Tiger’s Turkish Airlines Open press conference: Saturday
Q: Front nine of 32 with a couple of missed chances and back nine where you struggled off the tee, tell us about your play from your point of view.
TIGER WOODS: Well, I didn’t really warm up well either and I was kind of fighting on the front nine and getting away with it a little bit. If I’d made a couple putts I could have got some momentum going on the back nine. Just finally caught up with me and hit a lot of bad shots on the back nine. But somehow, on 18, made 4.
Q: How do you do that? How do you keep your mentality such that you can achieve that when everything is going wrong?
TIGER WOODS: Just got to hang in there. Just got to keep fighting. I’m not out of the tournament. Got to keep fighting, and that’s the way I’ve always played.
Q: Give us your thoughts on tomorrow, coming from behind, but this guy has never won before so he’ll be under a certain amount of pressure.
TIGER WOODS: Well, it will take 20-plus under as I said yesterday. We know we have to go out there and post a low one and see what happens.
Q: The last hole, what club did you hit at the last?
TIGER WOODS: It was a 3-wood, an 8-iron, a sand wedge and a putt.
Q: You had to get a drop off the path?
TIGER WOODS: I did, yeah. Could have played it but I thought the lie was a little bit too steep. So I was hoping I could get a drop off and get some kind of decent lie and actually I drew a really good lie.
Q: Positive way to end too, wasn’t it?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it was a nice way to end, considering I struggled all day with my swing a little bit. I was getting away with it on the front nine a little bit. Could have made a couple more putts on the front nine and made a lower score, but I wasn’t really playing well and it caught up with me on the back nine.
Q: How was your hand and arm, what happened on 11?
TIGER WOODS: It’s a little tender.
Q: Where is it exactly?
TIGER WOODS: I smoked it on something. I don’t know what I hit but I hit something hard.
Q: What did you hit exactly?
TIGER WOODS: Finger. Actually a couple of them.
Q: Right hand?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah.
Q: Do you have time to correct the swing issues this weekend? Do you have to work through it? Do you have time and opportunity to correct the swing issues that you had today?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I guess so. But I know what I’m doing wrong. It’s just a matter of stop doing it. Hit good shots like I did yesterday. Yesterday I had it dialed in, and it’s always hard to follow up a great round with another low one, but somehow I posted four today. Probably within five or six now with that putt there. We knew going into the tournament it was going to be 20-plus-under par, so need to go get there.
Q: Did you enjoy hitting the second shot on 10?
TIGER WOODS: The second one on 10 was a good one, considering that as you know these golf balls just don’t move as much as they used to, like the old balata balls. So to be able to slice it that much from that short of distance was pretty good.
Q: Any sort of treatment on your arm, any treatment required or not?
TIGER WOODS: Anti-inflams will be good.
Q: Did it impact on you at all?
TIGER WOODS: No, just deal with it. You know, just play through it.
Q: Are these some of the slowest greens you’ve seen all year?
TIGER WOODS: This is the slowest I think I’ve putted on maybe as a professional.
Q: They roll true, but slow?
TIGER WOODS: True early, yes. But as the day goes on, because we are going off both tees. Two-tee start, it gets a little congested out there. And it’s amazing how fast this grass grows. Obviously this is the perfect temperature for it to grow, and it grows. They roll them at night and I don’t know if they roll them in the morning but by the time we get around to the back nine, it’s still tough to make putts.
Q: Second to last group all week?
TIGER WOODS: Just kind of how it turned out. But it’s a 78-man field and we are all bunched together going off two tees. So you know it’s going to be slow and going to have some traffic on the greens and it is what it is.
