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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP


May 13, 2012


Tiger Woods


PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

TIGER WOODS:  Back nine was good.  Front nine, not so good.

Q.  Did you change something, conditions change?  Things just start working for you?
TIGER WOODS:  Just one of those things where Joe and I were talking about that on the front nine, I didn't really hit any bad shots, and all of a sudden, I had a bogey, a birdie and a double.  We were looking back on it, and didn't hit any bad shots and here you are at 2‑over for the day.  Just one of those deals.
The best shot I hit all week was at 6.  I pulled my tee shot in there and I had just a nasty lie out of the fairway bunker.  It was sitting down, ball above my feet and I hit it just absolutely perfect into the worst spot you could possibly put yourself.  So kind of summed up the week right there.

Q.  What do you take out of this week?
TIGER WOODS:  Just keep working.  Keep working.  I felt that I did it well in spurts again.  Just need to be a little bit more consistent, and as I said earlier in the week, just got to play the par 5s better than I did.  That's something I didn't do.  I had a lot of irons into the par 5s and didn't take care of them.
On a day like yesterday, even though it's windy, and a day like today, just about everybody is getting to the par 5s with irons, and got to play those things, at the worst, 3‑under par.

Q.  What strides have you made since Augusta?
TIGER WOODS:  Well, I'm starting to hit the ball up in the air again, and doing it correctly.  Some of the way I used to do it, how I used to add the loft through impact on the way down, just trying to get that out of there still.
I'm able to start hitting up in the air again, and sending it with confidence.

Q.  What happened on 4?  You said you hit the second shot okay.
TIGER WOODS:  I did.  I got a big gust.  Just the way it is.  I had 136.  I was just going to flight a little 9‑iron over to the right and I just got smoked.

Q.  On your website in 2008, one of your monthly reports, you went out of your way to talk about slow play, and you mentioned all of the problems behind it, and you ended it by saying that "I hope it's something we can address."  Four years later, where are we?
TIGER WOODS:  Worse.

Q.  How does that happen?
TIGER WOODS:  I don't know.  I mean, last week, we were playing in 4:40 and there's no wind.  That's hard to believe.
But yeah, we have gotten slower on TOUR.  College has gotten just incredibly slow.  It's so bad that now we are giving the guys the ability to use lasers to try to speed up play, and they are still in, you know, 5:45, 6:00 plus.

Q.  What would be the solution?
TIGER WOODS:  I think very simple, if you get a warning, you get a penalty.  I think that would speed it up.

Q.  After a warning, you mean?
TIGER WOODS:  No, just straight out, if you get a bad time, yeah.

Q.  You mean strokes or money or both or what?
TIGER WOODS:  Strokes.  Strokes is money.

Q.  Is the money enough now to where it makes anybody blink really out here, 5,000 per pop and then 10,000 the next pop?
TIGER WOODS:  Could be.

Q.  Doesn't seem like it modifies a lot of behavior.
TIGER WOODS:  Yeah, but also, then again, you're trying to‑‑ one shotcan ‑‑ what's the difference between first and second right now?  How much is it?

Q.  800,000.
TIGER WOODS:  800,000.  So I would take the five grand and over the 800K.  But that's one shot, and that's the difference.  That's what people don't realize is that one shot is so valuable out here.

Q.  We were talking about the game at the highest level, especially a course like this and you have wind shifts and pins that are tucked over knobs, is it almost an anomaly for a guy like Perez?  Is that almost just hard to do to play fast, is to play slow like him?
TIGER WOODS:  There are not too many guys that play that quick.  I think Pat plays fast, Riles plays fast, and what's his‑‑ not Eduardo; Angel plays quick, one look, gone.  There are a few guys who do play quick, and I think that's their natural rhythm.  They walk fast, they do everything quick.  You just want to stay in your own personality, and some guys are more deliberate than others.

Q.  Do you know how they come up with a time par?
TIGER WOODS:  I don't know, no.

Q.  Does it surprise you a couple guys approached 65 this morning?
TIGER WOODS:  It's doable, there's no doubt, it's doable out there, because as I said all par 5s are reachable with irons.  And you're going to have probably three or four wedges throughout the day into the par 4s, and even 17 is a sand wedge.
So there's a lot of scoring opportunities out there.  And then again, it's also one of those golf courses you get it going bad here, you can shoot a high number, but it's definitely doable today.  They have softened up the greens a little from yesterday, they put a little water on them last night.

Q.  Do you see any of Kevin Na, what he's going through right now?
TIGER WOODS:  I didn't see anything yesterday.  I heard about it.  I certainly heard about it.

Q.  Do you sympathize with that or do you think he needs to get over it?
TIGER WOODS:  I've never experienced anything like that, but I've seen it before.  I played with Sergio in 2002, and you know, I think one of the holes he re‑gripped it 20‑plus times.
So I have seen it but I've never seen Kevin do it in person.  I've never had an opportunity to play with him.  But sometimes it's tough pulling the trigger.  Some guys, have an easier time committing and going, and other guys don't.

Q.  With holes 5 and 8‑‑ what happens in your shot‑‑
TIGER WOODS:  Just the lack of rotation.  Just got to continue the rotation.

Q.  Was distance control an issue this week?
TIGER WOODS:  It is here.  For me, it's been tough to get a beat on this wind here.  I've struggled with it, and you know, it's hard to get any kind of momentum going when I hit a good shot and ends up in a bad spot; was it me, or was it the gust, blah, blah, blah.  It was hard to pinpoint what it was, and build from there.
That's been the frustrating thing all week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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