has been on my mind – I’ve thought about how will it feel and what thoughts will pop up into my head, so I’m really excited to be here. I’m back here to win and defend. Because I’ve won here before those extra thoughts will make me feel a bit of extra pressure and be a bit more nervous, but I’ll make sure I just enjoy it. I’ve played quite a few events on the European Tour now, so standing on the first tee sometimes feels pretty normal. However this week is different, so I’ll enjoy that feeling of defending a title and the extra nerves that come with that.
I had a great start to the week by playing with Alessandro Del Piero in the Pro-Am, although I actually didn’t recognise him at first. He said to me ‘my name is Alessandro’ and I thought ok, and then my caddie said ‘do you know who that is?’ – but I didn’t. I thought maybe he was a sponsor or a customer or something, but then my caddie told me what Alessandro had done in his football career and that was great to hear. We talked about his career, and it’s nice to hear his stories and what he’s achieved in sport. It was a cool experience.
I’m actually more of an ice hockey man myself, but my Ice Hockey career has gone downhill because of my golf career! When I’m back in Sweden, maybe I can get on the ice again. I usually go and watch Gothenburg’s ice hockey team (Frölunda Indians) whenever I can, although now we have our two nine month old twin girls, I don’t have as much time as I used to!
On the subject of my kids, it’s the most fantastic feeling having them around.I didn’t know it was possible be so much in love. It’s just been amazing, but it takes a lot of time. The two things I do now are play golf and look after the kids. Before I could maybe play some tennis or spend some time with my friends, but this is my life now and I really enjoy it.
I also have my moustache to concentrate on as we have Movember coming up, so we’ll see how it looks then. I mean you see Rickie Fowler and those guys in the States on the PGA Tour with their efforts, but I think theirs are a little bit weak actually. Their moustaches look a little sad, where as I like to go for the happy moustache with the ends curled up a bit! And having a longer moustache here in Italy works well, because they’re very big on their fashion in this part of the world.
I mentioned Rickie then and it will be exciting to see how our new, young team do against the American team in The Ryder Cup.I see a lot of the younger members of that team hanging out together at European Tour events all the time, so I think we have a good chance because of that European team spirit. If we get the right pairings and everyone is in good form, we can definitely keep hold of that Ryder Cup trophy. America do look strong though, so we need to make sure our less experienced players are ready and that they keep cool heads in that atmosphere. But I’m sure it will be fun.
It’s great to see Henrik (Stenson) in the team again, and I think it helps Swedish golf a lot.Overall,I think we’ve done so well in Sweden. There’s often a lot of negative talk about Sweden being behind in golf, and that’s maybe because we don’t get the results as juniors like players from other countries do. But we’ve had some great results this year, with Henrik obviously gettingthat first Major Championship for us at The Open Championship. And then you have myself winning here last year, Alex Noren playing great and it just serves as inspiration for our junior Swedish golfers, so hopefully you’ll see younger Swedish guys coming out on tour at a younger age now. It’s so positive and important to see Swedish golf going in the right direction.
