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THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 27, 2007

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Charles Howell III and Tiger Woods to the interview room, congratulations guys, finishing 3 and 1, 17th hole. Just some opening comments about the round and we'll take some questions.
CHARLES HOWELL III: It's just so good for me to play with this guy right here. It has nothing to do with the golfer that he is and all to do with the person that he is. He treats me extremely well and he has a very big calming effect on me, on the golf course. I don't know if we'll play together again or not but I know I got to play with him again at least once, and it's one hell of an experience.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, we got the job done today. Our responsibility is to go out there and get a point. We did that today and it was a lot of fun today. We put the pressure on them a little bit toward the middle part of the round and didn't make any mistakes there. It was a huge save there on 16. It looked like we were in the driver's seat, and, you know, it looks like they could actually get momentum on the hole and then Charles made just a huge putt there. It put us dormie. It basically gave us a shot of momentum after they just birdied 15.

Q. There were an extraordinary number of pretty poor shots, not necessarily in your match, but in all matches coming down the stretch. Do you feel that there was a lot of pressure or was the course playing tough or the conditions were tough or again, was it just the pressure of the competition?
TIGER WOODS: I think it's just the nature of foursomes. Foursomes is a strange animal in itself; when you get rolling, it's the greatest format in the world. But when things start going awry, it's amazing how it just snowballs so quickly because you don't have a chance to re-right yourself right away with your own game. You're alternating, you're waiting, you may not have hit a putt, you may not have hit an iron shot, you may not have hit a drive and all of a sudden you're counted upon. Basically four holes, you're dealing with quite a bit of water, and anything can happen.
CHARLES HOWELL III: Absolutely. It's the lack of momentum. I missed a short putt on 11 for par, and it had doned on me, wow, this is the first putt I've had all day under 10, 12 feet.
It's tough, because once if your partner hits a good shot or makes a good putt, you get a bit of momentum and it always seems like he's hitting the next shot as well. You can never quite get into the flow of things. Yeah, it's a lot different. But like he said, if you get going, it's a lot of fun.

Q. Could I just get your thoughts on what it's like to be in such command at this point? It's been a long time since the U.S. has jumped out to this type of start, 5 1/2 to a half, it seems like it's always fighting to get back into the ballgame for a miracle on Sunday.
TIGER WOODS: We've been on this side in the last two Ryder Cups -- oh, it's the European side. (Laughter) This was I guess reminiscent to what we did in 2000. We got off to a pretty commanding start, and I guess we were under Captain Venturi and basically rolled from there.
We're a long ways away from the end of this thing, there are so many points available. Second session tomorrow, you know they are going to come out with some of their best pairings and top guys out early and try to turn this thing around. We need to still go out there and play well and get our points.

Q. After everything that was said on how strong this International Team is; surprised about how overall it went for the U.S. today?
TIGER WOODS: Well, if you look at what we -- one of the things I say, every time you ask us about the difference between the Ryder Cup, why we keep losing all the sessions, if you look at it, the Europeans are up early, and up early in the match.
And in this format, there's only 18 holes. It's so hard to come back from a 2-or 3-down deficit, especially this caliber of players. It's really hard to turn that around. If you look at all of our matches out early, they were all up. It's amazing how the guys towards the end tend to feed off of that and hopefully tomorrow we can go out there and do the same thing and put a bunch of red up there early and keep the momentum that we built today into tomorrow.

Q. Do you feel that your match play history against Nick O'Hern may be starting to change?
TIGER WOODS: (Chuckles) Well, all I know is he beat me pretty good the first time around. Then the last match that we played earlier this year, I made -- I thought I made a pretty good comeback and I should have won that match. I just missed a 3-foot putt.
You know, any time you play match play, anything can happen. And that's one thing we know and that's one of the great things and unpredictability of playing match play. 18-hole, it's a print and with this caliber of players, it doesn't take much. You mess up just a couple of times here and there, turn the momentum around, it's amazing how these guys just run with it and this time it was our turn. We got momentum early and just ran with it.

Q. Do you have some special admiration for him because he was able to beat you twice in match play?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, he did get me twice, but that's just the nature of it, you know. It's 18 holes. What you realize over a longer period of time, the more rounds you can play, the guy who is playing well will show up towards the end. That's why we have 72 holes in a tournament, not 18-hole tournaments.

Q. Despite the wide margin of points, were you struck by just how close the matches are or were when you had a chance to look at the leaderboard and see where each respective match finished?
TIGER WOODS: Look at the World Rankings, the top players; it doesn't take much. Like I said it's all about momentum, and it doesn't take much. Look at the guys who got off to great starts and basically we held on to most of those leads. Even though it was 1-up or 2-up lead, most of the guys held onto that. Even if they got it back to even, the next two holes, the guys kept it up and that was huge.

Q. You were still on the course but Jack had Phil and Woody concede a 3 1/2 -foot putt to end that match in a halve. Was there any talk about that as you were watching the final matches; did you hear about it and what are your thoughts on it?
TIGER WOODS: Have you heard?
CHARLES HOWELL III: No.
TIGER WOODS: I haven't heard it.

Q. Any thoughts on Jack doing that?
TIGER WOODS: I haven't seen it or heard about it. This is the first time I've heard about it.

Q. I just told you.
TIGER WOODS: Well, I don't know, was it 3 1/2 feet, four feet, five feet, I don't know.

Q. Vijay.
TIGER WOODS: Well, it is what it is.

Q. Tiger, can you say something about K.J. Choi's play today?
TIGER WOODS: Well, every time you play with K.J., he's solid. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. Drives it great. He's made some pretty good -- pretty significant changes working with Bahnny. His game has improved this year and he's won twice and been in contention a bunch of times. Today was another example of he hits it well, putts it well and one pull there on 16. Other than that, he hit it pretty good all day.

Q. You referenced 2000 earlier as the last time you guys jumped on them early; that was the "Tiger Who" year, and yesterday we had the Phil Who; do you tend to circle the wagons when they get a little snarcky?
TIGER WOODS: I don't know if you can read that much into it. Guys went out today and got up early in the matches. Before we teed up, you know, four matches were already up, and that's -- I'm sorry, three matches we're up, and that's huge before you even tee it up, to see red already in the first four or five holes.

Q. Just if maybe both of you can comment about generally the atmosphere, the crowd, that sort of thing today.
CHARLES HOWELL III: Well, it was actually quite interesting. I've only played one other team event. It was in South Africa, and it seemed as if I had a South African in every match, be it Ernie Els or Tim Clark, and they were very vocal that side.
And today was great. I can't say enough for the fans, and granted, a lot were -- a lot more were cheering Tiger; hell, by 16, I thought my name was Tiger. (Laughter).
So it was great. The fans were fantastic. Yeah, I mean, they cheered a little louder for the Internationals, but they also seemed to be cheering for the Americans, as well. I thought it was fantastic.

Q. About how --
CHARLES HOWELL III: No, this is alternate answer. Next week. (Laughter).

Q. Can you talk about how Tiger calmed you down during the play, and Tiger, if you can comment on how you confer on shots and putts and how that might differ from other pairings.
CHARLES HOWELL III: I first met Tiger when I was 16. We played each other in the U.S. Amateur. My glasses were bigger than my waist size at the time and I was playing this guy named Tiger Woods who hit it 330 in the air, with the equipment then, was unbelievable, and I was in awe.
You know, since then, I've had a great respect for him, an admiration for him. He's just enough older than I am where I was able to pattern a lot of what I did around him; his work ethic. He brought hard work into golf. He brought working out into golf. You know, and he brought the expectations up from golf.
So I am very lucky that I'm in the generation that has benefitted greatly from this guy. You know, I just have a high enough respect for him and I get to tee him at home some, as well. It's just great for me to be out with him any time I get a chance.

Q. More than anyone, you know about fan attention, and I was just wondering, how much of it is tuning out the fans and concentrating on your game and how much is it riding the attention, and with Mike Weir this week, are you glad he's getting part of that attention?
TIGER WOODS: Well, when you're playing, one of the things that my dad always taught me is that no one ever hits a shot but you, no matter what anyone says or does, and you have to pull off the shot. Is it fantastic that people root for you? Yeah. Or they could root against you. Your responsibility is to hit a golf shot and putt it where you want to putt it.
What I think is great is sometimes when you're down and you're not really playing well and people are cheering you on, sometimes I can turn things around because you can feed off their energy.
Also if you're playing really well, you can get into a snowball effect and get into a frenzy and really get going. We've seen that individual play in tournaments, we've seen it in team play in Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups. You know, fan energy certainly adds to an event and it brings up sometimes our caliber of play just because of the energy that kind of is out there.
DOUG MILNE: Tiger, Charles, thanks for joining us.

End of FastScripts

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