Date: January 29, 2008
Author: Angus Morgan

Webb keen to defend title

Angus Morgan, Sportal Refreshed, rested and determined to atone for an indifferent 2007, Karrie Webb is excited to be launching her new year with the defence of the MFS Australian Open title she claimed at Royal Sydney just under 12 months ago. And the prospect of achieving it at Kingston Heath, which she rates &aposin the top three&apos courses on her roster for this year, has only sharpened her appetite for competition. The seven-time major winner is a big fan of traditional courses and would never pass up the opportunity to play in Melbourne&aposs sandbelt. “Condition-wise this is the best course that the European Tour plays all year,” Webb told the assembled media following Tuesday morning&aposs pro-am. “This area is obviously world-renowned for great golf courses and Kingston Heath ranks up there highly in the world ranking of golf courses.” “The men get to play on such courses often and we don&apost get that opportunity that much so everyone is excited to be playing here this week.” Webb understands how the character of the sandbelt courses can vary from day-to-day, depending on the weather. Tuesday morning&aposs round was accompanied by a friendly southerly, but the forecast from Thursday is typically Melbourne – for a bit of everything. “The scores should be fairly good unless we get really big winds and the course dries out quite a bit,” Webb said. “A few of the par fives are going to be reachable for most players but they are not generous landing areas of the tee so of you drive the ball well then you&aposve got a chance to be aggressive but there will be times on a short par five where you&aposre not on the fairway and you&aposll have to be laying up.” Webb said her confidence is high coming into the Open, not the least because, as she put it, &aposI haven&apost played a bad shot for a couple of months&apos. The 33-year-old has spent the past six weeks at home in Australia and kept the clubs in the cupboard for the first four. While she believes her practice form has been good over the past fortnight, she concedes there may be some unknowns to attend to during the Open. “I don&apost think there&aposs a lot to be done there anyway, but I haven t played enough to know of there is,” Webb said. “When I haven&apost played a tournament round for over two months it&aposs hard to know what game is going to turn up on Thursday, but hopefully you can chink some of that rust off pretty quickly and get into a good flow on the golf course.” Webb&aposs primary goal is to improve on 2007 which was only her second year on the US LPGA Tour in which she failed to win. Twenty-second on the money list was well short of expectations. “I know that I&aposm capable of better and I didn t enjoy my results too much last year – I only contended in one of the majors,” she said. “I wanted to change my schedule to put me in a better frame of mind to contend in the majors, and hopefully those changes will result in at least being in contention in all four.” “I&aposd love (my confidence) to be built back up by the end of March when the Nabisco comes around, but if it s peaking around June that would be great.” And what would it mean to Webb to claim a fourth Australian Open title? “I won this tournament at Royal Sydney last year and that&aposs a world-class venue and I think it would be just as special to win it at Kingston Heath,” she said. “When you win tournaments on courses, it means more when they&aposre world-class courses and the courses that you get here, all you want to do is keep playing because it s such a fantastic test of goal but a fair test and it&aposs in great shape.”