Tiger’s PLAYERS press conference: Thursday
Q: Talk about today. How would you describe the round? You fought hard and then of course the double at 18, but how would you describe it?
TIGER WOODS: Probably the highest score I could have shot today. I didn’t get much out of that round. I hit the ball better than the score indicates, and I got a couple good breaks and never took advantage of them. Just really struggled hitting the putts hard enough to get them to the hole. I just, even when I tried to ram them, I still didn’t get the ball to the hole, so I need to make a better adjustment on that.
Q: Talk about tomorrow now. You’ve got to have some confidence heading into tomorrow because I thought you hit the ball really well.
TIGER WOODS: I did, I hit it well today. As I said, highest score I could have shot. I’m only six back. This is — I’ve never seen the board this bunched. But granted, the conditions kind of lend itself to that. So there’s a lot of guys who have got a chance going into the weekend. Hopefully I can put together some good rounds.
Q: What happened on that tee shot on the par-3 eighth hole?
TIGER WOODS: It’s one of those things where Chris and I are working on some things, and when I start feeling a certain way, I revert back to old habits. So we have been kind of exaggerating certain things and I said I’m feeling this way, I’m going to exaggerate just a little bit, and I did, and I barely made contact.
Q: Then it’s like you don’t even have much of a drop. It’s probably not a hazard many people go in.
TIGER WOODS: I’ve never seen it. I didn’t know it was there until now. So it was — I don’t think my ball actually touched grooves, put it that way.
Q: Was that just a tough wind on No. 18?
TIGER WOODS: I tried to hit kind of a low, hard-cut 3-wood up there and just kind of bank it up against the wind. I just tried to hit a low one, tried to get on top of it, and I just happened to pull it just a touch. It was the right shape, the right height, but my start line was probably just a few yards left, which ended up costing me.
Q: Talk about the 17th hole, specifically what happened on the green.
TIGER WOODS: Well, geez, I got hammered on that wind there. That tee-shot flag just went, laid down. I got a big gust, and you see the water just — my ball, actually started the ball out to the right trying to hit a flat draw, and it just got smoked. I thought it was — when I hit it, I knew I was past the hole up on the ridge. Hopefully it would come back. Then, as it got hammered, this may not get there, and then it ended up being on land. Only decision I had to make is, the ball’s going to bounce either way, because it’s on an upslope up against the collar, so do I hit sand wedge, blade it, or do I take a putter and toe it. And I just went with sand wedge.
Q: More encouraged by the way you swung it or discouraged by the score?
TIGER WOODS: Both. I’m not going to lie, it’s both. I should have shot in the 60s easily today, and hopefully tomorrow I can get it done.
Q: How do you feel? How is the wrist and everything?
TIGER WOODS: Everything’s good. I just need some food.
Q: Seemed like on the front nine you struggled a bit. On the back nine you seemed like you got it really together. Even though you had that one bogey, it seemed like everything was going the way you wanted it to. How do you make that transition going into the back nine?
TIGER WOODS: It’s only one bad swing, one bad shot. I had to fix what I had starting out the round more importantly. On No. 8, I just happened to make a bad swing; so what, move on. But I had a bad pattern starting out and I rectified that, which was nice. I put together a pretty good round and until No. 18.
