Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open

Friday, 2 October, 2020

North Berwick, Scotland

The Renaissance Club

Paul Lawrie

Quick Quotes


Q. Can you just recount the highlights, please of your 620 event on The European Tour?

PAUL LAWRIE: I would say that I've obviously been fortunate enough to have been a decent player, to have won a few, and every win is special because I never thought I'd win any to be honest. Never thought I would play in any, never mind win any.

Obviously The Open was out of this world and to have your name on that is unbelievable. So been a great time. Had a blast. Been a great time.

But today shows exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. I can't play at this level, when my back's terrible, my left foot's been sore this last couple of days which it hasn't been sore.

So it's the right thing to do. I don't want to play in tournaments and just making up the numbers. That's not what I'm about. If I'm stopping a young boy of coming in and having a game, having a career, I don't want that. There's no chance I can win tournaments at this level.

So if I can't win tournaments, there's other things that I can be doing, and I don't mean that to sound flippant. I'm just a big believer that you don't hang about. When your time's up, your time's up. On you go.

Q. 2007 at Carnoustie, when you hit that 4-iron, and you said, there's not a tear in my eye, it's a bit of sand, all right, the emotion of that -- which I believed you, there is emotion, isn't it? You're saying good-bye to something you love.

PAUL LAWRIE: Yeah, exactly. Like I said earlier, there's so many people that work on this tour and so many people that do a great job for the players and treat you like kings and do whatever you need them to do. It's a special place to play golf, there's no question.

Q. Finally, it's not the end, is it, because you have Junior Ryder Cup, you've got The Legends Tour, you've got your own foundation. So golf is still in you, it's not going to finish. Tell us what the future holds.

PAUL LAWRIE: The main reason why I don't want to play at this level anymore is because I'm pretty busy off the course, and I enjoy that stuff more than playing now.

Junior Ryder Cup, I'm really looking forward to that. I think that's going to be a special event. I've always been into junior golf. I've always wanted to try and develop players and bring them through. So it's the pinnacle of junior golf is the junior Ryder Cup, so I'm awfully excited about that.

My foundation, we have had a little bit of a break because of what's been happening, and we've not done any events. We don't want kid and parents could tomorrow and put themselves at risk for that. Next year we are going to crack on and get bigger and bitter. And obviously the sport agency, I enjoy looking after players and managing players and bringing them through. That's where my time is going to be spent.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
102117-1-1003 2020-10-02 16:09:00 GMT

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