Tiger’s World Challenge press conference: Saturday
Q: Just some opening comments on the round.
TIGER WOODS: It was wet out there. It was a little sloppy early, and overall I thought it was tough to get the ball close today. The greens were so soft, they’re spinning so much, and then on top of that they didn’t cut the fairways. Even though we had ball in hand, a couple times we caught a couple little fliers from the fairway. Yeah, all in all, a good solid round today you’ll probably shoot something in the high 60s.
Q: (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: No, I didn’t play the par 5s well and didn’t play 8 well again. I missed a few opportunities out there. I felt like I played decent enough to get to 10 under, to get to double digits, and just didn’t do it, and as of right now I’m five back, probably more at the end of the day. I’m going to have to shoot a low one tomorrow and see what happens.
Q: Does that hole not fit your eye?
TIGER WOODS: It’s weird, I’ll be honest with you. Some of the years I play it 2 , 3 under and other years I play it 3 , 4 over. It’s just one of those holes.
Q: Are you getting tired of G Mac doing so well here all the time?
TIGER WOODS: Well, it depends if I’m winning or not. No, he likes it here. The golf course suits his game, and he keeps the ball in front of him, and he’s a beautiful putter. His ball flight is, I think, perfect for how the conditions are. He hits it flat and loves to draw it, and it’s going to take a lot of the spin off it, which is great.
Q: The other day you said you looked at this as the last event of 2012 as opposed to going into 2013. Is there anything you can do here to springboard into the next season?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, get a W.
Q: (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: Always nice to end the year with a win. It’s always nice to do that. I’ve done it a few times here at this event, and hopefully I can do it again tomorrow.
Q: I wanted to ask you a quick Rory question. He had mentioned a couple weeks ago that one of the things he was pleased about was being able to work a little bit more of a cut into his game. I’m curious in the time you played with him the three rounds in Abu Dhabi and some of the playoff stuff if you noticed some of that stuff yourself?
TIGER WOODS: Well, he didn’t really try and play a lot of cuts. His shot is a draw. It’s a high draw. He may sprinkle in a cut here and there, but his predominant movement is going to be from right to left. That’s just his shot. I think when the heat is on, you’ll drop to whatever you feel comfortable doing, and for him it’s hitting the ball up in the air and drawing it.
Q: The younger kids that come through, how many do you notice being able to work it like they did 10 years ago?
TIGER WOODS: No. They don’t, because the ball doesn’t move. Shaping the golf ball is not what it used to be. Shaping the golf ball now is just mainly changing trajectory because the ball just doesn’t spin as much as it used to. It’s really hard to curve it. You know, when I was growing up, the ball kicked up a lot, the wound balls and balata. It kicked up hard, and you had drift at the end, so if the wind was coming off the left and you draw it against the wind, it was always going to come back with the wind. These new balls they just go right through it. As I said, most of the kids now don’t shape the golf ball, but they will take a round and hit the ball higher or lower, but I think that’s just a product of playing with this equipment.
Q: Were you sweating out the game last night?
TIGER WOODS: Oh, we had it in control all the way, especially when we were down. It was great. No, it was a bunch of fun. We had a bunch of Cardinal alumni. I was an attendee. So it was fun. We had a great house. I was a little hoarse when I left. I was screaming quite a bit.
Q: Is this about as soft as you’ve seen this golf course?
TIGER WOODS: Yes, especially since they’ve redone it with the new drainage in there. It’s just been this golf course used to be clay based, but they put some new drainage in here, and the water just settles in these fairways and it just sits there and it doesn’t really go away, just sits up on the surface. We had a couple times we were looking at should we call for casual water and move it around, and Rickie and I had a couple situations like that, and we said, hell with it, just hit it. When we get ball in hand we can tee it up even though it’s a little bit wet.
