|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPFebruary 22, 2007Tiger WoodsTUCSON, ARIZONA JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Tiger, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center. Nice match, 5 and 4, over Tim Clark. Just talk about the round, if there was any key points. TIGER WOODS: Well, I think the whole idea is I played well today. I put a lot of pressure on Timmy. I know Timmy is struggling right now. He's still a little bit hurt. But I just wanted to put as much pressure as I possibly could on him and not give him any holes with bogeys. I did that today. I made a few putts, which was nice, and Tim made a couple mistakes, and basically I ended up having a pretty good-sized lead early in the match. Q. I know you never expect to be to play badly, but it's got to be nice early on to get a shorter win out of the way, because I know how you've talked about how it grinds on through the week. Do you think that makes a difference in the big picture? TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's nice to play well and get through matches, and if you -- I mean, I've won before in amateur golf and junior golf, won by a large margin but didn't play well. You don't feel very good going to the next match. But today the way I played, I played better than I did yesterday, which is great, and do a little bit of practice this afternoon and solidify some of the things and tomorrow hopefully I can play even better than I did today. Q. Tiger, what difference does a five-day tournament make compared to a four-day tournament in terms of the natural rhythm and pace of a golf tournament? TIGER WOODS: You know, well, one, it's not stroke play, so you hope you make it five days (smiling). That's what you set out to do. The three times I've gotten to the finals here it's a grind. I mean, you're pretty tired by the end of it. If we play five rounds, or actually if you played seven rounds in five days of stroke play, the guys wouldn't be as tired. But match play, just the ebb and flow and the emotional changes that happen, it just wears on you, because in stroke play I could care less what Tim is doing today. I'm trying to get myself in position for Sunday. But today I'm worried about each and every shot he hits, what that's doing to my shots. I'm trying to put pressure, he's thinking about my shots, and it's more of a mind game than it is in stroke play. Q. I didn't see the draw, but Nick O'Hern beat Rory. What would be the difference in playing Nick here as opposed to playing him at La Costa, anything? TIGER WOODS: Not really. Nick hits the ball very straight and got a great short game. With the weather coming in tomorrow, you're going to have to hit the ball well, and you know, even some good shots you're probably going to have to get up-and-down. Q. You talked about weather and course conditions yesterday. What was the difference today? You came out of the gate really early, so what's the difference in the conditions? TIGER WOODS: Well, the conditions were warmer today. The ball certainly went further, especially going out. Obviously you're playing downhill, down the valley. But still, with it being this warm, the ball was flying for a pretty long way. If I could get the ball up in the air on some of the tee shots, it could really travel some good distances. I started out hitting it pretty good and got the ball up in the air and consequently had some pretty short irons into the greens. Q. Having putted well at Torrey and poorly at Dubai, good on bad and bad on good, any concern coming into this week? TIGER WOODS: Yeah, there was. I did a lot of work at home and fixed what I was -- what was going on. I did not like the way I putted in Dubai, perfect greens and missed putts as bad as I did, it's not good. Q. Do you like to see who's in, who's out? Do you care? TIGER WOODS: I have no idea who's won what. I haven't looked at the board yet. I will after I'm done practicing, take a look at things, but I haven't looked at anything yet. Q. You mentioned Tim's physical issues. Do you have to be especially on guard when you're playing a player that's got sort of that wounded animal type of syndrome? TIGER WOODS: Well, Tim has been pretty rusty. I mean, he's played three rounds of golf since Tampa, and they're all this week. He hasn't been able to touch a club. His neck has been pretty screwed up. The whole idea is to put as much pressure on him as possible because he is going to probably be maybe a touch rusty, and I was able to do that today. Q. How about when you get off to a quick start like you did today, 5-up after six, what's the mindset from that point on? Do you keep trying to get him deeper or deeper, or do you just want the holes to run out? TIGER WOODS: No, you keep trying to win holes, keep trying to put pressure on him, make him make mistakes. It didn't really happen, but he made a couple birdies there on the back nine. I felt that I was hitting it well enough to keep putting heat on him, and when you're up like that and never give him a hole with a bogey. You don't want to have him getting any momentum from a gift. If he's going to get a hole back, he's going to have to earn it. Q. Have you ever been in a match where a guy pulled par or anything out of nowhere? TIGER WOODS: Yeah. Q. And halved the hole. What's that do for you? TIGER WOODS: Won holes, too. It happens. It's part of match play. Q. Have you ever been caught not expecting it? TIGER WOODS: No. Q. Ever? TIGER WOODS: No. You expect it to happen, but when it does happen, sometimes it puts more pressure on you because all of a sudden the tide changes. Instead of having a putt to win the hole, now I've got a putt to halve the hole. Next thing you know you're walking off losing the hole. Q. Is it deflating? TIGER WOODS: Oh, God, yes. But that's the great thing about match play (smiling). Yesterday, for example, on the second hole, I should have lost that hole. And all of a sudden J.J. doesn't walk off with a victory there, doesn't get up early in the match, which is huge, and I win the very next hole. Q. You haven't seen the draw yet, but there are a lot of younger players out there. Anything you can attribute that to, some of the young guys advancing in this? TIGER WOODS: Well, we're on a golf course that no one has played before. That helps. La Costa, it just seemed like the same guys kept advancing as we've all played there before, and guys who won tournaments, tournament champions, and then when it became the match play. Local knowledge does help. This week everyone is on a blank slate, and there's no learning curve. The more rounds you can get in here this week will help for next year. Q. You talk about experience. How much more equipped will Nick be tomorrow as opposed to had he never played you before? TIGER WOODS: I'm sure he obviously will take positive vibes from what he did the last time we played. But the whole idea is you've got to play well. Q. Is there anything you have learned about this course and the elements, having played the practice rounds and the opening round, that you maybe have changed your approach today? TIGER WOODS: Well, I've changed some of the clubs I've hit off the tees just because it's warmed up since I played practice rounds. The ball is certainly going a lot further. Yesterday, again, hitting 3-woods over 300 yards, and today I was hitting 5-wood close to 300 yards coming out. Coming back up the mountain it's a little different story. But some of the clubs that in the practice rounds I was hitting driver off the tees I'm now hitting 3- and 5-woods off the tees because the ball is going the same distances. Q. Would a 15-mile-an-hour wind tomorrow change your approach? TIGER WOODS: Yeah. Q. How so? TIGER WOODS: It changes a lot of different things. Obviously your lines off tees, what you're doing into greens and with the pins being as difficult as they are, you've got to be careful what you're doing out there. Q. How about 30 miles? TIGER WOODS: That would be interesting. Q. You've got a couple tournament rounds in. Any opinion on the golf course? Like it? Like it a lot? Not crazy about it? TIGER WOODS: I like the way it's set up. I know I've heard a lot of guys complain about it, but I think, Hey, it's match play. Make the golf course as difficult as possible. You're only trying to beat one guy. You're not trying to score and shoot 65s and post something high teens or even 20s at the end of the week. It doesn't matter. You're just trying to beat one guy, shoot 80, and it doesn't matter as long as you advance. I think it's a wonderful test, because if you put the pins in the center of these greens -- I think still that someone could shoot 9-, 10-under par easily out here. The only defense they have is the pin locations. Q. Is there one or two holes that strike your fancy either as a player or as a would-be designer that you think this is a cool hole? TIGER WOODS: Well, I think the two drivable par 4s are pretty neat. I like that setup. It gives you a chance to be aggressive. But then again, you have to be smart. Today I would have gone for it on 12. I put the ball pin high left. You pretty much have no shot. That's a hole I'd normally hit driver, but today I hit 3-wood to make sure I put it short, so I had an angle. Q. You talked earlier about the importance of playing well, and there's a couple others: David Toms is playing well and whatnot. But it would also seem over the course of four or five days you're going to have your one bad round. TIGER WOODS: It happens. I've never played a match play event where all six rounds I've played great golf. You're going to have one or two rounds where you're not going to play well. You've just got to get through those matches. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. But in order to win a championship, to go through all six rounds, you're going to have that one match, and you've got to somehow find a way to get it done. Q. The gallery likes to kind of pay attention to when you're giving putts to your opponent and when you're not. Do you have a rule of thumb, two feet, three feet, give it earlier, not later, depends on the situation? TIGER WOODS: It all depends on the situation. Also depends on the greens, too. Last year at La Costa nobody was giving anybody a putt (laughter). You could see balls wobbling in heel prints, and you'd say, Well, it's a one-foot putt, putt it. You never know, sometimes they sneak in, too. Here guys are conceding longer putts than they did certainly at La Costa. JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Tiger. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|