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WGC CADILLAC CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2011

Tiger Woods

MIAMI, FLORIDA

Q. Obviously the kind of round you needed to get some confidence back, talk about how your confidence has been helped by today?
TIGER WOODS: No doubt. You know, it's just one of those things where I felt that as the week progressed this week, I felt like I hit a lot of good shots but then I would get sidetracked there for a little bit, and didn't really know what the fix was a couple of times.
Today, I hit a lot of good golf shots and when I did miss-hit one, I knew what the fix was right away, boom and I got right back on my run of hitting good shots again. That feels good.

Q. You also got up-and-down a lot today, which you haven't been?
TIGER WOODS: I did. Those are key, to be able to keep the momentum in the rounds going. I didn't really make any big par putts, but I hit a lot of good pitches in there tight where they were pretty reasonable.

Q. How is your overall feel coming now after the four rounds? I know you have work with the driver still.
TIGER WOODS: It feels overall really good. My trajectory is becoming better. My shapes of my shots are getting tighter. The driver is still not quite there. I'm not quite shaping the golf ball like I want to yet. But I'm hitting it flush again, which is good, and so that's just a matter of time before that comes around.

Q. You keep talking about the process, where are you in the process?
TIGER WOODS: It's definitely getting better, there's no doubt. I'm putting the pieces together. Everything is kind of shaping up and heading the right direction, which is good, and peaking right at the right time, right for Tavistock Cup.

Q. How much did you need a round like this?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I had not -- obviously, as you know, I had not played a round like this. I've played stretches like this in a round but not for an entire round. As I was saying to Peter, I just had not got up-and-down.
Today, most of the week, my short game has been pretty good. Spent a lot of time chipping and putting and made the adjustment with the putter, went to a hotter putter to combat some of these slower, grainier greens, and it worked out pretty good.

Q. With not being in the hunt here, is that something that bothers you, or as you work on your swing, do you just kind of separate yourself from what's happening on the leaderboard?
TIGER WOODS: Well, of course it bothers me. I want to win golf tournaments. That's the whole idea of entering events is to win golf tournaments, and I didn't do that this week. But I showed positive signs for the next time I play, which is a good thing.

Q. When you look at Sean Foley, he's been under a lot of criticism lately, you've been struggling and he's not the right teacher, he's giving you bad information; if you felt for him in there and have you ever thought to yourself, maybe I am going the wrong way?
TIGER WOODS: No, definitely not going the wrong way, that's for sure. But as far as feeling for him, yeah, he's never dealt with this before. You know, for some reason, I tend to get a little bit more scrutinized than most players do; analyzed to the nth degree about what goes on within one round of golf.
That's something that's new to him. He has not quite faced that, but he said is one positive thing is I'm always on TV, which is good, so he gets to look at a lot of golf swings. So that's one of the flip sides and positive sides to it.

Q. You have the Tavistock Cup coming up, on your home course, is that important in this evolution of yours to play well the next couple of days?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's just more rounds under my belt in a competitive environment. Granted, tomorrow is best-ball but still it's more competitive rounds, and so that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Q. Switching the putter, you've obviously been now it doing that occasionally over the last several months, what's in the decision process there and do you work with them both knowledge?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, Bob, the method putter is what I usually practice with at home. I like the toe swinging. It's a heel-shafted putter, so I enjoy the toe moving more.
But more than anything, as you guys all know, I've always struggled on slow greens. I've just never really have enjoyed putting on slow greens. The method with the grooves, it comes off faster, and it's worked on the slower greens, and one of the reasons why I switched at St. Andrews to it. And I played it at Chevron last year and I played it here this week. It definitely comes off faster, and especially on grainier greens like this, it helped a lot.

Q. You would not use that at Augusta, then, most likely?
TIGER WOODS: Well, that's one of the things is that we are also working on dulling some of the grooves so it doesn't come out as fast. So I'm able to putt on fast greens with it.

Q. Do you leave here feeling better about your game than when you got here?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. Absolutely. No doubt.

Q. Was it because of today?
TIGER WOODS: No, every tournament that I've played this year, I've felt better coming out of it, even though the results have not been good, but I've felt better because it identifies some of the things I need to work on and that's a good thing.
Sometimes in practice, I can stripe it and hit good shots all day. But getting into a competitive environment, okay, what went wrong. It's good to have some of the mistakes I've made, to have those things come out and become very apparent, which is good, so I can go back and work on them and rectify them and they are becoming less and less.

Q. Are you still on track for Augusta?
TIGER WOODS: Oh, yeah.

Q. You're liking your chances?
TIGER WOODS: Mm-hmm. (Smiling).

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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