GTE BYRON NELSON GOLF CLASSIC

May 14, 2000

Tiger Woods

TIGER WOODS: David is a good friend of mine; so just playing -- we're both trying to get ourselves back in the tournament. And unfortunately for David, he just didn't seem to make the putts. He had so many beautiful putts that just skirted the edge. Just a matter of time before they start falling. I told him, "They are going to fall in bunches."

TIGER WOODS: If you look at it on the videotape, I don't know how it missed, to be honest with you. From about two feet out, it was dead center. When I first hit it, I thought I missed it a little bit to the right. I thought if I was lucky it was going to lip-in on the right-hand side, and instead, I missed it left.

TIGER WOODS: Well, I played beautifully today. The only time I was really frustrated at myself was the putts I missed. I hit such beautiful putts on the first two holes, and I hit good putts that just didn't go in and then hit a beautiful put on the 11th and 12th that didn't go in, two beautiful putts there. It's part of golf. You know, you line up and you hit it right where you want to, and if it doesn't go in, it doesn't go in.

TIGER WOODS: I felt like if the wind cropped up -- it's not really blowing today. Actually, it's blowing different every single hole; that I could shoot somewhere around 63 or 62, I would be all right. If I could get to double digits, I might have a chance, but I felt that I needed to post it. Possibly on the back nine I had to get to 11(-under), because there are so many birdie holes on the back nine. 16 is playing short.

TIGER WOODS: I hit it right where I wanted to, and I was just concerned -- the reason why I said I was going to make it on the right edge if I was lucky was because I hit it too hard, but evidently, I didn't hit it hard enough.

TIGER WOODS: Any time you don't have too many guys to leapfrog, you know, I was in 12th place and even though I was seven back, that's not that -- it's a big deal, yeah, you're seven back, but there's not too many guys ahead of you. And any time you get a chance where there are not too many guys ahead of you, if you go out there and post a number early, we've seen weird things happen in this game. It would have been a different story if there were 20 or 25 guys, but there or only 10 or 11 guys ahead of me.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah. The funny part, I was telling Stevie after I made that shot on 4, it was just funny; it's hard to get excited over a shot you are never saw. Yeah, it went in, but you're blinded by the bunker.

TIGER WOODS: To be perfectly honest with you, I didn't even know he was there. I had a little work it do. Afterwards, yeah, I saw him and I realized he was there, and it is quite -- it's quite remarkable that he supports the tournament as much as did he does, considering his age. It's a testament to how healthy he is.

TIGER WOODS: I was telling Stevie, I thought I was going to be about six feet short. I thought the ball was six feet short in the air, but I hit it with a bore-in flight; so it must have cleared right through the wind.

TIGER WOODS: A lot of holes, par 5s left, too.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, Butch came out. He saw how bad I was swinging the first two days; didn't like what he saw. The reason why he came out was is because of fact that if I go ahead and go to Germany next week, I'm still searching. Probably creep in some bad habits. When you do that it takes a long time, and to get ready for the U.S. Open coming up so soon and he didn't want to have that happen. He saw what I doing, he videotaped it, took some pictures off of there. Showed me what exactly what I was doing. A lot of it was my posture and some club position, but mainly my posture was setting up the bad positioning in my golf swing. We worked on that yesterday morning. Tried to go out there and play. It was kind of hard to do it right away in the wind, but I did all right today.

TIGER WOODS: I felt today going out I needed to get to double-digits somehow, and 10(-under) being the worst score I would need. If I could possibly get to 11(-under) would be a bonus, and it would have been nice to make that putt on 18 to get to the number where I want.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I thought Davis would be leading, but there's just so many guys out there with a chance to win. It didn't really surprise me that Parnevik was leading.

TIGER WOODS: I could care less. I don't think he could care, either. We're both great friends, and we're going out there trying to get ourselves back in the tournament/, not worrying about who is 1 or 2.

TIGER WOODS: I did. I did. Very late, two feet out. When I first hit it, to be honest with you, I thought I missed it to the right side, because I hit it too hard, and then I saw it breaking in because there was a lot of green in that green up coming over on the left-hand side coming off the slope. And I just saw that it was -- at two feet out, it was breaking right in the hole.

TIGER WOODS: About 15, 18 feet, yeah.

TIGER WOODS: My tournament's over. My round is over. 72 holes are over. Hopefully, I can play some more. We'll see what happens.

TIGER WOODS: Sand wedge.

TIGER WOODS: It was the right edge of hole about a foot out, and all of the sudden, it went left. I know there's a lot of grain in that green, but it's hard it believe that it took it that much.

TIGER WOODS: I pulled a sand wedge. I had 141 to the hole. Just because it was fly or lie, coming downwind, and if I took a little wedge, it would come in a little hot, a little low and that was a problem. If it came in too hot, I pulled it and it's over the green and I've got no chance. Sand wedge, I can go ahead and take a rip at it, aim at the foot of the bunker. The wind is coming out left, it should fall a little bit right and I should have about what I had, an 18-footer.

TIGER WOODS: Four putts that I thought I made because of the stroke I put on, the way it looked and it just didn't go in. Like that --

TIGER WOODS: I was a little surprised at guys who are at -- obviously ahead of me, at 5-under. I was surprised they didn't make more of a move. Granted, the golf course could be had today because the wind wasn't blowing that hard. The hard part is probably those greens, with as much grain as you have, and it swirls all around and you've really got to be hitting your irons well to be putting yourself where you have a legitimate chance to hit the ball, enough pace on the putts to take out the green.

TIGER WOODS: I am very pleased, because, yeah, the first couple days I was trying to get my feet wet again. Get my competitive instincts back. I didn't really do a good job on Thursday finishing it off, but I hung in there and learned from that and came back Friday and whenever I thought I was going to miss it. And now I've got to a chance to win here.