THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

July 17, 2020

Tiger Woods

Muirfield Village

Quick Quotes

Q. General assessment of the round?

TIGER WOODS: Well, not very good. I three-putted two holes early, and whatever kind of momentum I was going to create, I stifled that early and fought it the rest of the day.

Q. Before the last five pull swings you had off the tee ended up one-handed, are you physically sound? Is something bothering you?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I wasn't quite moving as well as I'd like and couldn't quite turn back and couldn't quite clear. It was a bit of a struggle.

Q. When did that start happening? Anything in particular start that?

TIGER WOODS: Well, yeah, it started this morning during the warmup. It wasn't quite as good as I'd like, and it is what it is.

Q. If the cut does move and you do make the cut, any concern about being able to play tomorrow?

TIGER WOODS: I would like to have the opportunity to play tomorrow, and hopefully the cut will fall one more and I'll have the opportunity.

Q. Was there something out there that you were happy with?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I finished birdie-birdie-par. That's about the only positive to it today.

Q. You have experience at dealing with layoffs, long ones, short ones. How does dealing with this one after the five-month break compare to in the past?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, that's exactly what I was telling Rich over there. Basically most of my layoffs in my career have been because of surgeries, and so this is a forced layoff for all of us. This is different than my past layoffs. But this is a new world we're living in.

Q. Just a little off the beaten path, because you're such good friends with guys like Strick and Furyk, when you see those guys playing as well as they are right now, can you kind of talk about at their age, at this course and the conditions we're looking at, how cool --

TIGER WOODS: Well, you're looking at two past winners of this event, and they both play well. Not shocking that those guys can drive it and they can putt it, and this golf course is getting quick, and it's getting difficult, and those guys don't ever drive it off line and they don't miss too many putts.

Q. Is it fun to see them up there?

TIGER WOODS: Oh, it's fantastic. We've been friends for over 20 years, and it's awesome to see them play well at any time.

Q. I'm curious, does that happen very often that you wake up and your back is okay and you feel loose but during the warmup something goes wrong?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah. Yeah, it does.

Q. How common is that?

TIGER WOODS: Well, the last four or five years have been difficult as I've gone through procedures and have tried to come back.

Q. So you never know exactly what you're going to have each day?

TIGER WOODS: It's going to happen more times than not.

Q. You talk about the physical strain, your back and all that. Did you notice any fatigue over the last couple years? Is it harder to have that energy or are you at the same level you've always been in terms of being tired or fatigued while you play?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I don't have the same type of stamina as I used to have, that's four sure, when I was training hard and running and all that stuff. Granted, I'm a lot older now, so things change, they evolve. Yeah, so it is what it is. Energy, you try to suck it up as best you can and get through it.

Q. How are you doing with aging? It's a challenge.

TIGER WOODS: Aging is not fun. Early on in my career I thought it was fantastic because I was getting better and better and better, and now I'm just trying to hold on.

Q. How would you define the term "grinder," and do you consider yourself one?

TIGER WOODS: I think that anyone who fights all day, I think that's the guys that have typically been grinders, guys that don't ever want to make bogeys.

Q. Do you consider yourself one?

TIGER WOODS: Always have.