	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

THE NORTHERN TRUST

August 26, 2018

Tiger Woods

Paramus, New Jersey

Q. How long does it take you to get over a weekend like this or a week like this with the putter?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I've got to do some work this week. Take a couple days off and make sure that my lifts are good and just be home with the kids.

Q. Not anything to be alarmed about?
TIGER WOODS: You know, just the way it goes. You have good weeks and you have bad weeks. The greens, sometimes they look good to you. Sometimes they don't. All of my good putts, basically, went in at Bellerive, and the bad putts lipped-out.

This week, the good putts lipped-out and the bad ones didn't have a chance. That's the way it goes.

Q. This year, you've made a lot of great strides but is it difficult when it seems like ever since we got to ory pines, short game was phenomenal there, driving was not. Driving is great but then putting -- seems like a shell game. How close do you think you are?
TIGER WOODS: Well, welcome to golf. I'm sure you guys are used to seeing me win five times a year or more. It's not that easy to win out here. That's what you're seeing is that I'm close and just one shot here, one shot there, per day, flips momentum.

That's what either I had been missing or I had gotten and I would lose it. It's just looking for one shot a day here and there, and you just never know when that shot may come, early in the front nine, late in the back nine, but it's not that far.

Q. Your relationship with Donald Trump, how would you describe that professionally and personally?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I've known Donald for a number of years. We've played golf together. We've had dinner together. I've known him pre-presidency and obviously during his presidency.

Q. At times, especially 2018, I think a lot of people, especially people of color, immigrants, are threatened by him and his policy -- what do you say to people who might find it interesting that you have a friendly relationship with him?
TIGER WOODS: Well, he's the President of the United States. You have to respect the office. No matter who is in the office, you may like, dislike personality or the politics, but we all must respect the office.

Q. Do you have anything more broadly to say about the state and the discourse of race relations?
TIGER WOODS: No. I just finished 72 holes and really hungry.

Q. You took a pretty good liking to Bryson. You've played practice rounds a lot. What do you see out of his game? He obviously is having a great week. What kind of asset would he be to The Ryder Cup?
TIGER WOODS: Well, Bryson, you know, those of us who know him, he's very fiery. We all know he's extremely intelligent, but his heart, he gives it everything he has and is always trying to get better.

We want fiery guys on the team. We are going over seas and we are going into a pretty hostile environment, so we want guys who are fiery. He's a tough kid. He's been through a lot in his life, and he's worked hard to get to where he's at.

Q. How did it come about that you started playing with him so much this year?
TIGER WOODS: I don't know. That's kind of one of the weird ones, yeah. It kind of just happened. It just kind of evolved.

Q. When he starts talking about the biomechanics, how much do you listen to it and how much of it --
TIGER WOODS: Well, I feel a lot of the things that he says, but we articulate it completely differently. But I understand what he's saying.

A simple thing where he sees with the flight of a golf ball, or shots that he plays around the greens or shots, you know, just in general, yeah, he may describe it in a technical way, but I feel the same things. Just that we go about it differently. It's a lot of fun to needle him and give him a hard time about it, but I definitely respect what he says because of the fact that he does a lot of research. I mean, he is very into what he's doing.

Q. Not suggesting for one minute that you need a coach, but are you still happy going it alone as you are at the moment?
TIGER WOODS: I am. I don't have a coach at the moment. I'm looking at a lot of replay and video or just analyzing what I do.

So yeah, I'm going about doing this on my own this entire year, and basically, since my back was fused.

Q. You're going to Boston next week. How much do you like that course?
TIGER WOODS: I haven't been there in years, so I'm looking forward to getting up there and playing. Try and take a look at the golf course and have a good time.

Q. What do you take away from the whole week?
TIGER WOODS: Well, the fact that I played a lot better than my score indicates. I didn't make any birdies this week. I didn't putt well and at the end of the day, I found a piece of my game that has been missing, which is driving it well, but you have to make putts. That's the only way we're going to shoot low rounds. I didn't do it this week.

Q. It's been a while since you've played three consecutive tournaments. Did you feel mentally prepared after this weekend?
TIGER WOODS: Well, that's something that we've been looking at is my lifts and how I go about preparing and training, trying to get my body ready for a long period of golf. Making sure that I recover; at 42 years old, that's a little different now. I don't go run three to five miles post-round to relax. You know, those days are long gone.

It's about trying to recover and be ready for the next day, but also, I need to take the off-days and really train and really make sure that my body is good and strong, because, you know, it is attrition out here when you get into not just weeks but big events, number of weeks consecutively. It all adds up.

Q. Would Bryson be a good Ryder Cup partner for you?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I think he would be a great Ryder Cup partner for anyone. The guy is fiery, as I was saying earlier. He's competitive, and we want guys like that. We want guys that are like that on this team.

It's going to be a tough environment, so we want guys that are mentally tough and can handle it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297