QUICKEN LOANS NATIONAL

June 27, 2014

Tiger Woods

Q. Your overall assessment?
TIGER WOODS: A lot of positives to take away from these last two days. Even though I missed the cut by four shots; the fact that I was able to even play. I came back four weeks earlier than we thought I could. I had no setbacks. I got my feel for playing tournament golf. I made a ton of little, simple little mistakes, misjudging things and missing the ball on the wrong sides and just didn't get up-and-down on little simple shots. Those are the little things I can correct, which is nice.

Q. Was it in any way disturbing that the short game -- the short game is almost maybe even worse than the long game.
TIGER WOODS: The thing I was worried about most was hitting driver, and I roasted most of them the last two days. Hit it really well. The short game was off. I've been practicing on bermudagrass, and I grew the grass up at my house and it was bermudarough but come out here and play rye, it's totally different, and it showed. I was off. I probably should have spent more time chipping over on the chipping green than I did, but that's the way it goes.

Q. You make those birdies on 9 and 10 -- did you feel some momentum?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. We had a couple simple holes but I just had to get past 11. That's a really tough tee shot and a tough hole, period. If I could get the ball in the fairway there, I figured I would probably have some decent shot into the pin but I lost it right. Played it out and had a wedge shot in there. I hit a good wedge shot. Wind just didn't move it at all. I felt like a lot of times, Joey and I were talking about this today, seemed like I was a yard off here and there, and that's what makes the difference between obviously going one way or the other.

Q. Can you talk about, did you have any setbacks physically?
TIGER WOODS: No. Like I said, I came back four weeks earlier than we thought that I could. The one thing that I was worried out the most was going out there and hitting driver full out. I had not hit it in competitive speed. You know, you can hit it at home but that's a totally different speed than out here in tournament golf. We are used to a club longer -- I'm usually a club longer or half a club longer than I am at home just because of pure adrenaline. The fact that I was able to hit it that hard was very encouraging, and not to have any setbacks at all, and I was able to shape it both ways, which was nice.

Q. What do you do now until Hoylake?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I'm going to take my kids on a nice little vacation, which will be nice, next week, and start gearing up.

Q. How much did you need these two rounds to be able to play?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I need to get back into competitive feel and just to feel it; to hit shots and shake some stuff off and see how things work. You know, the way I was physically before the surgery, it wasn't very fun to come out and try and play. I tried to play through it, and it wasn't very good. You know, one thing I was worried about, as I said, was hitting driver at a competitive speed, and it was fantastic. I let it go and it was no problems at all, but I made so many little mistakes, which was something that I can rectify and get that fixed for the British.

Q. Did your confidence get hurt at all by this?
TIGER WOODS: I hate to say it but I'm really encouraged by what happened this week. As I said, I missed the cut by four shots. That's a lot. But the fact that what I was able to do physically and the speed I had and distance that I was hitting the golf ball again, I had not done that in a very long time. And to recover like I did overnight, still leery about it, how am I going to recover. Felt great today. Then, as I said, I made so many little mistakes, missing the ball on the wrong sides, not having the right feel for certain shots, not judging the wind correctly. All the little things, and speed on putts, all the little things that I know I can fix. But as I said, that's very encouraging.

Q. You spoke all week about the back is in the past --
TIGER WOODS: The back is in the past -- like I said, I was more worried about what was going to happen at tournament speed physically. You know, I had no setbacks, no pain. I'm sore in other parts of my body, and that's just from, I had not exploded like that in a while. So certain parts of my body are feeling it. But definitely not my back.

Q. How excited about Hoylake are you?
TIGER WOODS: I'm very excited. I'm very excited to get there. Excited to play that golf course. I don't know how it's changed since we played it. It's been a bone-dry winter in England --

Q. It's lush --
TIGER WOODS: Lush? That's very different than what we played it. When we played it and it was hard and fast and it was brown. So we'll see what happens when we get there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports