Tiger’s WGC-Cadillac press conference: Thursday
Q: Can you just talk about the day?
TIGER WOODS: It was windy. (Laughing).
It was just a difficult day. The wind was blowing putts around, and it was made for a very challenging round. Par 5s were accurate sets I believe. You could handle par 5s today and I’m sure the guys who went — shot some good scores today played the par 5s well, because I think just about every one was reachable today.
Q: Can you talk about the second shot at 8?
TIGER WOODS: Well, if I try and draw it, I’m going to be fighting against the wind and there’s no point. If I play best and hit it straight, it’s in the left bunker; and I can blast it out. And if it turns with the wind, it will end up on the green, so I went with that play and I hit it solid. I hit it more through the wind than I thought I would and ended up in a bunker.
Q: There are a lot of big numbers on 18, how difficult was that playing?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, if you pull it a touch, it doesn’t take much. You can’t carry it. Like Ruby hit a perfect tee shot down 18, now he’s up against a palm three and it’s a really tough tee shot. And you know, you’ve got to hit a really good one, and you’ve got to hit it hard. I mean, you’ve got to hammer it.
Q: Did the chip on 18 confuse you?
TIGER WOODS: Oh, my God, I didn’t expect it to break that much. I could have thrown that ball almost on the right fringe. I didn’t expect it to break that much, no. I played half of that, and obviously it ended up in a pretty bad spot.
Q: When you hit it in there stiff on No. 1, were you thinking, sort of picking up where you left off Sunday?
TIGER WOODS: That was the intent. I got off to a nice start today, hit a lot of good shots, just made a couple mistakes with iron shots and cost me two shots right in a row there at 4 and 5 and then after that, I played some really solid golf and just was couldn’t quite make enough birdies.
Q: Was it hard to pick a club today?
TIGER WOODS: It was gusty and changed directions every now and then. For some reason I kept hitting every drive in the first cut so it added and compounded the problem, because now you’re — is it going to play, not going to fly; is it going to go through the wind or is it going to get killed by the wind. Just kept compounding the problem, and I had to consequently play very conservative on a lot of the shots.
Q: How is it to be back at this course that you’ve had so much success, you must really enjoy playing here?
TIGER WOODS: I do. I like the routing. I know we have got, what, probably seven more rounds on it before it’s done. So enjoy it before they redo it again.
Q: Mr.Trump was here; did you have any interaction with him?
TIGER WOODS: I saw him this morning, yeah, said hi before I warmed up.
