RACV Ladies Masters 2015

RACV Ladies Masters - Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, 12 - 15 Feb 2015

Q. Well we have a very casual Katherine Kirk with us today. Would you like to tell us why you’re not in any golf clothes?

KATHERINE KIRK: I landed in Brisbane at about 8 o’clock this morning and unfortunately did not get my suitcase or my golf bag so this is it for today until I go shopping.

Q. A former winner here 2009, when you play here does it always bring back great memories you’ve played well here many times.

KATHERINE KIRK: Absolutely it goes back even further than that; I played junior tournaments here when I was a kid. So obviously anytime you win you’ve got great memories. I love playing here because it’s so close to home where I grew up and obviously all of the family and friends come out and we great crowds here so it’s fun.

Q. The 2014 year - a solid year, you seemed to play well all year and a good fourth finish?

KATHERINE KIRK: Yeah I had a couple of top 10s, still tweaking my swing so it’s taking a little longer than I anticipated. But I still love it. I love competing and still think I’ve got the best job in world. I think my best goals ahead of me, which is nice too.

Q. When do you expect your equipment to arrive, as in clothes and clubs?

KATHERINE KIRK: Qantas are telling me that they’ll land at about 8 o’clock in the morning and a courier will deliver them here to the resort so I can’t change obviously to my equipment when it arrives during a round so I’ll just have to I guess get refamiliar with it tomorrow afternoon and hopefully be good for Friday.

Q. So you’ll have a borrowed set of clubs for the first round?

KATHERINE KIRK: Yes. Lee Harrington and her husband Peter are going to try to help me out this afternoon to spec out some clubs so we’ll see. And I think my dad actually, he’s playing over at Palm Meadows right now, I think he might have similar stuff to what I use. So if worse comes to worst I might be using my old mans clubs. When my parents were in the States for Christmas visiting as a Christmas gift, my husband and I got him a fitting and he got some new clubs, but it turns out they’re very similar to mine. So hopefully they’ll work if I can’t get something else to.

Q. Katherine, you had a few up and down years, both on and off the course. Is everything nice and hunky dory now?

KATHERINE KIRK: Yes. Very, very happy on and off the golf course, so no excuses.

Q. Katherine, tell us about how mad a trip was it to get back here from the Bahamas and obviously your luggage didn’t quite make all the jumps, why you made the effort to get here given that so many others thought that it was going to be too hard?

KATHERINE KIRK: I made the decision to play end of December, I entered the day before it closed. The tournament is important to me and I think to women’s golf in Australia. It wasn’t an easy turn around coming from the Bahamas. I did miss the cut though so I actually went home for a night to Wichita. I had to finish my second round on Saturday morning because we had delays there even and I wasn’t meant to fly out until Monday night out of Nasal Bert, I ended up flying home Saturday for a night and stuck to my original flight on Monday night out of LA so that would have been probably a bit hard to change anyway having miss the cut so I just kind of stuck with that. I’ve actually only ever had clubs misplaced once in my career, so I wasn’t expecting it to happen on this trip and I guess the very time that you need them to make it they didn’t. But if that’s the worst thing that happens to me I got it pretty good.

Q. Katherine, obviously over the years this tournament has lost some prize money and it’s now at the minimum level for the European Tour. What do you see as the future of this event and Australian events in general given the pressure on trying to secure prize money?

KATHERINE KIRK: That’s probably a question more for the Australian tour and I guess Bob Touhy. As a player, we just appreciate that we have events to play in. Obviously its unfortunate the prize money’s gone down. But if you asked all the girls here, we’re just happy to be competing, it’s important that we support the events. You know, some years you have bad years. Everyone gets that, companies get that, individuals get it and yeah I think if we can stay committed during those low years and hopefully we can grow it from there.

Q. If this tournament was anywhere else in the world for this prize money, would you have made the effort to get there?

KATHERINE KIRK: I don’t know, it depends where it was I suppose. Because it is in Queensland and I guess I kind of watched it growing up it has a more special place in my heart so I don’t know it would depend on where the tournament was and what it was. I mean this one is certainly more special so I’m happy to be here.

Q. Given the circumstances under which you’re playing, what are your expectations for the tournament at this point?

KATHERINE KIRK: Physically I feel alright, I usually do okay flying back to Australia. So I don’t know. I don’t have any expectations now. But I think Lee and Peter will be able to help me out this afternoon over at – they’ve got a proper fitting facility and all that and they’re already doing homework on lies and loft and models and all that sort of thing so we will do the best we can, it’s all I can ask for. I don’t have any expectations as far as tomorrow goes, I hope weather cooperates and everyone has a good day.

Q. Are they at Palm Meadows and you’re going to borrow clubs and borrow clothes?

KATHERINE KIRK: Yes. Clothes might be an interesting one. My mum actually I think has some of my old gear – hand me downs. So I might be re-claiming those but if not we’ll do a bit of shopping either here or over at where is it, Pacific Fair. We’ll get something sorted. I’ll have to buy a pair of golf shoes and socks and I already asked Julia Boland if I could borrow tees and a hat.

Q. You like to come back here, but the Australian Open being part of the LPGA tour, that would be the pinnacle for the trip wouldn’t it, if you could win that?

KATHERINE KIRK: Oh for sure. I mean why not make it a double though right? I love both these tournaments, they are probably – from my perspective – they are equal but obviously the Australian Open being an LPGA event would have a few more perks to it. It’d be and honour to win it and it’s certainly a goal, but I think we’ll just take one week at a time.

Q. How did you play last time your clubs went missing?

KATHERINE KIRK: It was actually a Canadian Open in 2005 and I arrived on a Monday about 4 o’clock, it was in Halifax Nova Scotia, which is up in the very north east and is not an easy place to get to and my clubs didn’t arrive until 6pm Wednesday night. So I did actually get them for the tournament, but I did play the Pro Am with a rental set and that was interesting. But I ended up finishing second in that tournament, clearly didn’t phase me too much but yeah obviously I able to play the first round with my set.

Q. The reason I ask, it often when athletes have a distraction it relaxes them because they take the pressure off themselves and what they expect, and often they play really well.

KATHERINE KIRK: For sure, yep. Because you don’t expect much obviously when that happens so I think that definitely helps.

View Katherine's post first round video.