TIGER WOODS: You've just got to stay patient. It's a process. The guys are not going to go out there and shoot 63s every day. I've got to stay patient and build on it each and every day and just kind of make sure I keep chipping away towards under par for the tournament.
It was frustrating, because I felt good in my practice rounds and I didn't hit it well starting out. You know, when I did hit it well off the tees, I didn't hit my irons close, you know, and then when I did hit it close, I didn't make a putt. It was just every hole you could say there's something that I did wrong on the hole to not make birdie, and that was frustrating.
So patience helps, and at least I'm still in it.
Driver, 3 wood, didn't matter what it was. I just did not have it starting out. The shots I did hit well kicked in the rough, so I hit a good drive down 17 and it kicked straight right and ends up in the rough. So it was just so frustrating. I just didn't get off to a good start. I was decent, not great, but decent. Turned around that front nine, I hit the ball great on the front nine and made absolutely nothing. Putts hung on lips, horseshoed, and the only putt I made was about a 2 footer for birdie on 8.
Still in the tournament, no doubt about that. A long way to go, and as you all know, the golf course is only going to get harder. There won't be too many guys under par by the end of the week, and hopefully I can get myself there over the next three days.
You just stay as patient as possible. I look at it as even though I was 4 over par early on, I kept saying that over 72 holes, every player who makes 72 holes is going to make four bogeys. Unfortunately I made four bogeys early, and now I can't afford to make any more.
It's just one of those days, I stayed patient and looked at, I tried to be as focused on each and every shot, committed to what I was doing, and I didn't have it early. Unfortunately that put me too far behind the 8 ball.
Just relaxing. Today was a grinding day. It took a lot of mental energy out of me to try and stay that patient, that calm and that focused with the way I started out today. I could easily have lost it and packed it in and gone home, but I stayed focused, I did what I needed to do, and I left so many putts on the edge, if those putts fall in, it's probably like a 1 over par round. It wasn't that bad.
Well, the ball hit the tree, and as it ricocheted off the tree, we don't know if it embedded or not. There were marshals up and down and camera crews looking for my golf ball and they were walking on the hazard line. We don't know if they actually stepped on my golf ball or not. If the ball hits a tree and ricochets down and the ground is pretty hard there, it should not embed that far. So we didn't know what the ruling was; if someone had stepped on it, whether they didn't. We couldn't get any confirmation if anyone did or didn't. So I had to play it as it was in the hazard.
I don't see how it could hit the top of the tree and ricocheted to the right across the creek that deep. I mean, it was totally unplayable.
Q. How did you play 17 and 18?
TIGER WOODS: Shot by shot? I hit a drive that landed in the fairway on 17 and landed in the rough, got it over the bunkers, hit a shot with a 7 iron in there about 20 feet and 2 putted.
18, already described the tee shot, got the drop, hit 4 iron just short of the green. I didn't hit a very good pitch and left it short and then hit a decent putt, but, you know, I should have got the pitch a little closer.
I felt good today. My speed was good. The only thing I could have lacked was a little bit more aggressiveness because I left some putts short, hanging over the lip. Other than that, I felt really good over my putts. I just didn't make any today. That's frustrating because if I would have just putted normally, if those putts go in, it's one over par and it's not that bad.
When no one knows whether or not someone has stepped on the golf ball or not, they might have, but no one knew. So since you don't know and there's no the ball is in a hazard, you have to play it as ball in the hazard, as it lies.
You could have recreated the lie to how it was, but we didn't know what kind of lie it was, whether it was sitting down, or was it semi buried or did someone step on it to make it even deeper. We don't know.
End of FastScripts.
