Tiger Woods Interview - Buick Invitational
IN: News | US PGA | Buick Invitational (2005) | Final Round | 25 Jan 2005
Q: Welcome Tiger Woods to the interview area. Tiger, after a long day and a long week, but a great week for you, just talk about the returning to the winner's circle again.
Tiger Woods: It feels great, especially today, as long as it was. The start I kind of got off to this morning, it wasn't very good, but I hung in there. I just felt like I just needed to stay around. This golf course is so difficult, anything can happen. And I wasn't feeling all that comfortable with my swing today. But I kind of just grinded around. Worked on my short game, it was beautiful today, and I made a lot of par putts, which I needed to do, especially there on 15. That was a big putt.
Q: Talk about the playing with Tom Lehman.
Tiger Woods: Like I said out there, I think that Tom probably outplayed me today. He hit it wonderful all day. We played 31 holes, or he played 32 holes. But he hit it beautifully all day. It just came down basically to surviving and making a couple of putts, and I happened to make a couple bombs on him and hung around.
Q: You were aiming to the right side of the green?
Tiger Woods: I was aiming to the middle to cut it over to the right somewhere. Even if I hit it into the gallery it doesn't matter, as long as I don't hit it in the water.
Q: When you went into the back nine, did you have any sort of number in mind?
Tiger Woods: Well, I felt if I shot a 32 I would win the tournament, but obviously I don't know what I shot on the back nine 35. Obviously I didn't do it. But I also snuck it out. Luke made a couple mistakes ahead of us and it came down to Tom and I. Tom made that one crucial mistake there on 17, which hurt his chances.
It basically came down to, for me, I wasn't hitting it all that great, but I was just trying to survive with my short game. Got up and down just about every time, except on 11 there, but other than that I felt my short game carried me.
Q: What does it say about the state of your game?
Tiger Woods: I didn't hit it my best. There's no doubt about that. I felt good enough where my mechanics were sound enough now that I could place my misses. That's the difference, is I can place my misses. All of a sudden I started driving better with my driver this afternoon, but my iron game was sporadic. I would hit 2 or 3 good shots right in a row and then hit a terrible golf shot.
I always missed in the correct spot. I never short sided myself. And I think that's the difference, I was able to miss the ball in the proper spots again and give myself the best chance to get up and down or to make birdies.
Q: Is it safe to say it was a different kind of round and a different kind of struggle than last year?
Tiger Woods: There's no doubt about it. Now I know what to do, what to fix and how to fix it out there. To come down the stretch like that, and I finally hit some really good drives all of a sudden on the back nine when I really needed to.
The only really bad shots I hit were with my 2 iron, which is usually my staple. I had a hard time getting that thing in play. So I'd step up there and hit driver and feel totally confident I could put it in the fairway and I was able to do it. That's huge.
Tiger Woods: It's hard to believe it's been that long to win on our Tour, but it feels great. To have won the big win for me was in Japan. To finally put all the pieces together and go over there and play that well and win, that solidified everything. And I felt just continue what you're doing, and I've played well ever since.
Q: What time did you get here this morning?
Tiger Woods: I'm staying right here. I got up this morning at 4:50.
Q: How crazy was it with the fog in and out?
Tiger Woods: How about just the week? You had to be so patient. I just kept saying to myself, everyone has got to deal with it. It's not like you got a bad draw, because we're all about the same time. Everybody has got to deal with it. Stand on the tee, wait, sorry, fog is coming in. Get back off. That kind of thing. I took advantage of it one time where I could go home and just take a nap, basically recharge.
Q: Did you ever feel it was unfair today?
Tiger Woods: No. Each and every group has an opportunity to call an official and stop it if they can't see. We couldn't see on 7. And from what I hear, 14 was impossible. The funny part is you could hear Mark Russell on the radio saying the Bob Hope starts on Wednesday. Get these guys playing. That part was pretty funny.
Q: At what point, did you realize that you and Luke were in the lead?
Tiger Woods: Well, I didn't know that Luke had made a mistake until 17. I was walking up to the green. I didn't see a leaderboard. It must not have been updated. I knew he was only one back. He was on 14 at the time. I didn't see a leaderboard for like two holes, so I never saw what he did. I assumed that he made that putt there on 17 for birdie, because they cheered pretty hard. And then I looked at the board and he was 13 now. From then on I knew it was just Tom and I. I could just focus on Tom.
Q: Did you see or hear what happened to Charles Howell?
Tiger Woods: No, what happened?
Q: What's the nextstep for you now?
Tiger Woods: I'm going to take three to four weeks off here.
Q: Nissan?
Tiger Woods: I might play Nissan. We'll see how it goes. I need to get my weight back up and get healthy. I feel like I'm a little emaciated and I just need to get better.
Q: How excited are you for this year?
Tiger Woods: It's been a nice start. If I had played halfway decent at Mercedes, I felt I could have won that tournament. A bunch of guys probably feel the same way. At least a third place finish and a first place finish is a pretty good start.
Q: Is it difficult or more difficult to be on Tour now with the big four guys?
Tiger Woods: You guys always hear about the big four. What about Goose? It's funny. It's funny to me. Every one always says Phil. He just mentioned Phil. There's no doubt about it. It is tougher to win out here now than when I first played in '96 and '97, and it's going to get tougher each and every year. The field is getting deeper. We have more guys playing well at the same time, but we don't always play the same events.
But when you see the scores we shoot out here, it's pretty low. 15 under par, 16 under par this week, on this golf course. Normally we would think single digits would do good out here. Guys are going lower and lower and you just have to respond.
Q: You shot 13 under?
Tiger Woods: I did a lot of damage on the North course. What it boils down to is you have to drive the ball out there and try to get it in play. But these par 4s, they didn't set the pins up all that difficult this year. We never used that back pin over there on 5, back right pin. There are a couple of pins we didn't use that we normally use. We were all kind of surprised out there.
We were talking about it today, Peter and I. Some of these pins just aren't tucked. Maybe they were afraid the weather was going to come in and blow and everybody was going to shoot like they did last year, shoot 75s in the final round. Consequently, because the pins weren't tucked as tight, guys went lower. We saw Charles Howell shoot 64 today. It plays a big part.
Q: Different vibe from the fans at all?
Tiger Woods: I've always felt that way here, even when I've gone head to head with Phil. I had at least a small portion of the gallery cheering for me. But it's been that way ever since I first played here. Maybe they feel, being a suggest Cal boy, I'm one of them. I didn't feel anything different today that I hadn't felt before in the past.
Q: How much more confidence do you have now than last year?
Tiger Woods: Well, I had a bunch of things I needed to work on and try to solidify, and each and every day was a task to try to figure out what I needed to work on that particular day. But as the year progressed, the checklist got shorter and shorter. And consequently, results started improving towards the end of the year.
Q: Tiger, thank you. Congratulations on a great week.
Source - Buick Invitational
