Q. Circumstances surrounding your disqualification for being late last year, what happened there? Was that the first time?
GRANT WAITE: Yes, first time and hopefully the only time. Comedy of errors. I had a wake-up call from the hotel that I didn't receive. I also set my alarm, but unfortunately I set it for 6:00 p.m. instead of 6:00 a.m. I don't know if anybody else has done that. Plus the hotel didn't call me.
When I woke up, I looked at the clock. I still had a reasonable amount of time. I had about 50 minutes from the time I woke up to get from my hotel to the golf course. During the practice rounds, ProAm, it was taking 20 minutes to get there. I wasn't even panicked.
I got up, got dressed, got my car, went straight to the golf course. You know, I didn't necessarily obey all the speed rules. I tried to get there as fast as I could. We got to the point where the bridge goes across the river. Tiger Woods' group I think was three groups behind me group. The public parking was over the bridge, so you had the players and the public going across the bridge, two-lane bridge, with a stop sign at the other end. It was just backed up. There was no way for me to go around the traffic other than just to sit there.
I sat there for a good 15 minutes to get across the bridge. By the time I got across the bridge and into the golf course, I missed my tee time by four minutes. I was disqualified.
A few other players got very close to missing their times there, as well. It's just a whole circumstance that came about. A freak incident.
Q. You play around 8:00 in the morning tomorrow. Are you going to stay up all night?
GRANT WAITE: I have three alarms now (laughter). I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I think I can get one of them to work.
You know, it was disappointing because at the time I was having a good run in Canada, played well. I was looking forward to playing.
Actually since then till now, I haven't played particularly well. Hopefully, you know, that year is gone and I'm back to playing well again.
You know, getting into contention and being able to compete at the highest level, that's what everybody wants to do. You get nervous and anxious because you want to do well. You want to put yourself in those situations. Hopefully this week I can.
Q. (Inaudible)?
GRANT WAITE: Yeah, all the way around. I only look on the other side if I'm not sure of what I'm doing. You know, I'd say I've done it all. I've done it where I've looked at every angle, I've done it where I've looked just once. If you have the feel, you have the feel. It's very hard to force a ball in the hole. You see what you think, and you hit. From eight feet, less than 50 percent chance of making it statistically. When you're hot, it feels like you're going to make all of the eight-footers.
I don't want to overread or anything. I was sure of my line. I actually started a little more to the right than I wanted and hit it firmer than I wanted. I had the read right.
Q. (Inaudible)?
GRANT WAITE: No, it's not. I think it's getting a bad rap. For some reason it's like it's too easy. It's not that it's too easy. The golf course, the players today, if you can give them relatively wide fairways and they don't have to hit driver, they're going to play from the fairway. I don't care what they're hitting into the greens. If they can play from the fairway, it's very hard to stop them unless you get firm greens, bake the greens out, you get a bit of wind. Best players in the world, no way to stop them.
They're building golf courses that we normally play 7300 yards. Does that make it a good golf course? No, it makes it long. It's not necessarily a good one.
This is a good golf course. You still have to play particularly well. There's a lot of pin placements out there that can make the golf course play difficult with shots into the greens. The only thing is, the fairways being so fast, the last hole I hit 2-iron and a 9-iron. My 2-iron went 290 yards down the hill, got a hard bounce, went right around the corner.
All you need is a good 10, 15 mile-an-hour wind, all of a sudden the scores will go up.
Q. (Inaudible)?
GRANT WAITE: Well, if you're playing good, it doesn't matter where you play. You stand on the tee, see the shot, hit it. You feel it. It's like magic. There it goes.
When you're struggling, there's a lot of tee shots, even here, where you struggle getting off the tee. Right now, obviously I played good, so I don't have that feeling. I don't even want to think about the other side of it. There is a par 3 out there, No. 6, that today was very difficult. Pin was the front left, wind left to right, water on the right. It was hard not to go past the flag. That was very difficult.
The pin placements are the key, then how firm the greens are.
Q. Is there a different energy among the players at a tournament when Tiger is not at the tournament?
GRANT WAITE: Sure. It's not just the players, it's the atmosphere. He's an icon in today's culture, let alone in sport. When he's at a tournament, there's a little bit more excitement from the gallery. Quite rightly, it should be. He's one of the most exciting sportsmen in the history of sport. We're lucky that he's involved in golf and elevated our sport to the level it's at.
When he plays, he demands a lot more attention. Having said that, he doesn't win every week, and he's not going to win every week because there's 156 guys out there that can really play and can beat him at any given time. He demands the respect because he wins a lot and he's maybe the greatest player that's ever played. But it doesn't mean he's going to win.
Q. (Inaudible)?
GRANT WAITE: I just know a really good first round score where you're leading, statistically it's not that often that that person wins the tournament. It just gives you a heads-up chance to be in contention on the weekend. I'm excited to play well, more so than excited to think I'm going to win the tournament, because it's only the first day. However, my goal is to go out there and compete. Hopefully if I can get into the rhythm and play at the level that I played today, continue that through the four days, then I'll have a good chance to be there to win. When that moment comes in the tournament is when you know you have a chance to win. That's what you play for. That moment can happen at any time during the last round usually. It can be on the 3rd hole when you do something spectacular, it can be in the last nine holes. There's a moment that you know you have a chance to win.
Q. (Inaudible)?
GRANT WAITE: I knew that on the 2nd hole when I played -- when I was playing with Tiger. When I made birdie, I made about an 8-footer, he missed about a seven-footer, and all of a sudden I was just so relaxed, and I don't know why. I wish I knew why. It was like I just knew that I was going to play well. It didn't bother me that I made a couple birdies, he was one in front. It was like, "I'm playing good, I know I can shoot 65 or 64 as well as he can." I just relaxed, played my game, played fantastic. If it hadn't been for such a great shot of his, I could have won the tournament.
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