THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLA

November 7, 2003

Tiger Woods

Q. How did it play?

TIGER WOODS: The golf course? Tough. It's so different than what we're used to. The greens being this soft, Ernie and I both backed up shots today that you don't normally back up. 6 and 5-irons are backing up. That's never been the case here. A couple times I hit 3-iron into par-3s that only rolled about two feet. We're hoping to usually stop the ball here, usually. And I think that's one of the most difficult things. If the pin's in the back, trying to be aggressive enough to fly it back there, knowing that the green slopes away from you. The greens are soft, but the green still slopes away from you, so a lot of this is past memory about how the golf course has played.

Q. Do you think you hit it better today than you did yesterday?

TIGER WOODS: About the same.

Q. (Inaudible.)

TIGER WOODS: Just being committed. Being committed to your shot and making sure you hit the ball flush. If you mishit a shot with the wind, obviously changing velocity, not direction, but changing velocities, if the wind does gust up and you mishit it at all, you're going to have 50, 60 feet. But if you hit it flush it will go right through it.

Q. Retief is kind of pulling away a little bit, but it seems like everybody is staying in a pack and nobody is able to make that move yet.

TIGER WOODS: I think a lot of it is just the greens. The greens are brand new to us. We have never seen them like this. The grain is very slow. I'm sure if you ask a lot of the guys, a lot of the putts are cross grain. And generally, if you put a shot pin high, it's usually straight into the green or straight down grain, one of the two. Here with the greens being as new as they are, a lot of the putts are cross grain. And it's tough when you got 20, 30, 40 footers with cross grain. It's really tough to get a feel on your speed and roll it up there nice and stiff.

Q. So the way you hit it today, do you feel like you could have gotten more out of this round?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I probably could have got a couple more putts to go in. I hit two bad putts today and it just happened on the same hole, it was on No. 9. I got them out of the way, back to back. But overall I had a lot of good putts today, just nothing really went in.

Q. How about your position going into the weekend?

TIGER WOODS: I don't know. A lot of guys have a chance to win. I'm right up there with those guys. Obviously tomorrow's going to be a very important day to see if I can put myself in position come Sunday.

Q. You and Ernie kind of came out there talking, chatting back and forth and everything. Why different than yesterday? Does it make it easier, a partner, when you have a good time with your playing partner?

TIGER WOODS: Well, it's always nice playing with a friend. A couple guys out here I really enjoy playing with. Because they're one of my best friend. And Ernie's been a great friend to me over the years. We have had some great conversations about me turning pro in '96 when I had a long conversation with him. And we had a lot of good conversation today. It was a lot of fun.

Q. You shot 70 both days. You seem happier about today's 70.

TIGER WOODS: Probably because I didn't three-whiff on the last hole.

End of FastScripts.