In this week's player blog, Joost Luiten talks about his Dutch homecoming, the European Tour's first visit to The Dutch and his triumph at the KLM Open in 2013.
My relationship with this tournament has changed a lot. In the beginning I was just another Dutch player here, but now I am more of an ambassador for the tournament. That means everyone has high expectations of you, which adds to the pressure, but you have to try and prepare like it is just another golf course where I am trying to hit the ball the same way that I do at any other tournament around the world.
The course has been open for five years and the conditions are the best in Holland all year round.They didn’t have to do a lot to prepare for this tournament, because this is just how the course is all year.
I think the plan was to make it like an English links course. It’s very exposed and open, so the wind can do whatever it wants. But I think it’s a very good course and will be tricky, especially around the greens. The greens will be up to about 12 on the Stimp, so they’ll be speedy and dangerous.
This is a golf course I know well.I practice here a lot but as soon as you play a tournament then it is very different to playing in practice. The rough is thicker, the fairways are tighter and the course just plays differently for a tour event. Everyone keeps asking me what the winning score will be but I just don’t have a clue how to answer that one – they will just have to wait and see on Sunday!
This tournament has had some great winners. We’ve had a lot of big names winning this tournament and my name is on the trophy already, so I’m very happy with that.
My win was in 2013 and we played a different course to this year.It was at the Kennemer Golf Club in Zandvoort. The Saturday was a very tough day. It was windy and raining and all I was thinking was ‘I need to survive this day.’
At the end of the day I was one shot clear of the field and leading the tournament. That’s the position you really want to be in. Luckily on Sunday I finished it.
I can remember how nerve-wracking the play-off was against Miguel Angel Jiménez. In a play-off it can go either way and it was lucky for me that it went my way.
It’s very special to have your family there. That’s something that rarely happens. It was very special to have them there and to celebrate with them. We had a good party that night.
It’s always difficult to talk about expectations at a home event.I would love to win obviously but it will be tough. I just hope that I can use playing at home to my advantage and that the crowd get behind me. If I can use the crowd to my advantage I hope to play well and hopefully have the same kind of success I had at Kennemer. The main thing I want to do is enjoy the whole week.
