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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 8, 2015

Tiger Woods

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

Q. Tiger, talk about the birdie at 9. You showed a lot of emotion. What was going through your mind?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I knew after I bogeyed 7 that the number was probably going to be even. There were already 70-plus guys. You never know what the afternoon is going to do. Obviously it's going to dry out a little bit, but there's no guarantee that the guys are going to drop back to 1, so even was guaranteed to make the cut. I hit a good putt on 8, thought I made that one. Grain just ate it up at the end. Then the last hole, I hit a really good putt there, too.

Q. Are you pleased with your game, excited about the weekend?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I haven't gotten anything out of my rounds, that's the thing. I should be a few under par each day, and I'm just not capitalizing on my opportunities, and I need to start doing that. I've given myself plenty of looks when I do, or really kind of green-light iron shots in there. I'm just not stuffing them in there. I'm hitting them 15 feet when they should be under 10. I need to do a better job of that, getting the ball close, because these greens are slow right now and you can capitalize on the speed of the greens. You can be really aggressive with the putts.

Q. You're really not that far back in the tournament. How much do you need the rounds, the competition?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, obviously I need tournament golf. My game is finally at a point where I can play tournament golf on a consistent basis. That wasn't the case early in the year. Wasn't very good. But I worked my butt off to change it, and I'm pretty proud of that, to be able to show up at Augusta and do what I did, and now I've just got to keep building from there.

Q. What kind of line did you have on 7?
TIGER WOODS: I didn't have much of anything on 7. That was --

Q. Was it on the downslope?
TIGER WOODS: It was on the downslope. It was sitting nasty, and either I pitch out sideways and give myself a 40, 50-footer, or I try and play it, you know, at the hole. If I make a mistake, make a mistake short, just flub it in the bunker, and then I still had the entire green to pitch up and make my bogey and get up and down. So I took the chance, and I made sure, as I said, I entered the ground a little bit earlier to make sure I fatted it. If I missed it, it was going to be short.

Q. Tiger, I wanted to ask you about -- did you fat it or --
TIGER WOODS: What's that? I did both.

Q. I wanted to ask you about your budding friendship with Jason Day. Tell me what you think it would take for him to win a major.
TIGER WOODS: He's going to win one, there's no doubt about that. He's got the talent. He's got the game. He's still so young. He's proven that he's -- that he can put in the time. He puts in the effort. He puts in the work. Him and Cole, they go at it pretty good. It's good stuff. It's good to see him making the subtle changes that he needs to make, and he certainly has a lot more shots now than he used to, and I'm sure in a few more years, even more in the arsenal.

Q. Why have you become friends?
TIGER WOODS: I just think he's just a great kid. Just down to earth, great kid. We had probably similar upbringings, didn't really have much, and we had to work for everything we had, and I snuck on golf courses just to practice and play, and he did the same thing. We're very similar in that regard.

Q. Can you talk about the nature of this round today? It just seemed like it ran the gamut, 1-over, even, 1-over, even all day.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it was one of those things where as I said I couldn't capitalize on some of the opportunities and get on a run. I had my chances to get on these runs, and I just didn't stuff my iron shots in there. I felt like I drove it pretty good today overall, but I just wasn't -- just wasn't hitting the ball close enough.

Q. Were you struggling out there with your irons? You pulled a few it looked like.
TIGER WOODS: I did, and that's something we're going to go work on now and try and get that organized. I worked on it yesterday, got it cleaned up and really played well coming in. Today it was sporadic a little bit, but still, I had that miss in there, and again, I still need to clean that up.

Q. To the layman this course doesn't seem like a really good barometer as far as where your game is right now.
TIGER WOODS: Well, this course is such that when you're playing really well, it seems like it could be one of the easier golf courses you play because it seems like every shot tends to funnel into the flags, and when you're off, you've got these 40-, 50-footers up over the Himalayas. It's just a tough course in that regard. It's really tough. With these conditions, we're not used to having a north wind in May. In March, we're accustomed to this, but this is different. And the golf course is playing very different than we have played when it's been warm like this. It's just so bunched. I keep telling everybody, when I first came out on TOUR, the cut was -- between the leader and the cut line was always double digits, sometimes between 12, 13 shots. Right now it's at seven shots. I mean, that's hard to believe that there's 70 plus guys within seven of the lead and going into the weekend. The guys who tees off first on Saturday could win the tournament.

Q. Do you feel like you've still got a chance?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. Absolutely. Anyone does. Anyone who makes the cut certainly has a chance on this golf course. And then if you put together a good round, you never know what could happen at the end. We've seen that over the years. And also you can put together a great round like Davis did shooting 64 when it was ugly.

Q. How are you feeling? How is your hand? How is your back? How is your body?
TIGER WOODS: It's good. I just need some food.

Q. When you came into the start of the week what were your expectations given the fact that you said that anyone that made the cut could win it?
TIGER WOODS: No, still the same. I feel like I'm playing well enough to get myself up there. I just need one good round and narrow up that gap between myself and the lead, and I feel like I can do that.

Q. It's been a while since you've had to hit a putt that was meaningful. What kind of a rush --
TIGER WOODS: It felt good. To have to hit the shots on 8, take something off that 4-iron in there and give myself a putt, I hit a beautiful putt, as I said the grain just ate it up at the end. Then playing 9, knowing that I had to make 4 to move on, at least assure myself to move on, it felt good because I hit a nice drive up the left side, laid up, and you couldn't ask for kind of a worse number. I had 103, which is with normal conditions a 60-degree sand wedge, then you add the wind, now it's a sand wedge, then you add uphill lie, now we've got to hit a pitching wedge. So I choked down on a little pitching wedge, hit a soft cut, held it up against the wind, pin high, so that was nice.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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