MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 8, 2022

Tiger Woods

Quick Quotes

Q. Tiger, what were you dealing with at the beginning of your round and how did you change it?

TIGER WOODS: Well, it was windy. It was swirling. Balls were oscillating on the greens. We got a couple of bad gusts. I hit a couple of bad shots. I hit a decent shot at 4 that ended up and down in a divot, and it was just like -- there were so many things that were not going my way. It was partly the conditions and partly me.

I told Joey that, hey, we got a lot of holes to play. It's going to be tough all day, so let's get it back to even-par for the day somehow. If I can just stay at even-par for the day, I thought that would have been a pretty good comeback. I didn't quite get there. I missed an easy up and down -- well, wasn't quite easy up and down, but it was one I should have got up and down at 15. And should have made that putt on 16.

Other than that it was a good fight. I got back in the ball game. I'm four shots back at second. That's the thing. But Scottie is running away with it right now. Tomorrow is going to be tough. It's going to be windy. It's going to be cool. It's going to be the Masters that I think the Masters Committee has been looking forward to for a number of years. We haven't had it like this.

It's going to be exciting, and it's going to be fun for all of us.

Q. After such a long layoff with two rounds under your belt now, are you beginning to feel a little bit more comfortable with your sort of competitive reps?

TIGER WOODS: It's more the feels for distances and shot shapes. I don't have to think so much about what do I need to do? I can just get up there and feel it and play using my hands again instead of just kind of thinking, okay, I need to do this, this, this to hit this shot, right?

Normally I just see it, feel it, go hit my number. I haven't played a lot of tournaments of late, so it's been a little bit rusty, but I'm starting to come around. I felt good about how I fought back today and got myself -- I could have easily kicked myself out of the tournament today, but I kept myself in it.

Tomorrow is going to be an important day with as cool and as tough as they're predicting. It's going to be quick, and I need to go out there and put myself there.

If you're within five or six on that back nine going into Sunday, you've got a chance. So I just need to get there.

Q. How has what you experienced physically and competitively over the past two days compared to what you expected coming in?

TIGER WOODS: I expected to be sore and not feel my best for sure. It's the combination. I can walk this golf course. I can put on tennis shoes and go for a walk. That's not a problem, but going ballistically at shots and hitting shot shapes off of uneven lies, that puts a whole new challenge to it.

It was important for me to come up here and play a couple of weeks ago and test it, see what I could do. I paced myself going into this week. I played Sunday nine, Monday nine. I was going to take Tuesday off regardless of the rain that was coming in. Again, get the feel of the golf course come Wednesday, and let's go Thursday.

It worked out great. I was hoping I didn't have any setbacks along the way where I couldn't go, but I didn't have any setbacks. Everything has been good, has been tough. My team has done a hell of a job getting me ready, getting the body -- after I go ahead and break it out there, they go ahead and repair it at night. You should know this from all the NASCAR. Break it, fix it.

I'm good at breaking it. They're good at fixing it.

Q. How much of a swing change did you have to make to compensate?

TIGER WOODS: A lot. I can't do much. The ankle is not going to move. I got rods and plates and pins and screws and a bunch of different things in there. It's never going to move like it used to, so yeah. The more important thing is the ankle is always going to be an issue, but more importantly, if I play golf ballistically, it's going to be the back. It's fused. So it's the levels above and below that are going to take the brunt of it.

If I can't push off, I can't rotate as well, and I'm still -- fortunately, I'm still generating enough speed. My ball speed is at 175-ish when I hit it good, so that puts shearing on the back. I already had back issues going into this, and now this kind of just compounds it a little bit.

Q. How are you pacing yourself this week when you played nine and all that? When is the last time you played this much golf in the span of seven or eight days?

TIGER WOODS: It's been years.

Q. Tiger, how proud are you of yourself right now? This is a magnificent achievement where you are.

TIGER WOODS: I am. I'm proud of the fact that my whole team got me into this position. We worked hard to get me here to where I had an opportunity and then not to have, as I said, any setbacks this week, and we haven't. Kept progressing.

Along the way I kept getting my feels and hitting shots. I was able to practice and get my touch, practice on my short game, hit a lot of putts, which was great. Start seeing break again. I've been in Florida. I haven't played the TOUR in forever, so we don't see break.

Start seeing 10 feet of break, you've got to get used to it to the eye, and I haven't played a lot of competitive golf. So it's taken a little bit to get used to it, but I finally got my eye back.