Hi all,

I am not going to link to all the crazy stuff being printed and "reported"
in the wake of Tiger's accident. Here is a column from Dan Wetzel  of Yahoo
that kind of sums up where things stand. I really prefer to allow this to
run its course, and you all can find plenty of information online if you
wish.

Here is Wetzel's column:

Tiger's unwelcome slam

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports 8 hours, 33 minutes ago

The police keep trying to show up at Tiger Woods' house and they keep
getting shooed away. The Florida Highway Patrol is being treated like nearly
everyone else seeking a private word with Woods through the years: No way,
no how, no comment.

Sunday they were brushed off for a third consecutive day as they tried to
investigate a Friday car accident. Woods instead issued a statement on his
website.
"The only person responsible for the accident is me," the statement read.
"My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble.
"This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way. Although I
understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious
rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are
irresponsible."
Woods won't be required to speak to officers following the accident. He just
needs to provide his driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.
It's unlikely he does more than what's required; Woods' ample legal team
knows the stakes are high. It's not the crime, after all; it's the cover-up.
Woods has long been the dullest celebrity in the world. With an
early-morning, low-speed, single-car, end-of-the-driveway accident, though,
he's now in the middle of a cauldron of intrigue, heated by all the usual
tabloid ingredients - money, fame, sex, mystery.
If he does ever speak to the police, it will be a jarring experience for
someone who is fiercely private and obsessed with control. No one tells
Tiger Woods what to do, with whom to speak and what questions to answer; at
least not since he thrilled the golf world by winning the Masters at age 21.
It was the start of a legendary career that has him on the brink of
billionaire status for swinging a golf club better than anyone on earth.
He has more handlers and yes men than you can count. Anyone who's ever
broken his privacy demands has been summarily fired - from lawyers to his
first caddie.
Early Friday morning, though, Woods' tranquil world was shattered along with
the back window of his Cadillac Escalade. At 2:25 a.m. he tried to depart
his home in a gated community outside of Orlando and managed an almost
impossible driving trajectory - a 120-degree turn - and wound up hitting a
fire hydrant and a neighbor's tree.
As one person mentioned to me on Twitter: "He was a mailbox and a parked car
away from the Tiger Slam."
And that's where this story has gone - to comedy. Once the initial report
that Woods was in "serious condition" became nothing big, just some facial
cuts and an apparent lapse of consciousness, this morphed into America's
favorite pastime, mocking the rich and famous.
Tiger's driving has always been erratic, hasn't it?
Post-crash Tiger slammed his steering wheel against the ground and blamed a
photographer for snapping a picture in mid-lane change.
And so on.
The basis of the speculation is pretty simple. On Wednesday the National
Enquirer published a story saying Tiger was messing around outside his
wedding vows. The mainstream media mostly ignored it, but then suddenly
Tiger was in a wreck very late the next night.
The timing was impossible to ignore. This isn't John Daly smashing a car as
he pulled out of an Arkansas Hooters. This is Tiger Woods. Nothing ever
happens with Tiger Woods.
"I think Elin and I have avoided a lot of media attention because we're kind
of boring," Woods once wrote on his website. And it's true. They mostly sit
around their mammoth home behind the high brick walls and play with their
two kids or watch movies. For a big adventure Tiger may go to a NBA game or
drive his oversized boat - his first one was named "Privacy."
An early-morning car wreck involving Tiger was completely out of character.
Look, even if the tabloid is wrong - the other woman in question has
vehemently denied the affair, Woods hasn't commented - you'd have to figure
it was, at the very least, a topic of conversation around the Thanksgiving
table, right?
A husband gets called out for an affair in a supermarket tabloid and it's
going to be discussed. In detail. Probably over and over.
And so questions are raised over the wreck and the bloody lip and how anyone
could drive so poorly to cause an accident like Woods did. To pull out of
his driveway and wind up where his Escalade did requires either a purposeful
track or a wild swerve. He didn't just lose control of the wheel for a
second.
And since police reports claim the airbags didn't deploy and he was going
less than 33 miles an hour, it would seem he had plenty of time to avoid
hitting two separate things on the wrong side of the road.
Then there was Elin's supposed heroic save-her-husband act. According to the
police report, she heard the accident from the house. She says she ran out
and found her husband injured behind the wheel.
She could've called police or the community's private security firm - which
was about 30 seconds away.
If she wanted to help Tiger out of the car - even though it wasn't on fire
and waiting for the paramedics is generally the best policy - she could've
just opened the door and pulled him out. Pictures of the SUV show minimal
damage past the grille, not surprising since an Escalade is a massive
vehicle. It's highly unlikely the doors were wedged shut.
If the door was simply locked, she could've gone and gotten a spare set of
keys and opened it. She could've done a million things.
What she claimed to police she did was go get a golf club and smash in both
back windows of the SUV so she could, apparently, drag her unconscious
190-pound husband over a row of seats, shards of glass and out a window - a
task best suited for a World's Strongest Man competition. Even so, why the
need to break windows on both sides?
And that's where this went from plausibly innocent to the conversation du
jour around the country.
A married man. A tabloid mistress. A potentially scorned wife smashing the
windows of his car.
Tiger Woods is a country music song.
Woods' nature is to never speak of this incident. As long as there isn't
going to be a divorce, no news needs to seep out. For what it's worth, Tiger
is still in the house, although we don't know if he's sleeping in his bed or
one of the 37 guest rooms.
He's no doubt thought about skipping his tournament in Los Angeles this
week, citing injuries from the crash. He won't reappear in public until late
January at a tournament outside San Diego. He can give one interview to a
sympathetic media member who is under stern orders not to press anything and
then claim he's done discussing the situation.
He might crack a bad driving joke before the Masters, reminding everyone
what a likeable guy he is.
And that will be that; which is his right. All the public-relations spin
doctors are clamoring that he needs to address this, but what good will that
do? It's not golf related. It won't affect his marketability too much, and
even if it did, does he really need more money? Maybe he makes $50 million
next year rather than $100 million.
He's a golfer, not a moral-crusading politician. Saying nothing may not
convince people who suspect this was a wild marital incident - TMZ.com is
reporting some of Woods' injuries came from Elin, not the car crash - but no
amount of explaining will do that.
People are going to believe what they want. He's a cad. She clubbed him.
Whatever. It's too late for damage control now.
The only problem is those pesky cops. No one likes being lied to, but the
police can do something about it. Unless Elin's unbelievable story is
somehow true, then this gets a little tricky.
Let's say this was as crazy as you can dream up. I wouldn't blame Elin or
Tiger, in the heat of the moment, from trying to concoct a story that made
it sound a little more innocent. Other than the fire hydrant, there's no
aggrieved party here. No crime was committed - unless you want to stick
Tiger with driving without a seat belt.
They should be able to move on.
The police may see it differently.
So what does and doesn't get explained to investigators - comments that will
become public via the police report and could cause further legal headaches
- is paramount.
Which is why you can't blame Tiger and Elin for delaying the interview a
couple of days, or indefinitely, if possible.
As much as America wants to know the truth, it's their life, perfect or not.
I'd be stunned if Tiger didn't just politely hand over his information,
lawyer up and deal with whatever he needs to deal with in his typical manner
- privately.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist.

The AP story:

Tiger tied for lead after opening 66 in Australia

By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson, Ap Golf Writer - 1 hr 14
mins ago
MELBOURNE, Australia - Tiger Woods putted for birdie on every hole but the
last one. He birdied all the par 5s. And the one time he took on one of the
short par 4s at Kingston Heath, he came within inches of reaching the green.
It was just the kind of performance a massive crowd at the Australian
Masters expected to see.
Despite a bogey on his final hole when he drove into a tea tree, Woods put
together a stress-free round of 6-under 66 on Thursday to share the lead
after one round with James Nitties and Branden Grace.
"I bogeyed the last hole and missed two short putts for birdie," Woods said.
"Other than that, it was a pretty good day."
It felt like more than that to the kind of gallery typically seen only at
major championships. Tournament officials said 21,356 people came through
the turnstiles, with about 5,000 others giving Kingston Heath a buzz it
hasn't felt in years.
"It was like when I first turned pro and (Greg) Norman used to play,"
Cameron Percy said after a 67. "It was like a major, basically."
Nitties, who easily retained his U.S. PGA Tour card in his rookie season,
played behind Woods and quietly joined him in the lead with two birdies over
his last three holes.
Grace, a 21-year-old from South Africa, made his first tournament round in
Melbourne a memorable one by running off four straight birdies at the turn.
He had the lead to himself until a bogey on the 17th.
"I'm up there, and hopefully I can keep playing that way for the next three
rounds," he said.
Woods missed only two fairways in a round that was relatively free of
trouble until he pulled his tee shot on the ninth hole, had to chip out of
the tea tree into thick rough, did well to bounce it on the green and took
two putts from 40 feet. He chose to lay back from the bunkers on several of
the short holes, although birdie chances didn't come by the bushel. Woods
hit away from the flag when he didn't have the right angle; other times, he
simply hit poor shots.
"I did a lot of lag putting," he said.
He made his move toward the end of the round, hitting 3-wood to the 294-yard
sixth hole that held its line to the left of the bunkers and came up just
short of the green, leaving an easy chip to a foot. After a poor tee shot
left him a bad angle to the green on the seventh, Woods hit 8-iron over the
corner of trees to 20 feet for another birdie, then hit 8-iron to 7 feet on
No. 8 to set up his third straight birdie.
Far more impressive than the golf, however, was the gallery.
Traffic was backed up along Kingston Road outside the club for miles in the
hour before Woods teed off.
"I know," he said. "I was stuck in it, too."
The tournament has been a sellout for months, and it remains peculiar to see
a ticket window at an Australian golf tournament with a sign that says "Sold
out." The cap was at 100,000 tickets for the week - not all of them come
through the front gate - and while it was impossible for some 25,000 fans to
stay on one hole, whoever couldn't fit in moved ahead to the next couple of
holes.
That turned into a treat for the likes of Seve Benson, playing in the group
ahead of Woods, feeling like a rock star himself.
"It was amazing," Benson said after a 70. "After a couple of holes, you get
used to it. But then you realize that they were not on the hole before. They
had been there for awhile waiting."
Thousands headed for the exit when Woods finished, although a fair crowd
stuck around for the afternoon, even though the action slowed severely.
Mathew Goggin, who played in the final group at Turnberry with Tom Watson,
had a 69 to match the best score in the afternoon, when bleachers were
half-full.
Most of the crowd followed Adam Scott, slowed by a three-putt bogey from 10
feet in his round of 71. Stuart Appleby also had a 69.
Perhaps the toughest spot was playing behind Woods, as marshals allowed the
gallery to stop in the middle of crossing areas so that the fans entirely
circled every green on which Woods, defending champion Rod Pampling and
Craig Parry were putting.
Parry holed a 50-foot putt on the fourth and shot a 70, while Pampling had a
71.
Among those in the gallery was Woods' mother, Kultida, who usually only
travels to Augusta National and Sherwood Country Club for her son's
tournament in December.
Percy and Doug Holloway were at 67, while Greg Chalmers was in the group at
68.
Geoff Ogilvy, the only other player besides Woods in the top 50 at Kingston
Heath, took double bogey on his final hole for a 72.
Nitties already was fired up about coming home to Australia, especially
after a successful rookie campaign in which he tied for fourth in the FBR
Open to get his year started right. Then came a week of practice, with the
Heath buzzing over Woods.
"Tiger's here, so it's huge," he said. "I love it. You want to do well in
front of your local crowd."

I am working on finding details of the event. Here are the bare basics!

TV Schedule: (Eastern Time)
Wed night/Thru morning: 10:00 pm - 1:00 am TGC
Thru night/Fri morning: 10:00 pm - 1:00 am TGC
Fri night/Sat morning: 8:00 pm - 12:00 am TGC
Sat night/Sun morning: 8:00 pm - 12:00 am TGC 

The Age, an Aussie publication, comments on tee times:

TIGER Woods will have completed his first round at the Australian Masters on
Thursday before the TV broadcasters have started their coverage.

In the world of professional golf, players are entitled to a late-early
alternating first two rounds, and the world's No. 1 player will tee off
around 7 am on Thursday, probably alongside defending champion Rod Pampling,
and finish by noon. He will play just after noon on Friday, fitting
perfectly with the requirements of Channel Nine and Fox Sports, who have the
television rights to the $1.5 million tournament at Kingston Heath.

The draw is to be finalised today. Pampling, who is friendly with Woods, is
close to a certainty to be in his group of three. However, Australia's
top-ranked player Geoff Ogilvy will not be in that group. Organisers are
attempting to spread the higher-profile players through the field in the
hope that the crowds will not all gravitate to Woods. As it is, they are
expecting the crowds to be up to 15 deep in Woods' group.

Hi all,

Sorry to bring you information so late! Tiger is indeed playing in China
this week, in the HSBC Champions tournament.

TV Times:

Wed: 11:00 PM - 3:00 AM TGC
Thu: 11:00 AM - 3:00 AM TGC
Fri: 11:00 AM - 3:00 AM TGC
Sat: 11:00 AM - 3:00 AM TGC
(all times Eastern)

Preview Story:


SHANGHAI (AP) - Tiger Woods looked out at a conference room above the
Shanghai River that was filled with so many photographers and other media
that it felt like he was at a major championship.
The HSBC Champions is not quite the same as when he first showed up in 2005.
In its fifth year, it has gone from a tournament sanctioned by four tours to
a World Golf Championship that has attracted its strongest field ever,
starting with the best two players in the world.
Woods and Phil Mickelson are competing for the first time together in Asia,
part of a 78-man field that includes 15 of the top 20 players in the world
ranking.
"How this event has grown to where it is now is truly remarkable," Woods
said Tuesday. "To see the excitement level here ... and how much it means to
everyone, it's great to be part of it. This year with the field we have,
it's going to be a lot of fun."
The world's No. 1 player helped kick off the week by hitting golf balls into
the Shanghai River from "The Bubble," the nickname for the Shanghai Port
International Cruise Terminal. He was joined by past winners of the HSBC
Champions, all rivals in their own way - Mickelson, defending champion
Sergio Garcia and Y.E. Yang, who rallied to beat Woods in the PGA
Championship to give Asia its first major champion.
Yang first came to prominence at the HSBC Champions when he finished two
shots ahead of Woods in 2006. The previous year, Woods finished second to
David Howell.
Now that it's a World Golf Championship, perhaps his fortunes will change.
Woods has owned the world since this series began in 1999, winning 16 of the
30 WGC individual events he's played. His latest such victory came at the
Bridgestone Invitational in August.
"I've come close here a couple of times," Woods said. "I didn't get it done.
Hopefully, this week I can put it together and improve on that finish."
Expectations are larger than ever, especially after the turnout for the
opening press conference at The Bund, the famous riverfront with a
state-of-the-art skyline.
Every step on the elevator rising two stories to the conference room was
occupied by photographers, and most of the questions were directed at Woods,
who was dressed in black. Some of the questions were planted, most of them
covering the anticipated growth of golf in China, the market with the most
potential.
Mickelson won the HSBC Champions two years ago, his first big win overseas,
and is finishing a two-leg stop in Asia having played last week in the
Singapore Open.
Lefty had not won much overseas because he rarely ventured outside the
United States except for the British Open. That changed with the FedEx Cup,
which ended the regular season in America in late September.
"That has given us two-and-a-half months at the end of the year to play
elsewhere throughout the world," Mickelson said.
And it's a responsibility he takes seriously.
"I think that we would love to help grow the game throughout the world,"
Mickelson said. "Our participation helps grow awareness, it can spark
interest in youth to get them started. If we can get kids interested in the
game, I think in 15 to 20 years is when we'll see golf prosper in China."
The $7 million tournament - the richest in Asia - begins Thursday at Sheshan
International Golf Club.
The HSBC Champions received another boost as Cui Dalin, the deputy director
of China's General Administration of Sport and vice president of the Chinese
Olympic Committee, took part in the press conference. He is the most senior
politician to publicly support golf.
It already has been a banner year for golf in Asia.
Yang made the biggest impact. Not only did he become the first Asian-born
major champion, he became the first player to win a major when Woods was
atop the leaderboard going into the final round.
Beyong-Hun An, a 17-year-old South Korean, became the youngest champion of
the U.S. Amateur in August. The HSBC Champions is held one week after the
inaugural Asian Amateur Championship, which was inspired by the leaders of
Augusta National and the Royal & Ancient.
"This event definitely has provided a platform for a lot of Asian golfers to
showcase their skills," Yang said.
It gives another chance for Woods to win at Sheshan International. And now
that it's a World Golf Championship, it is the only one that Woods has
failed to win.

TV Times:
Thu: 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm GOLF
Fri: 2:00 pm - 8:00 pm GOLF
Sat: 11:00 am - 9:00 pm NBC
Sun: 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm NBC
(all times Eastern)

Pairings are just now being announced. Tiger will go out with Steve
Stricker. Will send details as they become available.


Tiger's Presser from a couple of days ago:

Q. Tiger, are you a Raiders fan?
TIGER WOODS: I am. I always have been. I watched Jim Plunkett and Marcus
Allen all of those years, so when they were in L.A., so you know, it's what
I grew up watching.

Q. On Sunday singles, if you had a choice, anyone on the International Team
that you would like to play or anyone that stands out?
TIGER WOODS: You know, it's one of those things where generally I've always
played the guy who is playing the best. Or it might be the person who is
representing that particular country. I've played against Weirsy in Canada.
I played against Vijay here. I played against Ernie in South Africa and Greg
in Australia. So either that or guys who are playing really well; like I got
Goose when he was playing well and I got Vijay when he was playing well
here.

Q. As a competitor, do you want another shot at it?
TIGER WOODS: Whatever happens, happens. Generally, as I said, I've been
playing against the guys who are usually playing the best so, see what
happens.

Q. How tough is it mentally to switch gears when you're trying to beat
somebody individually and now you're chairing for those same guys?
TIGER WOODS: Actually, it's not, because as I've said earlier up there,
getting to know these guys on a different level, being on these teams for so
many years. It's good to see these guys in a different light, and I don't
have a problem cheering for them because they have become friends of mine
over the years, and that's what makes these teams so much special. That's
why guys want to get on these teams.

Q. Sports like to define itself as decades; when you look back on the last
ten years how do you appraise it and what will stick in your mind? A lot was
squeezed in the last ten years for you.
TIGER WOODS: It is but golf-wise a lot has transpired. Personally a lot has
transpired, as well. It's been good and the bad on both. But overall, I have
to say it's been a very positive decade.

Q. Also, it's not like the kids have been without shoes, but this last week,
it was announced that you just hit the billionaire status. That's that like
to learn?
TIGER WOODS: (Chuckles) Well, one, I haven't, so I don't know where that
number came from.

Q. What do you enjoy most about this particular event, is there seemingly a
little bit less amped up pressure than The Ryder Cup, and does that make it
more enjoyable on the whole?
TIGER WOODS: Well, you know, I think I've said this for so many times, is
the difference between The Ryder Cup and The Presidents Cup is all of these
international guys are all members of our tour. Only one who is not this
year is Ryo. The rest of the guys all play out here.
So the fans know all of these guys. We see them week-in and week-out. The
Europeans, it's usually about half the team that are members of our tour,
and sometimes not even that many.
So I think the fans are so accustomed to seeing all 24 guys, that it's a
little bit different in that regard.

Q. Is the camaraderie what you enjoy, the off-time with the guys, doing
stuff together, being competitive and playing ping-pong table, is that all
part of this?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. As I alluded to up there, you get to see these guys
in a different light and you get to hang out, and the friendships you make
on these teams are lifelong. I think that's something that, as I was trying
to say, the guys just really want to make these teams, because we have so
much fun in the team room hanging out and get to know everyone's family, and
you become one big team. I think that's what is just so much fun about it.

Q. Pretty cool about The First Tee, the charity, as well.
TIGER WOODS: What they have done around the country has been pretty
phenomenal, the participation in the grass roots level and getting people
more excited about the game but also teaching life lessons and using the
things that are available to us in the game of golf.
My dad has always alluded to the golf being a microcosm of life and that's
one thing The First Tee has done.

Q. How do you prepare for alternate-shot, a format that your record has not
been as good as other formats?
TIGER WOODS: Alternate-shot my record has been good. It's been fourball
where it has not been as good as I would like to have it. It's just one of
those things where you've got to make birdies at the right time and make a
lot of them. I've played matches where I've shot 63 in fourball and have
lost. I've been involved in a couple of matches where we were at 11-under
par and lost.
So you just don't know what's going to happen.

Q. You're used to scrutiny obviously throughout your whole career, but
seemingly not as much as there is at The Ryder Cup does that make it better,
easier? Obviously you're used to it anyway, but there's not the venom that
you see at The Ryder Cup; does it make it more easier to deal with?
TIGER WOODS: I don't know how the other players feel, but certainly I have a
lot of responsibilities at these Cups, either Cup.

Q. I guess if you don't play well you'll hear it no matter. What?
TIGER WOODS: Either way. I play well and it's not enough and I've played
poorly and you're not very good. So it is what it is.

Q. What holes did you enjoy playing today?
TIGER WOODS: We played them all, so it's just a different order and trying
to get used to the routing change, the order. And how we are going to pair
up and how we are going to play alternate-shot, I think that's something
that we are going to have to try and figure out tonight and who is going to
get the most shots, most putts. We'll see how all that plays out.

Q. Did you play the City either year you were at Stanford?
TIGER WOODS: No.

Q. You had played Harding a couple of times?
TIGER WOODS: I played Harding when I was in junior golf. I played here and
Presidio and a lot of that stuff, yeah.

Q. The ball flight here, guys must be -- you know about it, the ball doesn't
go as far here.
TIGER WOODS: It is right now because it's warm. In the morning, certainly
it's not going to go as far but as it warms up, today it's in the mid 70s,
so the ball is moving.

Q. Conditions good overall, fairways?
TIGER WOODS: Fairways are great, the greens are not what they were four
years ago but also not as bad as people made them out to be, either.

Well, he lost the battle but won the war! Congrats to Tiger on winning the
FedEx Cup! Here are his post-round comments:

LAURA HILL: Let me be the first to welcome and congratulate our 2009
FedExCup champion. I know second in a tournament isn't typically what makes
you smile necessarily, but you have to be pretty pleased with the way you
capped off the season here.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, to win the FedExCup and to be as consistent as I have
been all year is something that I'm very proud of. As I alluded to earlier
out there on the green, there's so many unknowns at the beginning of the
season, and to play as consistently as I have, I think it's nine top-twos
this year, I certainly wouldn't have expected that going into my first
event, the Match Play, to end up where I'm at right now. I'm very proud of
that and proud of what Hank has done and my trainers to get me to this
point.

Q. How does this feel? This is kind of a weird one.
TIGER WOODS: It feels certainly not like it did a couple years ago when I
won the tournament. (Laughter.) By seven, eight shots, whatever it was. So
yeah, that felt a little bit better than it did today. I hit the ball well
enough to make a few more birdies, and I just didn't make any putts this
week from about 10 to 20 feet. I missed a lot of putts.

Q. Is this something on a morning after you kind of look back at a
tournament and say, okay, move on, is this something where you can probably
appreciate this trophy more tomorrow than you can today?
TIGER WOODS: I think so. I think so. I think it's just one of those things
where obviously I'm a little disappointed I didn't win the Championship
because I was right there. But the FedExCup is something very similar to
what you have for Player of the Year. It's a cumulative total and something
that you have to be consistent the entire year, and it's something that I
was.

Q. At least it worked out that way.
TIGER WOODS: Exactly.

Q. Just curious whether you were aware of what was going on with the other
guys and your status on the FedEx thing since you had sort of fallen out of
contention to win the day. Stricker had actually moved past you in FedEx
points there briefly, and there was one interesting scenario where you
actually needed Phil to win in order to win the $10 million the way things
were bouncing around out there. It was very bizarre.
TIGER WOODS: To be honest with you, no. All I know is I was three and four
back, and I just needed to push, needed a run of two or three birdies to get
me right back in the ballgame. Unfortunately that run didn't happen until
15, and that's a little late.
After I birdied 15, birdied 16, I was there on 17, and I saw where Phil
ended up, short of the green. I said, well, if I make this putt, he doesn't
get up-and-down, at least I have a chance to force a playoff. And I didn't
make my putt. It was a good putt, too. That's basically when it set in.
After Phil got up-and-down, I didn't hole it on the last hole to force him
into extra holes, and that's a little bit deflating.

Q. Third year of the FedEx points system in the Playoffs and the third
different system. Do you like how it is now, how it shakes out? Do you agree
with it? Do you think it should be more points towards the end or fewer
points?
TIGER WOODS: You know, to be honest with you, there's been three different
systems, and I only played it two of the three. You know, this year we had a
lot of kind of unknowns going into the Playoffs this year, how it was going
to turn out because of the resetting and guys could have gone the entire
year without winning an event and still won the FedExCup. But you know, you
have to play -- the whole idea is to play well at the end, and that's kind
of how it's structured. You just have to -- it is a system. You just have to
play well at the right times, for instance, with what Heath did by winning
the first playoff event. He all of a sudden jumped right into the third
spot.
Yeah, the resetting, you can play well, you can win 20 events throughout the
year, and reset and it's a certain number. But it is what it is. And it's
very similar to what they do with NASCAR, what they try to do with Playoffs
in other sports. It's just kind of our version.

Q. Moving forward, as you approach Jack's 73-win mark, can you articulate
what that milestone means to you, considering, of course, in the larger
scheme of things, you've also won 14 majors in the mix?
TIGER WOODS: Well, you have to be consistent day in and day out in order to
win a lot of golf tournaments. A lot of the events that you -- if you're
able to get that high a number, you don't always have your best stuff to
still win golf tournaments because you know how to manage your game, you
know how to get it around. That's something Jack has always alluded to. You
have to understand how to get the ball around, not necessarily win the
tournament but keep yourself in the tournament, and you never know what can
happen at the end. That's something that I've done over the years and have
really learned how to do it.
To get as many wins as I've had, and hopefully I can win some more and win
some more major titles, that's what you have to do. I've been in contention
a few times this year in major championships to win, and you can't win them
all, but the whole idea is to be there each and every time, and if you are
there each and every time, just like Jack seemed like he was, you're going
to win your share.

Q. Just to look ahead at next year, would you prefer to take a week break
after Boston and then go Chicago, Atlanta, Ryder Cup, or --
TIGER WOODS: Considering what next year's Cup, where it's located and what
we have to do, you're probably better off to not play -- you probably want
to play one event here and then one overseas, the Ryder Cup.
You probably don't want to go two, week off, then three in a row, with the
last one being the Ryder Cup overseas. If you want to be fresh -- granted,
we could have the Europeans play in this thing and wear them out, too.

Q. Just following up on that, how much of a grind has it been since Buick? I
mean, this is basically -- I know there's a Presidents Cup to go, but it's
basically the end of the season. How much of a grind has it been?
And secondly, how difficult is it to always bring your best stuff day in,
day out?
TIGER WOODS: You know, it's been an unbelievable grind. I was criticized at
the beginning of the year for not playing enough. But that was -- I didn't
want to hurt myself at the beginning of the season. I was coming back from a
reconstructive knee surgery. That's the last thing I want to do is stretch
out the ligament and now the surgery was all for naught. I didn't do that. I
got better and more healthy and more explosive as the year went on, and I
was able to finish off these events because of how I managed my year. It was
a long stretch to play this much golf.
There are days when, yeah, you are a little bit flat, and you still have to
get yourself up to play. That's part of the challenge. When you play a lot
of events, and I've been in contention a lot, so that adds to the stress,
and you start managing your practice rounds, your practice schedules, how
many balls you hit after a round. If you start managing all that to make
sure you have enough energy day in and day out to bring it and shoot the
lowest score you possibly can the next day.

Q. Just as a follow to that, is it mentally grinding, and does that affect
putting more than it does ball-striking do you think?
TIGER WOODS: No. The mental grind certainly is there because you're there in
contention a lot, and that adds to how tired you become, and then you do it
week in and week out and week in and week out, and it adds to it. I think
the Buick, Bridgestone, PGA Championship there, I went one, one, two, that
was a long haul there. Going into this playoff event it was nice to have
that one week off, to get that break, because I certainly needed it, and I
certainly needed the break after Cog Hill, as well, to be fresh for this
event, because it is a lot to ask if you're in contention. If you're not in
contention, it doesn't really wear on you that bad.

Q. A year ago at this time where were you at in regard to the rehab, and did
you pay any attention to last year's TOUR Championship?
TIGER WOODS: I saw the last two holes, actually. That was it.
As far as my rehab schedule, I wasn't even close to making a golf swing yet.
That was still way off.

Q. Crutches, just on the couch, or --
TIGER WOODS: It was still swollen. I hadn't got full range of motion yet.
Yeah, I was still another couple months away before I kind of felt somewhat
human again.

Q. The seven-event stretch here, three wins, three seconds. How would you
rate that compared to any of your good runs in your career? It's obviously
been a pretty good one.
TIGER WOODS: As I said earlier, I'm very proud of that, how I've played this
year, and definitely towards the end of the season. To be as consistent as I
was day in and day out, it's not easy to do.
But certainly I've had a few things going my way. You make a few putts here
and there, you turn tides, I hit the ball really well at pretty much every
event, and I really managed my game well. That's something that I've gotten
so much better at.

Q. A unique situation at the ceremony where you and Phil both get trophies.
What's your sense of who was happier, you or him, with your respective
trophy?
TIGER WOODS: I don't know, that's a good question. I'm sure I would probably
be more happy tomorrow than I am right now, because you're in the moment
trying to win this event. Winning takes care of everything, just like if you
win consistently throughout the year, you get the Jack Nicklaus award, you
get the Arnold Palmer award, you get the Byron Nelson Award for being
consistent. But when you're in the moment out there, I'm trying to win a
golf tournament, I'm trying to beat Phil, he's trying to beat me, Kenny,
Sean, we're all there, and it was just a great leaderboard. Come tomorrow,
I'm sure I'll feel a lot better.

Q. You know that $9 million is cash this time.
TIGER WOODS: This time, I know that. I know. A little different than a
couple years ago.

Q. Does it take a couple days before it shows up as a deposit?
TIGER WOODS: I hope not.

Q. I want to get a comment on Phil, who looks like he's back and flying
high, and he's been through some family issues which I'm sure I can relate
to with your dad, pretty serious crisis, and just your thoughts on what he's
been through and being back in the winner's circle after kind of being lost
for a while?
TIGER WOODS: You have to understand he's going to take time off after what
happens. That's life. Life is so much -- you start understanding, life is so
much more important than golf. The priority should never be golf. When you
have a loved one like that who is struggling, who is hurting, golf is as far
away from your mind as it can possibly be. I certainly have never dealt with
what he's had to deal with, just a parent. You don't want to play golf. You
want to be there with your family members.
And for him to -- and he's got kids to consider and to take care of. These
are all things that once that got situated, once that was more under control
and more of a known, then he started playing more golf and started coming
out here and playing. It's going to take a little time to build back up into
it. You can see that he's started having little bursts of playing better and
better until obviously this week.

Q. Just one last on Phil again. You like to obviously get out there and win
and everyone is playing good and then you win, and there's something about
you that enjoys that. Would you like to see him back there and playing
against him when he's at his best next year?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you? If you look at my career so
far, I've had probably three main guys I've played against since the
inception of my career, Phil, Ernie and Vijay, where we've gone at it
consistently throughout my 13 years out here. So certainly I would love to
go at it again with him. We've had certain runs where we've battled a lot,
and I think with those three main guys I've been consistent throughout my
entire career. It's been a lot of fun. That's kind of been my generation of
guys to deal with for over a decade.

Q. Similar question, back in the day it was Jack, Arnie, that's when golf
was at its best, and it's been said that golf was never better at this high
level than when Phil ramps it all and challenges you. Do you sense that
yourself?
TIGER WOODS: Well, Phil, as we all know, he's got the talent, and he can
make a bunch of birdies, and with his short game, even if he hits a couple
poor shots, he can still get up-and-down. That's how you have to be to win a
lot of tournaments, which he has. He's won just -- I don't know what the
number is.

Q. 37.
TIGER WOODS: 37? Yeah. I mean, look at Vijay, and as I said, the three guys
I've played against, Vijay, and Ernie hasn't won as many here, but globally
he has, and obviously Phil. All three guys have great short games. And when
their ball-striking comes around with a combination of that short game,
they're not making a whole lot of bogeys. It is fun to play against guys
when they're in full flight like that.
LAURA HILL: Tiger, congratulations. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

Tiger tees off at 1:45 with Kenny Perry. Perry leads Tiger by two strokes.
Explaining the FedEx Cup scenarios is almost as complicated as explaining
the wild card concept for baseball or football! Here is a site explaining
the possibilities if you are interested:
http://www.pgatour.com/2009/tournaments/r060/09/16/fedexcup_scenarios/index.
html

Now here are Tiger's comments:

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome Tiger Woods to the media center here, a
third-round, find yourself in the final group with not only a chance to win
the TOUR Championship, but also a strong chance to win the FedExCup. If you
could, maybe some opening comments on today's round.
TIGER WOODS: I hit the ball well all day today, and as I was telling Roger
earlier, it was amazing how I had about four or five putts today that the
grain was kind of going up the hill, and I didn't know which one to play, do
I play grain or do I play slope. I got fooled a few times there. A couple of
putts went up the hill with the grain, and other putts got slung on the
slope. Just one of those days where I just happened to be in some
interesting little spots, even though I had pretty makeable putts.

Q. If it ended now, you wouldn't win the tournament obviously but you'd win
the FedExCup. Would that be kind of weird, or how would that make you feel?
TIGER WOODS: I'd much rather just win the tournament, and the FedExCup will
take care of itself. As of right now, I'm two back and have an opportunity
to win the tournament, and that's what I'm going to focus on tomorrow.

Q. In the last group do you ever find yourself looking at the player that
you're playing with, and do you ever see them studying you?
TIGER WOODS: Of course you see what he's doing. I mean, you're right there
with him. You always enjoy being in the last group because then you can
understand what the guy is doing with you, and on top of that, if guys make
a few putts early and get going ahead of you, if you birdie the same holes,
it's a moot point. So you have the ability to look at what they're doing
ahead of you but also observe what the guy in the group is doing, as well.

Q. They put the Playoffs, the FedExCup together hoping to get the big names
kind of at the end with a chance to win all the money, and that's pretty
much what's happened this week. Does it make it any more exciting for you to
have all kind of the big names, the best players right there at the top on
the final day?
TIGER WOODS: If you look at it, these are the same guys who have played well
all year, so it's not really a shocker to see the same guys up at the top of
the board. They've been doing it all year. KP has won a couple times this
year, and most of the guys have played well. So that's what you're going to
get. These guys have been the most consistent, and they've played the best
all year, and here we go.

Q. Was it the grain again on that par-saving putt on 7 that you had?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, that's another one right there. The grain is going up the
hill, and do I play grain or do I play slope? I played grain on that one. It
didn't take it, the slope took it.
Paddy did the same thing. We talked about it going to the next tee. It's
hard to read putts like that when the grain is going straight uphill and how
much do you allow for the grain to hold it going against the hill. And we
both read it wrong.

Q. You're playing with a 49 year old man tomorrow who still pounds it out
there at amazing lengths. Is he a bit of a marvel, I guess, at this age that
he's still doing the things that he's doing? He's older than Vijay and Vijay
looks like he's running out of gas a little bit.
TIGER WOODS: I have to say, it must be Kenny's work out routine. (Laughter.)

Q. What's the difference between the two? I mean, clearly one guy is a
gymaholic and the other guy is just kind of a Lietzke type.
TIGER WOODS: Well, one has obviously worked extremely hard on his game his
entire life and has certainly won a lot of golf tournaments. I mean, Vijay
has won many more tournaments than KP has, not just here in the United
States but all around the world. I think that's a tribute to his work ethic.
He's really worked hard.
And KP, golf is not his number one priority, his family is. He has other
interests off the golf course such as racing, which he loves to do, and
certainly that takes time away from his practicing. I mean, he doesn't
really -- KP, I think he's made, I think, a resurgence over the last few
years, I think just because he's seen that 50 is coming up.

Q. Is it possible if Kenny worked as hard on his game as Vijay has, he
wouldn't be as good because that's not in his makeup?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, probably. You could probably say the same about Lietzke.
Bruce worked hard in the off-season, would he have played better or would he
have played worse. Both guys work the ball only one way, so it's very easy
to come back to the game of golf when you only hit it one way.

Q. For the guys that are behind you that are trying to win, Kenny and a
couple other guys, their hopes for the FedExCup are based on you not playing
very well tomorrow. I would take it you don't like their chances very much,
do you?
TIGER WOODS: Well, as I said earlier, I'm just focused on winning the golf
tournament tomorrow. I'm two back. Even though I had a one-shot lead, I shot
under par today and got passed. Hopefully tomorrow I can make a few more
putts and then get it rolling tomorrow.

Q. When you see guys making moves in front of you today, Mickelson and a
bunch of guys, Kenny, are shooting low scores making birdies, how hard is it
for you to stay patient and just stick to your game plan?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I was near the lead, if not one back or tied for the lead
most of the day. At one point I was three back until I birdied 15. You know,
it's just one of those things where you have to understand that not a lot of
guys are between you and the lead, and granted, some of the guys who played
good rounds were playing themselves into the tournament. I was already in
the tournament, and just needed to hit a couple more putts and I would have
been right where Kenny is at. I felt like I did what I wanted to tee to
green, I just didn't make enough putts today.

Q. Can you talk about the bunker shot on 18 and how big a shot it was?
TIGER WOODS: It was a pretty good shot. That was a pretty good one, because
the sand is so heavy here. There's so much sand on the faces, which makes it
-- you have to hit the ball so hard, and my intent was actually to hit that
ball over the green. That's how hard a shot I was trying to hit, because if
you played just a normal bunker shot, it's going to come up short, so you
have to take the chance of -- internally dialing it up and saying, look,
I've got to really hit this ball hard. I've got to hit it over the green,
and it should be pretty good.
The same thing happened on 9; I was up on the face again, and there's so
much sand there that I play it like a normal bunker shot and I came up well
short.

Q. Just kind of along those lines, I would reflect back to 7. When you get
rough like this, there's some thinking that it's sometimes better to be in
the bunker than it is the rough. Is that not the case this week?
TIGER WOODS: Not this week, no, there's so much sand here, and the way
they've raked it up, there's -- it's sitting down, and there's a lot of
little crevices out there that your ball can roll into. The ball is just not
sitting up like it would in most bunkers, it's sitting down. At least in the
rough you feel like you can -- the majority of the time here this week get a
good lie where you can get it to the green. Some of these fairway bunkers
are a little sketchy where you can get the ball in the green or not.

Q. Have you had any conversations with Fred Couples about who you'd like to
partner with at the Presidents Cup?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I'd like to play with a few guys. I'm really good friends
with Stricks, and obviously Jim and I played together for years. Sean I
haven't played with. I played with Lucas a few times but never in a team
competition like this. There are a few guys I'd like to tee it up with,
certainly.
CHRIS REIMER: Tiger, thank you.

Sorry to be so late with this info! The Tour Championship tees off today at
East Lake Country Club in Atlanta. Tiger is paired with Steve Stricker and
tees off at 2:05 p.m. Eastern Time.

TV:
Thursday -- Golf Channel, 1 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
Friday -- Golf Channel, 1 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
Saturday -- NBC, 2 - 6 p.m.
Sunday -- NBC 2 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Tiger's Wednesday Press Conference:
LAURA HILL: Tiger, thanks for coming in. Let's just start off with your
thoughts and expectations coming into this week and the finale of the
FedExCup.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it's been a good year so far, culminating here at East
Lake. I'm surprised, I just played nine holes, I'm surprised at how playable
the golf course is. The fairways are pretty wet, obviously, picking up a
little bit of mud. But the greens are unbelievable. They're firm. They're
rolling out. You know, the deal with SubAir, these greens are -- it's pretty
impressive how it takes the moisture out.
Overall I think we're looking forward to the week. We've got a great field
here, as always, on just a wonderful golf course.

Q. We might have to go all the way back to Las Vegas to get an answer for
this one, but have you ever thought about money standing over a putt in a
pro event, and what is the possibility of $11.35 million on the 18th green
here on Sunday do to you?
TIGER WOODS: You don't look at it like that. Even when I was playing my
rookie season, you know, you just looked at just trying to beat everybody in
the field, and that would kind of take care of itself. You look at -- at the
time I was always looking at Money List because I was trying to get in the
top 150, trying to get the unlimited exemptions the following year.
But other than that, it was just you'd play as hard as you can, and at the
end then you'd like a look at it. But when you're inside the ropes, you
don't look at it like that. You look at where do I place the ball and beat
these guys.

Q. Even this week?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. Winning always takes care of itself.

Q. Outside of majors, how do you rate the quality of your victories? Is it
the strength of the field, the difficulty of the course or how you played,
something like that?
TIGER WOODS: You know, I think that if you look at this year, I've won on
some pretty good golf courses against I think some pretty good fields, and
that's something that I've always been proud of is if you can beat some of
the tougher fields of the year. Obviously not winning a major, those are the
best fields that we get, but outside of that, most of my victories came at
some of the more difficult golf courses and more of the top players played
in some of the tournaments I played in.

Q. Besides just the monetary rewards, what are the characteristics that you
see in this event that does elevate it to being something more than the
garden variety stock?
TIGER WOODS: You know, if you look at years past before we had this format,
it was basically the hottest players for the year. Now it's a little
different because you get some of the hotter players towards the end of the
year who are in this event. But generally you get the Top 30 players. Most
of these guys have had just very consistent seasons, and equate it to the
old Money List, the Top 30 players meant that you had a very consistent year
and you had, as I said, the hottest players for the year.
This is a little bit different, though, because you actually get some of the
hotter players that have played later in the year, for instance, like Heath.
He played as well as he did at the end of the season. Or Marc Leishman
playing as well as he has. So we get some of the hotter players who are
playing right now. It adds for a little bit more excitement.

Q. Obviously the scheduling of this tournament, there's the break because
there's The Presidents Cup and guys have talked for the first couple years
of how the scheduling should come about. There seemed to be this year a lot
of momentum going through the first three and then the week off and then
this. Do you have any sense that there was a loss of momentum in the TOUR
schedule, and is there any solution to that?
TIGER WOODS: The guys have talked about it I think since the inception of
how to go about it, three in a row or two on, one off, two on. Just trying
to get the right balance. This year I think it worked out pretty good. Going
forward it might change it, depending on where the Ryder Cup falls, things
like that. But I think this year it was a pretty good balance.

Q. How would you describe your season this year, and do you still in part
define your seasons by how you do in majors?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. I mean, major championships are the biggest events,
and unfortunately I didn't win any of the four. But as far as the season,
it's certainly been one of my most consistent seasons I've ever had. To have
this many high finishes, I think it's pretty good. I think excluding a match
play event, if you just do stroke play events, two of them outside the Top
10, and one of them I was in 11th, I think that's a pretty good season.

Q. When the Olympics were held here in Atlanta in '96, there was a big press
conference in Augusta to try to get golf in the Olympics, and it's kind of a
long shot thing that failed. Now America has a strong chance to get an
Olympics this year, and golf has a very strong chance to get in the Olympics
for the 2016. Do you think it's been kind of an evolutionary path maybe? I
don't know if it started here, but to get golf into the forefront of the
Olympic movement?
TIGER WOODS: I think so. Just like most sports, it takes time. Golf I think
is a wonderful sport to have in the Olympics just because of the history and
tradition of sportsmanship, how we play the game, the etiquette. Our sport
is second to none in any of these regards. Guys call shots on themselves.
You know, you don't find that in any other sport, where if you make a
mistake guys will call it on themselves. I think it fits perfectly into the
Olympic spirit.

Q. In 2006 when you didn't play here, what kept you away?
TIGER WOODS: I can't remember. (Laughter.)

Q. 2006.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I'm sorry. (Laughter.)

Q. Adam Scott happened to win. Was that not the year you went to Shanghai?
TIGER WOODS: I don't know. You'd have to research that. I'm sorry.

Q. Tiger, do you look at this as a must-win in terms of -- I mean, there's
always various scenarios like Furyk had finished second, and you could
finish fourth and not win the thing, and there's all of these strange little
scenarios. A, does this matter, and if you don't win the FedExCup, do you
still think, I've had a pretty good year; and then B, do you look at this as
some kind of a -- I don't want to use the word Super Bowl, but some sort of
grand finale that I must win this week?
TIGER WOODS: You always have the same approach and same attitude that you
try and win every tournament that you enter. So whether it's a regular TOUR
event, a playoff event, World Golf Championship, PLAYERS, whatever it may
be, it's the same intensity. You bring the same attitude to play.
There are a lot of things at stake this week, but as far as my season is
concerned, I think I've had a very good season, a very consistent one, and
one I'm very proud of. Obviously you'd like to win the FedExCup and win the
whole thing, but we still have 72 holes and we'll see how it turns out.
As you said, a lot of scenarios there that could pan out, but you play well,
you win it, and you take care of everything else.

Q. As a quick follow to that, do you look at it as like people say the
Patriots go 18 and 0, lose the Super Bowl, it's a bad year. So for you it's
not like that?
TIGER WOODS: No, it's not. Golf is a little bit different. The nature of our
sport is a little bit different in that regard. You try and have this
season-ending championship be our big event, but there's four other ones
that are pretty big, too.

Q. You said you just played nine holes outside. You checked the conditions
of the course. At this stage in your career, do you feel like you need less
time on a layout that you're familiar with and have had success with to get
prepared?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I mean, you just know how to play the golf course. You
know the sight lines. You know where to aim it, how to play it, where the
ball is going to finish. I always play 18 holes if I haven't played the golf
course before. But this golf course I've played for so many years, even
though it's changed just a little bit, I wanted to play the back nine
because I know 17 has been changed since last time I played it. It's been
moved down the lake, and I didn't play last year. I wanted to take a look at
that hole. Even the grass is different on the greens. How you play the hole
itself is the same.

Q. Just to follow up a minute, in your view what would winning the FedExCup
mean?
TIGER WOODS: It means that I've had a very consistent year and a very -- I
played well at the end, because you have to do that.

Q. Given the soft conditions out there and the fact that so much is at
stake, do you change your strategy at all going into this tournament? Is it
more like a boat race? Or are you going to kind of do your usual plod and
see what happens?
TIGER WOODS: The way the greens are receiving, you can't be too aggressive,
especially if we play the ball down. Like today we picked up quite a bit of
mud on every tee shot, so you can't be as specific on where you land the
golf ball coming into the greens, so you have to be a little bit more
conservative. We'll see how the guys play and how the guys attack it.
And also a lot depends on whether or not you have a clean ball or not. If
your ball hits and it rolls off, or we play it down and it rolled out, at
least you've got a pretty good ball, it's clean. And then you can get a
little bit more aggressive. But other than that, I don't see the guys
shooting really low numbers.

Q. Because the money is so big, I mean, I know you just said you don't think
about that or you can't think about that, but if you did have a putt on the
18th and knew that was at stake, does it in any way compare to the putt at
Torrey Pines last year, the 2000 at Valhalla, where you knew you had to have
those? Can you equate it at all to that?
TIGER WOODS: You know, I'll probably equate it to this: When you have a putt
like I did in 2000 to get into a playoff for the opportunity to win three
straight majors and do something that hadn't been done since Hogan, when
you're over that putt, all you think about is where you're playing that
ball. All the other stuff takes care of itself. It's nothing else but
starting that ball on that line with the correct speed; that's it.
You know, when I had that putt last year at the U.S. Open to get into a
playoff, again, it was all about starting the ball on that line and making
that putt. All the other things, they kind of -- you don't really think
about that. You think about just making that putt.

Q. Is that maybe the reason you've been successful with that? Most people
would think about what it means.
TIGER WOODS: Why? You have plenty of time after that.

Q. Was that ever a lesson you learned as a kid.
TIGER WOODS: I've never had a problem with that.

Q. Ever?
TIGER WOODS: No. As you know, you've seen me play enough, I kind of get into
the moment of playing and I get into my own little world and my own little
zone, and I think that's just how I've always played.
I get into my little world and my intensity just allows me to kind of go
there.

Q. We saw you at the football game the other night. Besides the friendship,
what do you gain from watching Peyton in a situation like that as opposed to
Jordan or Federer or some of your other buddies who are pro athletes?
TIGER WOODS: Well, no one is trying to rip Jordan's head off, maybe unless
he's playing the Pistons. (Laughter).
But overall it's just amazing the speed and how fast a decision he has to
make. As we all know, I mean, the Colts, their defense is not the most
powerful defense, so he has to score just about every single opportunity,
and he does. He brings his team right on down there. You know he's got to
throw it, and you still can't stop him. That's impressive.

Q. I know it's a win and you win the whole thing, but at some point do you
kind of take a look at what the four others behind you might have to do and
where you would have to finish? Do you take a look at that at all before or
during?
TIGER WOODS: If I'm on top of the leaderboard, I look at the next four guys,
yeah.
LAURA HILL: Tiger, thanks for coming in. Good luck this week.

Rex Hoggard on thegolfchannel.com:

With a third-round 62 and a Sunday stroll with a sheepish smile at the BMW,
Tiger Woods put the Player of the Year debate to bed once and for all.
Unless Steve Stricker wins the Tour Championship by a dozen strokes and
sweeps the fall series events, which is highly unlikely given the
Wisconsinites affinity for deer-hunting season, PGA Tour headquarters should
save the postage for balloting and just ship the POY hardware to Isleworth
Country Club, c/o Woods, Tiger.
Asked following his Cog Hill cakewalk if he’d turned the POY race into
another foregone conclusion, Woods, who has won the Jack Nicklaus Trophy
nine out of the last 12 years, was coy but not cryptic.
“We’ll let the players vote on that,” Woods offered with a smile. “I'd say
my name is up there on that list.”
Truth is, the only question that remained after Cog Hill was whether that
special delivery should include the Comeback Player of the Year award as
well.
Regardless of what happens next week at East Lake – a mathematical, albeit
contrived, race for $10 million – it’s difficult, if not impossible, to
imagine any player who overcame more in the last 15 months.
The facts are these: Woods finished second at last year’s Masters and had
knee surgery to get him through the U.S. Open, where he limped and winced
his way to an historic victory. A day later he underwent surgery to repair a
torn ACL and the world later learned that he’d won that Open with a stress
fracture to his left tibia.

In the weeks and months that followed Woods had to rebuild the muscle in his
left leg which had atrophied and under the watchful eye of swing coach Hank
Haney, adjust his swing to help relieve the pressure and torque he was
placing on his left knee.
Woods returned to the Tour in February at the WGC-Accenture Match Play
Championship and has steadily resumed his assault on golf’s record books.
His BMW blowout was his sixth victory this year – No. 71 on the big board,
two behind Nicklaus’ career haul – and since missing the cut at the British
Open, where Woods said all aspects of his game began to click, his line is a
powerball special: 1-1-2-2-11-1.
“Coming back from an ACL surgery to have the year that he has had is just a
great accomplishment,” Haney said in an e-mail to GolfChannel.com on Sunday.
Not everyone, however, is ready to give Woods the 2009 post-season award
double. Although no one questions the scope of his accomplishments or the
distance he had to travel since last June to reach them, the Comeback POY
hardware has always gone to a player who, for one reason or another, faced
the prospect of life without golf and battled their way back.
Among the most recent winners of the Comeback POY are Dudley Hart (2008),
who took much of 2007 off after his wife, Suzanne, was diagnosed with a
non-malignant tumor in her lung. He rebounded in ’08 to finish 12th in the
final FedEx Cup standings.
Olin Browne got the nod in ’05, battling back from shoulder and back
injuries to win that season’s Deutsche Bank Championship.
The question then that many players must ask is whether Woods’ comeback was
from similar depths?
“He had a phenomenal year last year, better than almost any other player in
the history of the game,” Stewart Cink said. “I just don’t think it’s in the
spirit of the award. I mean, no disrespect to Tiger, it’s just tough for me
to think of him as the Comeback Player of the Year.”
Cink’s point is valid. In 2008 Woods went 4-for-6, including that one-legged
gem at Torrey Pines, didn’t finish worst than fifth place and was a
three-putt at the 14th hole away from green jacket No. 5 at Augusta
National.
By definition, it would be hard to characterize Woods’ six-victory 2009, a
card that’s missing only a major championship, a “comeback” over a
four-victory ’08.
“He has so many awards it probably doesn’t matter to him anyway,” Cink said.
And it may be a question that will likely be lost amid the Tour’s voting
process for post-season awards.
Between the final meeting of the Player Advisory Council on Oct. 13 and the
end of the season, the 16 PAC members and four player directors on the
Policy Board, a group that includes Cink, will nominate up to three players
for the Comeback award. The top 3 players who received nominations are
placed on the official ballot and any Tour member who played at least 15
events will have 30 days to make their voice be heard.
Even if Woods is not among the top 3 players nominated, there is room on the
ballot to write him in but it’s unlikely he would receive enough votes to
secure the award as a “write in.”
Although Hart and Browne were clearly qualified for Comeback POY
consideration, Stricker won the award in back-to-back years (2006 and ’07),
which begs the question: How can one comeback from a comeback?
Stricker is one of the circuit’s most endearing players and his rally from
the depths of a prolonged slump in 2006 was “Rudy-esque.” Prior to 2006,
when Stricker finished inside the top 25 10 times and was 34th in earnings,
he hadn’t completed a year inside the top 150 in earnings since 2002. He
followed that with his first victory since 2001 the next year and a
fourth-place finish in earnings. An improvement? Sure. But he had already
re-established himself among the Tour elite.
Woods’ bid for the comeback award is also aided by a limited list of
potential candidates. In fact, when pressed for a potential nominee Cink
paused for a long moment before conceding that he could think of none.
On Sunday at Cog Hill, Woods compared his play in 2009 to those halcyon
years of 2000 and 2006, and he alluded to the demons he wrestled with during
his recovery last year.
“There was so many different things that I didn't know, and I hadn't played
competitively since the (U.S.) Open. A lot of guys had played well, and I
hadn't played at all. So there was a lot of uncertainty,” Woods said. “To
come back and be, as I said, this consistent feels pretty good.”
Paul Goydos once astutely observed that Woods is, “the most underrated
player ever.” It may stretch the bounds of reason and the definition of the
award, but to ignore the physical and emotional toll of ACL surgery would be
to cheapen the accomplishment. And that’s just not right

Alan Shipnuck of SI.com interviews Hank Haney, Tiger’s coach:

Instead of fielding readers' questions this week, I thought I'd thought I'd
turn the floor over to one dedicated reader of this column, Hank Haney. On
Sunday night we had a lively 25-minute phone conversation. I was in the
press room at the BMW Championship, and he was calling from Dallas.
I've always liked Hank. He's a sweet guy. Maybe too sweet, because being
Tiger Woods's swing coach puts him in an impossible position in which
criticism is inevitable. When Tiger wins, it's because of Tiger's talent;
when Tiger loses, it's Hank's fault. In recent weeks I had been a small part
of this chorus, and Hank expressed his displeasure in a series of spicy text
messages. We hugged it out on Sunday night.
"I didn't get into this looking for any credit," Haney said. "But I don't
understand where so much of the blame comes from. Some of what gets written
is almost comical. But I'm a human, you're a human, some of these things do
hurt. I guess the great thing about the position I'm in is that I only have
to please one person."
He's clearly doing that. At the BMW, Tiger was effusive in his praise of
Haney. After his spectacular 62 on Saturday, Woods addressed the state of
his game: "I feel that my overall plane and my swing and my release and how
I play now is just so much more efficient. Bad shots aren't what they used
to be, and that's what we were trying to get to. Anybody can play when
they're hot, but it's how poor are your mis-hits, can you control them, and
more importantly, can you fix it?
"Overall I've gotten a better understanding of my swing over the years
working with Hank. You hit a couple bad shots like I did at No. 1, how I
over-hooked it there, and then immediately I fixed it, and then I hit a
sweet little low fading 4-iron into the second hole. That's what you have to
do all the time."
Says Haney, "It is always satisfying for me to see Tiger do well. To have
him say he has a better understanding of his swing, better control of his
ball, it makes me very proud of him as a student."
Haney took this opportunity to address a couple of familiar criticisms about
Woods's game.
"Everyone likes to peck at Tiger about his driving," he said. "He's now
sixth in total driving for the season. It's hard to get much better than
that. And what no one ever points out is that his stats are skewed because
he only plays the really hard golf courses with really penal setups. At
Kapalua" -- which Woods skips -- "it's literally impossible to miss a
fairway. There's a bunch of other easy setups he never plays. You take the
guys who don't play all the majors and invitationals and maybe not all of
the playoff events, and it's a totally different Tour in some ways, but
Tiger's numbers are still way up there."
As for the putting woes that have plagued Woods off-and-on for much of this
year, Haney expressed no concern, echoing Tiger's comments all week. Woods
rolled his ball beautifully at the BMW, and on Sunday night he was asked
what he did differently. "Absolutely nothing," he said, unable to suppress a
smile.
Haney added: "People don't acknowledge this, but putting is one part of the
game where luck is involved. It's not a completely smooth surface. Grass is
not always predictable. If Tiger was putting on a pool table, I'd bet on him
every time. But on a golf course, with all the variables, sometimes the
putts go in, sometimes they don't. Nobody makes them all. Certainly he's
made more than most. It would be foolish to change the mechanics of one of
the greatest putters of all time."
In the wake of Woods's blowout victory, many talked about his having
reclaimed the intimidating aura that was taken away by Y.E. Yang. After
finishing in fourth place, a whopping 9 strokes back, Sean O'Hair told me on
Sunday, "The guy is just a stud, simple as that. I was just hoping he
wouldn't make a mockery of us, but I'm afraid he did."
Haney has a counterintuitive take. "There's a media obsession about these
big victories, but I don't think they mean as much as people want to
believe," he says. "It's not like Tiger can take any of the eight shots with
him to the Tour Championship. Certainly Tiger doesn't talk much about it. He
just wants to win; he doesn't care by how many. All [a big margin of
victory] means is that a great player had a great week. He said himself that
he plays the game differently now, he thinks about it differently."
Indeed, last week Tiger discussed his turn-of-the-century blowouts in
vaguely disparaging terms. "I almost had to play aggressively because I
didn't really have too many shots to work with," he said. "I didn't have the
ability to change my trajectories like I do now, change the shapes and
change the spins."
In other words, he was basically a home-run hitter, likely to go deep or
strike out. Now he enjoys a much higher batting average but still has plenty
of power to all fields.
After a 60-year-old man nearly stole the British Open, it has become trendy
to bash today's players' inability to raise their games in the majors, part
of a long-standing critique of Woods's colleagues. Haney doesn't see it that
way.
"The competition is so good now," he says. "It's basically
competition-by-committee, because there hasn't been a consistent challenger,
but there's always someone playing really well who is chasing him. At
Congressional, on a very good golf course, Tiger was in the top five that
week in driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation and
putting. It's pretty hard to do all of those things that well in the same
week. And he won by only one shot against a field that didn't have a lot of
other big names. That was an eye-opener."
On Sunday night Woods declared 2009 to be one of the best years of his
career even though he didn't win a major championship. Some of us may have
forgotten, but Tiger is acutely aware that this time last year he was still
hobbling around on a new knee and was months away from swinging a golf club.
Woods seems most proud of his consistency -- throw out the screwy Match Play
Championship, his first tourney after knee surgery, and he has finished
worse than 11th only once this year. (He also won six times.) Sunday night I
asked Haney about Woods's ability to play at such a consistently high level.
 
"It tells me he's put in an incredible amount of work," says Haney. "He's a
tough guy, it was a tough rehab. He had a bad six-hole stretch at the
British Open and everyone pounced on him, but if you stop and look at his
game as a whole he's improved throughout the year and he's still improving.
For all the talk about Jack and the records, Tiger's goal has always been
very simple: to get better. And he is."


-------------------------------
Jim Litke of AP analyzes:

Status quo: Golf still Woods _ and everyone else

By JIM LITKE
The Associated Press
Monday, September 14, 2009 5:02 AM



LEMONT, Ill. -- That was more like it.

Golf is still Tiger Woods and everyone else. He still doesn't have a rival,
only occasional lapses.

"To play as well as I have of late and not get the Ws has been a little
frustrating, no doubt, because I've been so close," Woods said Sunday after
blowing away the field at the BMW Championship. "It's just been a matter of
making a couple putts here and there and I would have won the tournaments.

"That," he said very matter-of-factly, "is all the difference it was."

So much for the whispers about Woods looking more like a flinching Tiger
than a crouching one. They began when little-known Y.E. Yang caught and
passed him at the PGA Championship last month - guaranteeing Woods would go
without a major for the first time in four years - then intensified when he
failed to make a 7-footer that would have forced a playoff at The Barclays
two weeks after that.

But the guys who have to face Tiger every week knew better.

Asked just before last week's Deutsche Bank Championship whether Woods was
running low on magic, Australian Geoff Ogilvy, a U.S. Open winner and one of
the most thoughtful guys out on tour, didn't hesitate.

"I don't think everybody stands on the tee and says, 'He's going to give me
a chance.' The best thing about it," he said, "is that the media will stop
giving Tiger the tournament after 36 holes."

Proving him right, this time the media waited until 54 holes were in the
book.

Right after Woods walked off Cog Hill after wrestling a course-record 62
from the redesigned venue where he'd won four times before, people who know
something about golf started checking Sunday's TV listings looking for any
sporting events that at least held out the promise of suspense.

Sure enough, Woods left the first tee just before noon with a seven-shot
lead over Marc Leishman and choked off the possibility of a rally by the
time he reached the turn.

"My whole goal was to shoot under par," he recalled after carding a
final-day 68. "If I shot under par, I would force the guys to have to shoot
the same number I shot yesterday to force it into extra holes. So that was
the whole mindset.

"I made bogey there at 5, and I got it back at 7, birdied 9. I was 1-under
par and I figured if I shot just under par on the back nine, it's over.
And," he added, "I was able to do that."

Jim Furyk, who finished second, conceded that when he teed off: "I kind of
had my eye on second place." But once he saw Woods had dipped to 15 under -
following a bogey at No. 5 - "I started thinking, well, what if? What if
he's 14 now? What if he made another bogey?"

A few minutes passed.

"I asked my caddie where he stood. He said, '17,' " Furyk recalled, "and I
just started laughing."

It's better than crying, certainly, but it was also a telling moment. The
guys chasing Woods have started drinking protein shakes and working out,
they've hired sports psychologists to steel their psyches and NASA-grade
scientists to draw up shot-dispersion charts.

Doesn't matter.

When Woods plays well, everybody else is still playing for second.

Returning to the tour after surgery to repair a shredded left knee, Woods
has now won six times in 16 starts. His results in the last six events he
played - three firsts, two seconds and an 11th - would be a career for lots
of guys.

Just this past March, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia - both mentioned as
potential rivals in the last decade - had a chance to capitalize on Woods'
absence for the second half of last season and move into the No. 1 spot in
the world ranking. Six months later, Woods has more than doubled his point
lead over the current No. 2, Steve Stricker, who also owns the
second-highest win total, three.

Then there's this: None of the top four finishers in last year's Fed Ex Cup
race - Vijay Singh, Camillo Villegas, Garcia and Anthony Kim - have won this
year, either, and none will be around for this year's finale at East Lake.
After a week off, Woods will arrive in Atlanta with the other 29 golfers
there knowing their best chance depends on him having an off week.

"I haven't won as many times as I did in 2000, didn't win any majors this
year, but ... I've never had a year where I've been this consistent, either,
this many high finishes in the number of events I've played," Woods said.

Someone asked Woods whether, no matter what happens at the Fed Ex Cup, there
was "any doubt in your mind that Tiger Woods is the Player of Year."

Woods grinned ear to ear.

"Well,' he finally replied, "we'll let the players vote on that."

#71! Congratulations, Tiger! Here are the post-victory press conference
comments.

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome the champion of the 2009 BMW Championship,
Tiger Woods, into the interview room. He picks up his 71st PGA TOUR victory
and in the process moves back into the top spot of the FedExCup standings.
It may have been a different Cog Hill this week but the same result. If we
can just get your comments on a great week.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it was a good week. I hit the ball well. I felt like I
basically hit the ball the same as I have been. Only difference is I made a
few more putts this week and got some momentum. As we all know, you have to
make putts to win championships. This week I certainly made my share.
JOHN BUSH: A couple holes stand out; take us through 9 and 15.
TIGER WOODS: 9 was a good tee shot; I hit it about 60 yards right of the
fairway (laughter), then hit a 3-iron through the trees. I think I had
either 106 or 109 to the hole. I just kept telling myself it's a 9-iron, but
I just got to hit it about 50 yards in the air and just make sure I hook it.
I didn't want to carry it any more than 50 yards. If anything, make the
mistake of hitting it short of the green, it's an easy pitch from there,
instead of hitting it long, and it came out perfect. It carried the bunker,
turning, and rolled up there to I guess about 15 feet, and I made it.

Q. To get back on track with the putting, did you make any adjustments, or
what did you work on --
TIGER WOODS: Not a thing. I didn't change anything. You know, it's just one
of those things where I was hitting a lot of lips, they just weren't going
in. That's the way it goes. You're not going to make every putt, you're not
going to -- you're going to have stretches where that happens. I kept
telling myself through those stretches, I was hitting good putts, they just
didn't go in. So be it. As long as the ball starts off on-line and I've got
my pace right, that's the way it goes. You read the putts better, eventually
they'll start going in. It's just a matter of time. I was patient, and here
we are.

Q. It seems like you do a lot of your damage on these public courses; Torrey
springs to mind, this one obviously, public access. I'm wondering if there's
any throwback vibe with that since this is all-access. Second, totally off
point, I was wondering if you were aware of what Snedeker's situation was
when he did what he did on the 18th.
TIGER WOODS: As far public access, certainly I never played public golf
courses that were in this good a shape growing up. They didn't look like
this. And they certainly weren't this hard and they weren't in this good a
shape. I guess that's kind of how it's worked out for me so far.
Yeah, the entire group knew what was situation was. You feel bad for him.

Q. Tiger, obviously you've won 70 times before; it's not a new thing for you
to win. But does it still get your juices going? Is it still cool to win?
And is it cool to win just in light of a couple of ones that you let slip a
little bit? Is it cool to get back there again, and also by so many strokes?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it always feels good. Winning, that's the ultimate goal.
And to play as well as I have of late and not get the W's has been a little
bit frustrating, no doubt, because I've been so close. It's just been a
matter of making a couple putts here and there and I would have won the
tournaments. That's all the difference it was.
And lo and behold, boom, I hit the ball just as well, just as consistent
this week, and I made a few putts, and that's how it happens. That's how
close I've been to putting it together and scoring well. I've been playing
well, I just haven't gotten a lot out of my rounds yet.
This week I did, and especially yesterday. And you know, it does feel good,
there's no doubt about that.

Q. Six wins, and you've had this nice run in the Playoffs here, but it
doesn't really give you much of an advantage in Atlanta. Obviously it'll
make it a lot more interesting, but what do you think about that, the way
the setup is? Obviously it's not favoring you this time. But are you okay
with that? Could you just talk about that, please.
TIGER WOODS: That's just our new system. I didn't play last year. Evidently
Vijay pretty much hit his first tee shot and it was already over. I was in a
position the year previous, that it was kind of almost the same situation.
The TOUR wants to have excitement on the last event.
I mean, that's ultimately what has happened with this new format is that Top
5 guys, if they win the championship, they automatically win the FedExCup.
No matter what kind of year you have, it really does pay to be in the Top 5
to give yourself a chance. That's not to say that the other 25 spots you
can't win the golf tournament, but to win the FedExCup if you're in the Top
5 and you win the tournament, obviously you automatically get it. That
certainly builds some excitement certainly different than the last few
years.

Q. Obviously you have the TOUR Championship yet to come, but at this late
juncture coming back from the knee surgery, what do you think you learned
this year, and also maybe a high and low?
TIGER WOODS: If you would have asked me at the beginning of the year, any of
you guys probably wouldn't have predicted I would have had a year like I
did; to be as consistent as I have been this year, I'm very proud of that.
That's something to have had an opportunity to win just about every
tournament I've played in this year, that's something that I am very proud
of.
I've been extremely consistent all year, Top 10'd just about every week I
played and obviously had six wins. To come off a knee surgery and to have
this type of year, and as I said, to be this consistent is something that
I'm very proud of.

Q. How about a high and low? What sticks out in your mind as low point of
the season and maybe the high point?
TIGER WOODS: The low point, certainly probably the question marks coming
into the first event, didn't know. I hadn't walked even 18 holes yet. That's
something that is kind of -- you can walk at home, but you're not actually
playing. That's something to get out there on a mountainous golf course like
that, off those tee boxes. I didn't know how my leg was -- how I was going
to handle it. So many question marks starting out the beginning part of the
year. And then the work that I've put in with my trainers and Hank to get to
this point, as I said, it's something I'm very proud of.

Q. Kind of a related question, you might not put this year up with 2000, but
given all that you just talked about, is it one of your best years?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely, it's one of my best years. There's no doubt about
that. You know, I haven't won as many times as I did in 2000, didn't win any
majors this year, but certainly I was -- I've never had a year where I've
been this consistent, either, this many high finishes and the number of
events I've played. To have, as I said, an opportunity just about every time
I tee it up to win the championship on the back nine, you know, that's
something that, as I said, I can't tell you how proud I am for -- the job
that my trainers and Hank did to help me get to this point.

Q. Given your record here, is it your hope that Cog Hill would continue to
host a FedExCup event until you retire?
TIGER WOODS: I know we're going to be here for a couple more years until we
have to move out of here. I think the year of the Ryder Cup we have to get
out of here, but hopefully we can come back.

Q. Kind of two unrelated questions: Given that the TOUR has decided to make
East Lake so compelling for five guys and maybe even ten guys, what then
becomes the value of winning the FedExCup beyond the obvious check? Is it as
big as it would be if it were more, as it was in '07, or even the way it was
last year?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I think it's different now. It's more of what you do
later in the season or basically the Playoffs. For instance, Heath wasn't
having a very good year and wins one event, and then all of a sudden, boom,
he's right there. No matter what you've done the entire year, it's basically
erased.
Yeah, it's about what you do in the Playoffs, I think, in order to win the
FedExCup, not necessarily what you've done the entire year.

Q. And secondly, and I think the answer is pretty obvious, but you keep
mentioning consistency over and over again. You've pretty much been
consistent since 2005. What was it about this year that made you so pleased
to be consistent? Were you worried that you weren't going to be because of
stability, because of walking or what? Will you explain that a little bit?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, as I said, there was so many uncertainties at the
beginning of the season. I didn't know how the leg was going to respond.
I've never had a leg that was stable. I can't remember the last time I had a
leg that was stable, that didn't hurt when I played. What kind of shots
could I play? How was my recovery going to be from day-to-day? Am I going to
hurt again? A lot of these things I didn't know. Am I going to stretch out
the graft, which I -- there was so many different things that I didn't know,
and I hadn't played competitively since the Open. A lot of guys had played
well, and I hadn't played at all. So there was a lot of uncertainty.
To come back and be, as I said, this consistent feels pretty good.

Q. It sounds like the recovery is probably the biggest event.
TIGER WOODS: Well, you don't know. As I said, you just don't know. Most
sports you come back after what I had and usually they strap a brace on you
and you go play your sport. I can't swing in a brace on my left leg. That
does more harm than good. You have to do a lot of your bracing with your
muscle work, and that's countless hours of getting strong enough to keep
this leg stable.

Q. Did you have a brace on it at Torrey?
TIGER WOODS: No.

Q. You never played with any type of a wrap or --
TIGER WOODS: Nothing. Nothing.

Q. You've won a couple big tournaments, but with the good Playoffs and this
tournament here, is this as well as you've played all year?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, if you include the putting, yeah. Tee
to green, as I said, I've hit it this way for, geez, probably the last --
probably post-British Open I've hit the ball like this. Only difference is I
made more putts this week.

Q. If you were looking at this year, you've won six times. Next guy has won
three times. Each major was won by a different guy, none of whom have really
carried it on. Is there any doubt in your mind that Tiger Woods is the
Player of the Year, irrespective of what happens in Atlanta?
TIGER WOODS: Well, we'll let the players vote on that.

Q. What would you say?
TIGER WOODS: I'd say my name is up there on that list.

Q. On a day like this when you're up a bunch at the start and nobody is
really putting pressure on you, how do you keep your focus shot after shot?
TIGER WOODS: My whole goal for the day was to shoot under par. If I shot
under par, I would force the guys to have to shoot the same number I shot
yesterday to force it into extra holes. So that was the whole mindset. I
made bogey there at 5, and I got it back at 7, birdied 9. I was 1-under par,
and I figured if I shot just under par on the back nine, it's over. And I
was able to do that.

Q. You're probably going to think this is a flip question, but it's not.
When you fly home tonight, what are you going to do the next eight days? I'm
guessing it will not include golf clubs.
TIGER WOODS: I'm practicing all day, every day. (Laughter.) Dawn till dusk.
I'm taking a few days off, and these clubs are -- whatever Stevie might have
left in the bag is going to rot and mold in there for a few days.
JOHN BUSH: You mentioned the bogey on 5. Take us through that real quick.
TIGER WOODS: I hit a bad tee shot there to the right, laid up with a 9-iron.
I hit a sand wedge in there to about 15 feet short of the hole and missed
it.
Birdie on 7, I hit a 5-wood off the tee, a 9-iron just past the hole, putted
about 12 feet and made it.
15, I hit 3-wood and a 3-iron to about eight feet and made it.

Q. This is going to sound really stupid, but if you've got to peak four
times a year for the majors, is the TOUR Championship now kind of in the
same boat, not in importance but preparation-wise, given the way the system
is now you have to peak for one tournament?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, well, you have to play well in the Playoffs, first of
all. And then --

Q. You could have sat out three and probably still been there, though.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, but would I have been in the Top 5? The whole thing is to
be in the Top 5 to give yourself a chance. That's the important thing that I
got from a lot of players is they were all trying to get into the Top 5
because after they win the TOUR Championship it's over. So the whole idea of
the Playoffs was for us to get into the Top 5. And now it's basically a
sprint. It's one tournament, a sprint, assuming one of the Top 5 guys wins
the tournament. But if it doesn't, then what you've done in the Playoffs
previous to that will certainly help you to win the championship if none of
the top guys win the tournament.

Q. In terms of your priorities, with the majors at the top, is the TOUR
Championship your priority in terms of this is your TOUR and it's the thing
you want to win because of your TOUR? How important is it to you? I'm
guessing $10 million obviously is nice, but how important is it to you?
TIGER WOODS: It is very important because it's -- well, before it was always
the Top 30 money winners, so you always had the Top 30 hottest players of
the year playing the season-ending event. Obviously it's a little bit
different this year, but generally you have the guys who are playing the
best. So you know that if you can beat this field, it's the guys who played
the best all year. That's something that all the guys will allude to, that
this is the hottest field you'll probably have all year. Granted, it's
small, but it's the hottest players.
I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of guys want to win the TOUR
Championship.

Q. This is the 10th time you've won by eight shots or more on this TOUR.
Does that mean anything to you? Do you take any extra satisfaction out of
that?
TIGER WOODS: I didn't know that, first of all. And two, there are certain
times when I get rolling and I can make some birdies. Sometimes -- well, you
have to have the right golf course, first of all, to do it on. You're not
going to win by big margins on some of the easier venues because everybody
is going low. You have to have the right kind of golf course.
This golf course, you look at the beginning of the week, you'd say somebody
who got to double digits under par was going to win the golf tournament. So
you need to have a golf course that's difficult and you need to get hot on a
tough track.

Q. Federer is going for another major this weekend. I know you're friends
with him.
TIGER WOODS: Is he playing right now?

Q. Tomorrow. Do you consider it a friendly rivalry with him, or how do you
guys -- is there banter back and forth?
TIGER WOODS: Of course, of course. That's the fun part. He gives me a lot of
grief and I give him a lot of grief, but also, we have an understanding and
a great friendship that's built upon -- first of all, it was understanding
what it took to get to that point. But then after we got to another each
other, Mirka and myself and Roger and Elin, we've all become pretty close.
But it all started and stemmed from understanding how playing individual
sport -- granted, I have a great friendship with Michael, but he played a
team sport. It's so much different than an individual sport when you're out
there by yourself all the time, the difficulty. It's a different difficulty
and a different challenge, and that's something that Roger and I, we
connected on.
Our text messages are pretty funny. We do needle each other pretty good. But
also, a lot of support. He's one of the first ones to always congratulate me
and vice versa. Wherever I'm playing in the world, he's always following
what I'm doing and I'm following what he's doing.

Q. Have you heard from him at all recently or this weekend?
TIGER WOODS: Just about every day, yeah.
JOHN BUSH: Tiger, thanks for coming by. Congratulations.

End of FastScripts

Wow! What a round! A masterpiece! He leads by 7 shots.

Tiger will be paired with Brandt Snedeker tomorrow, and tees off at 12:55
Central Time.

Mike McAllister has the story on pgatour.com:
LEMONT, Ill. -- Take the world's best golfer. Get him motivated. Get him
dialed in. Get him comfortable on a course that has provided him plenty of
success. And then let him do his thing.

Call it the Perfect Storm. That's what rolled into Cog Hill on Saturday
afternoon, and the result was one of the best rounds in Tiger Woods' career,
a round that was vintage Tiger, a round in which he separated from the BMW
Championship field with such swiftness that you wonder if everybody else was
playing one of the other courses not named Dubsdread.

Tiger's course-record 9-under 62 puts him at 16 under for the tournament and
gives him a seven-shot lead entering Sunday's final round. As someone
astutely -- make that wryly -- pointed out, Woods has never lost a
tournament in which he's led by seven or more shots after 54 holes.

Unless the impossible happens -- and we're not simply talking
lose-a-54-hole-lead-at-Hazeltine impossible, but rather, an impossibility of
biblical proportions -- then Woods will regain the lead in FedExCup points
at the reset.

The rest of the field can be thankful that a win on Sunday will not
guarantee Woods the FedExCup trophy going into East Lake. Of course, if
Woods continues to play like he did in the third round, it may not matter.

It may not have been his best-ever round, but it was certainly his best 18
holes since returning from major knee surgery. It's just the third 62 that
Woods has shot in his career (he also has three 61s), and his lowest score
in four years.

"It was just a round that kind of built upon itself," Woods said.

Hmm, that explanation probably doesn't do justice to the magnificence of the
round. Perhaps these will.

"It was just kind of getting silly out there, the fact he was so dialed in,"
said Mark Carnevale, the PGA TOUR Network's reporter who followed Tiger
every step of the way Saturday.

"It's tough when you walk away nine strokes worse than your playing partner
and you feel like you're happy about your round," said Mark Wilson, who
shared the second-round lead with Woods, giving him an up-close view in the
last group Saturday.

"I've got to do something spectacular and he's got to maybe have a heart
attack out there for me to have a chance," noted Brandt Snedeker, who will
be paired with Woods in Sunday's final group.

So how did Saturday's Perfect Storm develop?

HE GOT BEHIND EARLY: For the second consecutive day, Woods produced a poor
opening drive that led to bogey. Even after he bounced back with a birdie on
the third hole, Woods saw that he was suddenly behind.

Padraig Harrington had jumped out quickly with a string of three consecutive
birdies. Marc Leishman also had it in gear. At one point, Woods was actually
three strokes behind.

That's when he knew that playing aggressive not only was an option, but a
requirement if he wanted to stay in the hunt.


"I just figured that you had to get into double digits today," Woods said.
He meant for the entire week. Of course, he nearly did it just in one day.

TWO KEY SHOTS: At the dangerous par-3 sixth, with the pin tucked in among
bunkers front and behind the green, Woods took out a 7-iron and aimed for a
sign about 15 feet right of the pin. With a high, sweeping draw, he landed
in a perfect spot to let the ball feed into the hole. No player came closer
than Woods' ball, which ended up 3 feet, 4 inches from the pin.

"The only thing you can't do there is go in the back bunker," Woods said.
"That's one of the reasons why I didn't hit a 6 and try to hold it in there.
I wanted to take the back bunker out of play. But I had to hit the 7-iron
really good to get it there, and I pulled it off."

Then on the next hole, the par-4 seventh, he found the rough with his drive.
For one of the few times during his round, he had to manufacture a shot, and
he knew if he landed in the back bunker, he'd face a certain bogey. So he
took some steam off his swing to prevent it from going long, while also
hitting a cut shot, which usually requires speed. It's a tricky shot, but
Woods ended up with 20 feet of the pin.

He was so glad to pull it off that he didn't even mind missing the birdie
putt. He said it was his best shot of the day.

"I had to try to cut it and I didn't want to try to take something off of
it, but I had to," Woods said. "It came off perfect."

YARDAGE NUMBERS WERE PERFECT: When Woods stood over his shots Saturday, he
didn't have to worry about whether to swing harder than usual or take a
little bit off it. He could take his normal swing, knowing that the
distances to the pins were exactly what his club would give him. He didn't
have to guess or adjust on many shots.

Woods described it as a "lot of good situations." That explains why his
average putting distance of 21 feet, 7 inches after his approach shots
Saturday ranked No. 1 for the day.

"I went after some flags just because of the situation, because I had a good
number where I could make a full swing of it and kind of go after it," he
said. "You end up five yards, six yards either way of a number, then you're
kind of not doing that. But it just happened to work out that way today with
just numbers all day."

Take the 3-wood he hit on the par-5 ninth. From 303 yards away, he stiff it
to within 11 feet for eagle. Of course, he made it.

COMFORTABLE COG HILL: Woods has won four TOUR events here, but a redesign
since his last visit in 2007 forced him to relearn the course. But the
routing remains the same, giving him some familiar vibes. Despite whatever
renovations it goes through, Cog Hill may be just one of those courses that
is perfectly suited to Tiger's game, much like Torrey Pines South, where he
won the U.S. Open last year.

"I've always felt comfortable playing this golf course for some reason,"
Woods said. "Even though, for instance, they changed Torrey Pines South, I
still feel comfortable on the property. And this is very similar to that."

PUTTS ARE NOW FALLING: After struggling -- well, struggling by his standards
-- on the greens in his last few outings, Woods is now getting putts to
drop. He's missed only one putt in 49 attempts inside 10 feet, and because
he's hitting his irons so well, he hasn't need to drain any bombs in the
first three rounds.

Woods said it was never a matter of losing his putting stroke, even though
the results at Hazeltine and Liberty National were not to his liking. That
missed 7-foot putt on the 72nd hole of The Barclays, a putt that would have
forced a playoff with Heath Slocum, now is just a bad dream. Tiger's putter
has awaken.

"The stretch there where I didn't make any putts, I was hitting good putts
and lipping them out," he said. "... I just felt that I wasn't that far off
because I was hitting so many lips. They weren't blatantly bad putts; they
were good putts that just weren't diving in. You've just got to stay patient
through that stretch, and hopefully you'll come out of it quickly. It took
me a couple of tournaments."

Yes, he's back in form now, producing the kind of round that leaves
everybody else in awe. And in his dust.


Here are Tiger's comments:

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Tiger Woods, thanks for joining us after a third round 62,
setting the Cog Hill Golf and Country Club course record, and you're the
leader heading into the final round of the 2009 BMW Championship. Maybe some
opening comments about a great day for you.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it was obviously -- after I got past the first hole, I
did all right. I made bogey there on 1, and I hit a sweet 4-iron into 2, but
I missed the putt. It was a good shot.
I birdied 3, and next thing I know, I think Paddy birdied three of the first
four, got off to a quick start. After seeing that and seeing what Marc was
doing ahead of us, I just figured that you had to get into double digits
today, and I thought that was going to be a good score to end up at.
And then all of a sudden I made a good save there at 5 and hit a pretty
sweet shot there at 7 to make par, and then from there I hit a lot of good
shots after that.

Q. A couple details on the round. It's probably not getting a lot of
attention, but the pin on 6 is pretty dangerous. I wonder if you could talk
about your 7-iron there, and then what was the difficulty beyond the obvious
of the tree that you were so pleased on No. 7?
TIGER WOODS: The 7-iron I hit there at 6 was -- with the tee up, it was 187
or something like that, but it was down right to left. I was trying to hit
the ball, there was a "6" sign probably about 15 feet right of that. If you
could land it on that, sweep it a little bit, it should kind of get down
towards the hole somewhere. I started at the middle of the green, hit a
high, sweeping draw, and it landed just a little left of that "6" sign and
then fed on down to the hole. It was a shot that even if you bail out to the
right, it's a tough putt. The only thing you can't do there is go in the
back bunker. That's one of the reasons why I didn't hit a 6 and try to hold
it in there. I wanted to take the back bunker out of play. But I had to hit
the 7-iron really good to get it there, and I pulled it off.
The 6-iron I hit there at 7, I had to start that ball left of the green and
cut it out of that rough like that. I had to take something off of it, which
I didn't want to have to do, because when you're trying to cut it, you need
some speed, trying to cut as much of that -- I had to try to cut it and I
didn't want to try to take something off of it, but I had to. It came off
perfect, couldn't come off any better than that.

Q. Are you okay with missing the putt there?
TIGER WOODS: Oh, yeah. I mean, just happened to make 4.

Q. Yesterday when you were in here you suggested it might be difficult to go
really low. Was that a self-motivation for you, because it seems like you
just went out and did what you said couldn't be done.
TIGER WOODS: Well, the round just kind of built upon itself. As I say, I
bogeyed 1 right out of the gate and birdied 3 to get back. It just kind of
built it over itself. I made a nice save there at 5 after hitting a really
good drive, landed in the fairway and kind of ran into an impossible spot.
Birdieing 6 and then good save at 7, it kind of just built. And then going
birdie-eagle to finish off the front nine, you're always can make up shot
from 8 to 11, and I did today.
The only hole I didn't take care of was 10. 10 was a -- I wanted to hit
wedge in there so bad, but coming out of the first cut, I wanted to take
over the green out of play, and I came up a little bit short.

Q. You've probably been asked this before, but what is it about this place
that allows you to dominate like you have?
TIGER WOODS: I've always liked it. I played here even as an amateur in the
old Western Open. I've always felt comfortable playing this golf course.
Even though the golf course has changed this year for us, the routing is
still the same, and I've always felt comfortable playing this golf course
for some reason, and even though, for instance, they changed Torrey Pines
South, I still feel comfortable on the property. And this is very similar to
that.

Q. You didn't leave much out there, but you were an inch or two away from 60
and maybe even 59. Was there any point you were thinking about that at all?
TIGER WOODS: No, no. I was just doing what I always do, and that's kind of
plodding along and playing shot after shot. You know, certain rounds, if you
can get off to a quick enough start and you see some easier holes coming up,
you might entertain the fact that you might have an opportunity to go near
60 or somewhere near 50s. But you've got to have the right golf course for
that. This golf course is a little bit more difficult than that.
But it was just a round that, as I said, just kind of built upon itself, and
I just kind of gradually just kind of kept making -- hitting good shots and
then making a couple putts here and there, and lo and behold, I end up at
9-under par.

Q. You're obviously putting quite nicely. That wasn't really the case at a
few tournaments previous. When things are going bad, when you're putting
poorly, you don't seem to panic or make a lot of changes. Were you ever
tempted to? Did you ever think about trying something different, or do you
just figure you're going to come out of it?
TIGER WOODS: There's certain situations when you get more frustrated than
others. The stretch there where I didn't make any putts, I was hitting good
putts and lipping them out. It's frustrating when you hit good putts and lip
out. Obviously when you hit poor putts they're not close. But when you're
putting well, sometimes even a poor putt will dive in.
I just felt that I wasn't that far off because I was hitting so many lips.
They weren't just blatantly bad putts, they were good putts that just
weren't diving in. You've just got to stay patient through that stretch, and
hopefully you'll come out of it hopefully quickly. It took me a couple
tournaments.

Q. When you got here this week, did you see a 62 out there?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah. 16 holes, 15 holes. (Laughter.)

Q. A lot was made of Hazeltine about how you got yourself out, you got a
nice lead, and you just kind of played relatively conservatively, which in
the past has worked for you; you've won tournaments like that. Have you
changed in terms of realizing maybe I've got to play hard all four rounds; I
can't think that everyone is going to go backwards? And was that somewhat
today's impetus for you, that I'm playing good, let's just keep making
birdies?
TIGER WOODS: It's funny that people were saying I played conservatively. I
played the same way for the first three rounds and had a two-shot lead. I
mean, I was playing what I thought the golf course gave me. That's one of
the things that I've learned and have matured over the years is play what
the golf course gives you.
You just start understanding how to do it better, and I think that's one of
the reasons why you look at over the years I've become much more consistent.
I may not go as low, I may not win by as big a margins, but you don't have
to. The whole idea is just play for what the situation gives you. If you get
some good situations like I did today, I had a lot of good numbers where I
could make full swings. Then you can go at flags. But a lot of times it
doesn't work out that way. You have a lot of half shots and not quite good
situations.
So there's nothing wrong with being a little more conservative and trusting
your putting and getting yourself around that way.

Q. Just as a follow-up to that, so you would say that your mindset hasn't
changed at all in terms of how you're going to manage your game in a
tournament?
TIGER WOODS: I manage my game much better now than I ever have. That's just
maturity. Plus I have so many more golf shots now than I used to. I almost
had to play aggressively because I didn't really have too many shots to kind
of work with. I didn't have the ability to change my trajectories like I do
now, change the shapes and change the spins. I didn't have that ability. I
learned that over the years.

Q. Two questions: Back to Bob's question on putting, it would seem like it
would almost be more frustrating even if you were putting well, catching so
many lips, knowing what it cost you in terms of winning; is that not the
case?
TIGER WOODS: Of course it's frustrating, there's no doubt. If I putted well,
I would have won a few more tournaments. One of the things that I was very
proud of is that even though as poorly as I putted, I was still there in
contention and could have won championships. Not a lot of guys can do that.
I've been able to do that pretty much this entire year.

Q. And secondly, you may have restored your one-and-a-half-stroke lead in
the Vardon today. Do you take more satisfaction out of the fact that I think
you were eight shots better than the field today or out of that than the raw
number?
TIGER WOODS: Probably the easiest way to answer that is that I'm very proud
of the entire year, how I've played. To be that far ahead in the Vardon
Trophy means that, one, you've been consistent; and two, you don't dog it.
You don't have a round that you just say, go ahead and let it go. You try
until the very end. That's what you have to do in order to win the Vardon
Trophy. You've got to be very consistent.
If you look at over the years the guys who have -- since I've been on TOUR,
the guys who have won the Vardon Trophy are those type of players.

Q. When you measure some of the great rounds you've played, do you do it
more against what you shot that day and the circumstances or more, again,
when the field averages 70 or 71? Valderrama, for example, comes to mind for
whatever reason.
TIGER WOODS: You know, it's a tough one to answer because you just -- as I
alluded to with Robert, you kind of play the golf course, what it gives you.
Today I got a lot of good situations. You could see where like the first
round I had a lot of half shots in there and didn't quite have the right
number to go after a lot of flags. And today just happened to work out that
way, and I happened to stiff a few. It's kind of a tough question to answer
because it depends how you're feeling and the situation you get for the day.

Q. What was your favorite shot out there today, whether it was the curve at
7 or the 3-wood at 9 or the big hook over the trees at 11?
TIGER WOODS: It had to be the shot at 7 because it could have easily flown
and not caught -- if I go in that back left bunker it's an automatic bogey.
That's one of the reasons I was telling Fergie that I didn't want to have to
take something off of it, but I had to to try to protect it from going into
that back bunker. If anything you miss it in the short left bunker, then
you've got the entire green and you've got a big shelf but you have an angle
to play to.

Q. Considering the changes that they've made and how the course seemingly is
compared to how it was, how good was this today? With the tees, pins, all
that stuff, how difficult was the setup?
TIGER WOODS: It was difficult, but as I said, I had a lot of good numbers
today and a lot of full shots. I went after some flags just because of the
situation, because I had a good number where I could make a full swing at it
and kind of go after it. You end up five yards, six yards either way of a
number, then you're kind of not doing that. But it happened to work out that
way today with just good numbers all day.

Q. Best round post-op today, on TOUR this year?
TIGER WOODS: Probably, yeah.

Q. The numbers would indicate that. You said you're trying to get to double
figures. Did you mean for the week or just for today?
TIGER WOODS: No, just for the week. I felt after how everyone started, if I
would have got to probably 10- or 11-under par, I probably would have been
tied for the lead or maybe one back or somewhere right around there. Just
because of how low the guys went early, I figured that 10 or lower would
have been a good number to be at.

Q. To borrow one of Steve's expressions, a bit of "Inside Baseball" on this
one, in terms of your evolution, your swing evolution, how happy are you
where you're at with your swing, and would you say that your swing model now
has become sort of more Hogan than anyone else if you were comparing guys? I
know you're a different build and you've got different dynamics, but you're
long through the hitting zone. Is that more your goal, and is that Hank or
is that you?
TIGER WOODS: I'd have to say that's more of Hank's teaching and his
philosophy. A lot of guys who are long through the hitting zone as you
alluded to, obviously Byron Nelson did it a different way, hit it with his
legs and kept it going towards the target. Hogan did it, again, a little bit
differently than Byron did. But still, that's how you can be very consistent
day in and day out. And I feel that my overall plane and my swing and my
release and how I play now is just so much more efficient.
Bad shots aren't what they used to be, and that's what we were trying to get
to. Anybody can play when they're hot, but it's how poor are your mis-hits,
can you control them, and more importantly, can you fix it.
Overall I've gotten a better understanding of my swing over the years
working with Hank. You hit a couple bad shots like I did at 1, how I
over-hooked it there, and then immediately fix it, and then I hit a sweet
little low fading 4-iron into the second hole. That's what you have to do
all the time.

Q. Are you near the finished product?
TIGER WOODS: You're never near the finished product. You're never there.

Q. In terms of your swing model, tweaking and --
TIGER WOODS: You're always tweaking. You're always trying to get better.
It's never -- the game is fluid. It's never concrete. That's the beauty and
also the most frustrating thing about it. You have moments where you hit it
good like I did today, and then you have moments where like at Wachovia I
wasn't hitting it very good or THE PLAYERS I wasn't hitting it very good.
That's just how it goes.

Q. Having the good numbers in on your approach shots, how much was that a
function of the way you were hitting the ball off the tee?
TIGER WOODS: I did drive it good today. I've driven it good all week.
Actually the last few weeks I've felt like I've driven the ball much better.
You know, when I'm able to get it down there, obviously with my length, I
can get in there with some shorter clubs. This golf course has allowed me to
kind of get down there a little bit.
When we were playing at Liberty National, it was kind of hard to get the
ball down there. It just didn't fit. Some of the tees were up and some of
the angles just didn't quite fit. But this golf course, it fits.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: World No. 1, Tiger Woods, thank you.

Tiger will be paired with Mark Wilson tomorrow. They tee off at 12:45 p.m.
Central Time.

Tiger's comments after the 2nd round:
MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Tiger Woods to the interview room. Tiger
shot a 67 today and is in a share of the lead with Mark Wilson after the
second round. If you'd talk a little bit about your round today and then
we'll take some questions.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I started off with a bogey there at the first hole, but
other than that I didn't make any other bogeys. I had a few opportunities to
make bogeys, but I had some good saves there at 3 and a few other holes. But
overall kept being very patient today.
It was a day where the wind was blowing just hard enough. It was kind of up
and down, kept changing directions a little bit. These greens you have to be
so precise going into them. We had some pretty tough putts today up over
knobs, but also I hit a few in there pretty tight, too.

Q. Just curious, you and Mark Wilson apparently are going to be paired
tomorrow, if I understand things correctly. You guys go back a long way. I'm
wondering what you remember from the second of your three Juniors and
whether you still consider those three in succession one of your great
accomplishments, since, like you've said before, you can only do that once,
if that's still atop that list of all the things you've done.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, Mark and I go back to when I was 16. We were playing at
Wollaston, and I think I was 2-down with four to go or 2-down with three to
go.

Q. 2-down with five to go.
TIGER WOODS: I think I won every other hole actually coming in. But it was a
good match. Mark went to North Carolina after that, and we played against
each other in college and have been out here for a while. You know,
obviously we go back a long way.
As far as the U.S. Juniors, I'd have to say that's probably No. 2 on my list
of accomplishments. I won four majors in a row; that's not too bad. But the
three Juniors, and I've said before, you can only do that once. There's a
big difference between someone who's 15 and 17 physically and mentally and
maturity-wise. To be able to those three years -- you can win the Amateur
three years in a row, whatever age it is, but obviously the Junior ends at
17.

Q. Bogey on 1, you shook that off pretty quickly. Did it bother you after
that?
TIGER WOODS: No, I hit a terrible tee shot there at 1, mis-hit a quick hook
there with a 3-wood off the tee, just a terrible shot.
Only way to make par there is to get up-and-down with a 9-iron in my hand,
and I obviously didn't do that. It was obviously not the greatest of starts,
but the golf course, as I said, you had to be very patient on. It was a day
that you could give a few back, the way some of these pins were set up.
For instance, the second hole, Steve and Heath hit really nice 4-irons in
there, landed just left of the hole. Steve landed a yard on, ended up over
the green in the back bunker. Sweet shot, but that's kind of the nature of
this golf course. You can hit some good shots into these corners and they
kind of run away from you a little bit. As I said, you had to be very
patient.

Q. When it's -- I think after you made that bogey, Sabbatini got to 8-under
kind of soon after that, so you're six behind. I don't know how much
scoreboard watching you do on Friday and the rest of that, but is it like a
U.S. Open type thing, when you just think, okay, there's a long way to go,
or do you think this guy played well yesterday, maybe he's going to just
start running away with it and I need to keep up a little bit?
TIGER WOODS: Good point. This is a golf course that's hard to shoot low
numbers on, given today's pin locations. Tomorrow we've got a few more
accessible pins. But today the pins were a little more difficult than they
were the first day.
As I said, just had to be very patient out there, and I know Rory got off to
a quick start, but still, there are a lot of holes to be played, and this is
the kind of golf course you can just make a couple mistakes here and make a
couple bogeys, or hit good shots and make bogeys. These greens are very
difficult.
You know, they're making ball marks but they're not stopping. They're kind
of hitting and releasing. The first hop is usually pretty good. And if
you've got a mid-iron in your hand coming into these greens, even if you
dump it to the center, you still have a hell of a putt, up and over knobs,
two or three different breaks. It's a tough setup.

Q. Is it U.S. Open-ish, or could you see a U.S. Open being played here?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, we were alluding to it today. Imagine these greens being
baked out like they were at Torrey Pines. How are you going to get to some
of these flags because there's so much pitch over the bunkers? That's one of
the tough things in these greens, and as I said, they're making ball marks.
What if they're not making ball marks?

Q. Kind of along those lines, there was a number of shots early in your
round in which you were on the other side of a knob, even 1. I'm curious,
were you expecting, for example, with 9-iron to play that back? Was it a
distance control problem? Was it just the pitch? Which was it?
TIGER WOODS: A couple times -- on 1, I just hit the 9-iron too hard. I was
trying to play it about ten feet past the hole and use the ridge a little
bit, but I kind of got over it a little bit, and it was going to be long the
whole way.
For instance, the shot I hit at 3 was a pretty sweet shot out of the rough
right at the flag, and a gust of wind came up and knocked it short. It was
hard to get the ball close on a few of these pins because the wind -- we got
fooled on 16 today. Heath got an into-the-wind gust, I got a downwind gust,
and when Strick hit it was just dead across where it should have been.
But the wind is not blowing hard enough to have one main direction. It kind
of comes up, lays down, comes up, lays down. As I said, you had to be so
precise going into these corners, and the way the wind was blowing it was
hard.

Q. And then on 8, what was your thinking on playing so much spin as opposed
to kind of dead-arming it up there?
TIGER WOODS: You know, that was a shot that -- after I saw Strick's ball,
that it did spin, and I figured -- you know, I was in between clubs, and I
said, you know what, I'm not going to take the little one here because if I
did hit that -- I just didn't feel it was going to skip up there. I thought
I had to carry it back to the hole. But it was a shot that I knew I could
never hit the ball past the flag in the air with that club, so I went ahead
and took the chance of throwing the ball up in the air.

Q. Based on the course changes and renovations, what's the biggest
adjustment you've had to make in playing this course now?
TIGER WOODS: I think the overall is just your misses, where you're going to
miss it. The greens are so different that where you used to be able to miss
it, the angles, those are not the angles anymore. And that's something that
we all are trying to get used to is -- it's one thing hitting good shots,
but also, if you are in a situation where you don't quite have a good number
or you don't feel quite comfortable, where am I going to miss it? And that's
certainly much different than what it used to be.

Q. Mark Wilson does a lot of his practicing here when he's not on TOUR, and
he apparently tries to beat the masses out onto the golf course when he's
here to play because it's obviously a public course. I take it it's probably
not too much like that at Isleworth, but seriously, when you are there, do
you ever get bothered, or do you ever have to wait when you're playing the
course? The experience there is obviously what you like, but what is it like
there for you?
TIGER WOODS: At Isleworth, no. The members all leave all the pros alone and
whatever celebs that come in there and play. It's just the rule there; just
leave them alone.
Through all the years, you get to know a lot of the guys and their wives and
you have a have a few drinks afterwards. It's a pretty laid-back club
actually, some good members.
As far as playing through, summertime there's no one there, first of all.
There's no one there. It's just dead there in the summertime. Everyone goes
up north. But the wintertime you can get a little crowded. A lot of times
they let the pros play through and get on with it.
But we have some good groups on there, some good juniors and some good
amateurs, and it is a lot of fun, though.

Q. But they're obviously like respectful of your time and leaving you alone?
TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. I mean, there's so many pros that practice there. I
think there's about eight pros that play out there. There's quite a bit. And
then obviously Cooky moved out of there, Allenby has moved out of there, but
still, there's about eight of us.

Q. Does Mark Wilson rival Stricker among nice, nice guys on TOUR? Does he
have that rep as much as Strick does?
TIGER WOODS: He does, he's just a little more quiet than Strick, but still,
two great guys. As I said, I've known Mark a long time. Mark hasn't changed
one bit.

Q. I just want to ask you a quick generic question about being atop the
leaderboard. You weren't really a factor at Liberty National until the final
hour, really, and in Boston I don't think you were really in it all week.
Just the kind of feeling now of being back up there, how much better that
feels.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it's been a long time, huh, Fergie?

Q. You didn't play Greensboro.
TIGER WOODS: It obviously is nice. I'm playing well, and I've got
up-and-down a few times the last couple days, something I hadn't done. I
missed a bunch of up-and-downs at Liberty National. And last week I just
didn't make any putts. I was hitting the ball just as good, just didn't make
anything.
MARK STEVENS: Thank you, Tiger. Good luck this weekend.

TV coverage:
Golf Channel: Thursday and Friday 3 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)
NBC: Saturday 3 - 6, Sunday 2 - 6

Live video on www.pgatour.com :
Thursday 12:30 p.m - 6 p.m.
Friday 12:30 - 6
Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tiger is paired with Steve Stricker and Heath Slocum.
Thursday tee time 11:03 a.m. CENTRAL Time, 10th tee
Friday 12:09 p.m. first tee.

Tiger's pre-tourney comments to the press:
JOHN BUSH: Welcome back to Cog Hill. Let's get some comments if we can.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the golf course is certainly playing different. It's a
lot longer. The greens are much more difficult. The bunkers are a lot
deeper. It's going to be a great test. If they play it all the way back,
it'll be tough.

Q. In past years your score has been pretty good here. At the end of the
four rounds, what do you think it could be, 11-under, 12-, 13-?
TIGER WOODS: It depends on where they put the tees. If they put them up a
little bit, you'll see guys making some birdies, but if they keep them back,
like they did today, it plays long. There's a lot of really long shots. The
par-3s are long.
In the past you're hitting 9-iron, 8-iron into 14. Today I hit 3-iron. Same
thing on 2; 2 is usually about an 8-iron, 7-iron in there, and today I hit a
3-iron. It plays a lot different.

Q. This will be six out of seven weeks for you. How have you kind of had to
modify your routine? I don't think you hit balls last week after any rounds.

TIGER WOODS: Right.

Q. Today was your practice round for here, and Barclays you played one. What
are the challenges of being that active?
TIGER WOODS: Well, it's a lot of golf for me. I normally don't play this
much. And then I'm in contention most of the events; that adds to it if you
think about it. If you're there with a chance -- only time I didn't have a
chance was on Monday to win the tournament. But otherwise I've been there.
So that adds to maybe being a little bit more worn down, and you've got to
alter your practice. Make sure you get your rest when you can because it is
a long stretch.

Q. Does your score on the pro-am day matter to you?
TIGER WOODS: No, never. I've shot rounds in the low 60s, I've shot rounds in
the 80s. It does not matter. It matters what you do on Thursday through
Sunday, or probably through Monday last week.

Q. In '07 you were in a position where Steve Stricker was close to you in
the FedExCup points and he actually was projected to be No. 1, I think, at
some point in the third round. What do you remember about that situation and
how you responded to actually go on to win the FedExCup?
TIGER WOODS: I don't remember anything, I swear.

Q. But you went on to win heading into the TOUR Championship.
TIGER WOODS: I know I won three in a row there. I won the Deutsche Bank, I
won the BMW, and then I won at East Lake. That's the only thing I can
remember. The scenarios, I can't remember. It's been a while, I guess.

Q. Steve Stricker is a nice guy; is it hard to get yourself geared up to
want to beat him? What is it that makes him not only so successful but so
likable?
TIGER WOODS: He's just a great guy, period. Strick, before he had his
success, his game slipped away and then he came back. He hasn't changed.
He's still the same Steve. From the time I came out here on TOUR until now,
he hasn't changed one bit. He's just a great guy overall.
He's extremely competitive. People don't realize how competitive he is, but
he is. It's another side of him we don't get to see very often, but we see
how nice he is all the time.

Q. On No. 7 today did you take it over that pond?
TIGER WOODS: No, I hit 3-wood there.

Q. Do you think that's what you'll do all week or will you ever try to
challenge that?
TIGER WOODS: It's 324 to carry it. I can't carry 324. Bubba can, Dustin, and
I don't know who else is long here this week, but I can't carry that.

Q. Would it be better if they made the off week this week, had two off weeks
and then two?
TIGER WOODS: It would be different. It certainly would be different because
it would give you another little breather in there. You've got a big event
in the Bridgestone, and then you have the PGA, and then you have these three
big events right in a row. So they're big events, five big events in six
weeks. Certainly it's different. That's one of the reasons why I skipped
Barclays the first year, to give myself a break, and then this year I've
played them all.

Q. Looking forward to 2016, you've said that you would play in the Olympics.
If Chicago does get it, would this be an ideal venue to have it here?
TIGER WOODS: I think it would be great. I think you would have to have it on
a public venue. I don't think you could have it at a country club. I think
you'd have to have it at a public venue just because of what the nature of
the Olympics is all about. Certainly this golf course is stand-alone in
public venues here in the Chicago area. I don't know another golf course
that could rival this one as far as difficulty, a public course.

Q. The changes you addressed, putting by memory and your feel and
familiarity and how much of a part all that is of your fire power and
success, the revisions erase a good bit of that?
TIGER WOODS: All these greens are different. They've redone them all. We'll
have to relearn them, and I'm not the only one. We're all in the same boat.

Q. Your 16-year-old playing partner today, what do you think?
TIGER WOODS: He played great. He hit a lot of good shots. I think he had two
or three birdies today. I think he did well.

Q. Do guys understand the points system, or is it just week to week?
TIGER WOODS: I'd have to say it's week to week. I guess you can see when
you're out there playing, the fluidity of it, what you're projected to be,
just based upon where you are. I think that's interesting because you don't
see that week to week. The Playoffs here, we can see that, see guys make big
jumps in the last round to go from -- playing well to get in it and also
guys playing their way out of it, too.

Q. Can you tell when you're getting tired on the golf course? I mean, do you
get grumpier?
TIGER WOODS: Thursday through Sunday is all good. That's not a problem. Your
adrenaline is up playing an event. You definitely get fired up for that, not
a problem. It's getting out here and having long practice sessions and
things like that. You start cutting back on that and just have a short burst
and make sure you get your rest

The Boston Globe tells what it was like to follow Tiger on Monday:
NORTON - It was barely 10:30 a.m., and the buzz was already thick. The swarm
of people was packed two- and three-deep from tee to green. They had been
waiting close to 30 minutes, watching two or three other groups go by.
And this was just the second hole.
Tiger Woods was still working on the first hole yesterday, wearing his
traditional red shirt for the final round of the Deutsche Bank Championship
at TPC Boston. And even with Woods nine shots off the lead at the start of
the day, everyone wanted a glimpse, because you never know when something
special could happen.
Jason Goodwin was one of the throng. He had been waiting at No. 1 all
morning, practically baking, dressed in a tiger suit as if he were Woods's
mascot.
"I got it off eBay,'' said Goodwin, a 29-year-old Brockton native.
"One-hundred fifty bucks. Ordered it a couple weeks ago.''
Woods saw Goodwin as soon as he reached the first tee.
"He came off the golf cart laughing his butt off,'' Goodwin said. "I saluted
him. He saluted me back. He was laughing. He liked it.''
In fact, Woods was still laughing after his round.
"He lost a few pounds today, there's no doubt,'' Woods said. "He took the
head off there on No. 1 and he said he was dripping wet.''
But in Woods's gallery, Goodwin was one in a sea of hundreds. And the more
Tiger charged, the more the crowd grew. At the par-5 second hole, the crowd
was at amphitheater level - row after row of people, standing on tip-toe to
get a glimpse of the world's No. 1 player.
Bob Blanchette and his son Rob retreated to the highest point they could
find on the par-3 third hole, one of the boulders that borders the cart
paths.
"We saw one guy standing on the little rock,'' said Rob Blanchette, 22.
"Then we saw this bigger rock, and we figured we'd have a better view from
here than that little rock.''
Rob Blanchette made the 230-mile roundtrip from Rollinsford, N.H., for
Sunday's third round, and returned yesterday with his father.
"It's insane,'' said Bob Blanchette. "It's like a rock concert. The guy's
like a rock star.''
At that point, Woods was in the middle of stringing together three birdies
from Nos. 2 through 4, and the crowd was growing.
"If I had to compare it to something, it's like when the game's over at
Fenway and everyone rushes out,'' Rob Blanchette said. "That's basically
what it's like at the end of every single hole.''
As much as he brings out fans who scream "Get in the hole!'' even when he's
teeing off on a 600-yard par-5, Woods also brings out golf buddies and
casual observers. Just the sight of him alone creates memories for the
youngest of fans.
Craig McCoy watched with his 7-year-old son, William, as Woods sank a 4-foot
putt for birdie on No. 3. As Woods was coming off the green, William said,
in a made-for-commercial voice, "Nice putting, Mr. Woods.''
Woods replied, "Thank you.''
"The crowd went crazy,'' said Craig McCoy.
It was the first time McCoy brought his son to the tournament, and after
just three holes the youngster had determined, "Tiger's the best golfer ever
I've seen.''
Woods brings out the history chasers, and Bryant University students Patrick
Sargent and Nick Puccio were racing to see if he could possibly make it.
They watched him hit his tee shot on the par-4 sixth, a 321-yard bomb down
the right side of the fairway.
"Then we went to the wrong side,'' Puccio said. "So we sprinted all the way
around, just to get a glimpse.''
The sprint guaranteed that they had a front-row view of a shot that would be
replayed on highlight shows that night as Woods holed out from 131 yards.
"He hit a perfect draw,'' Sargent said. "Threw it off the two-tiered green
off the hill, spun it back and dropped it . . . like it was hot.
"Soon as he hit it, I said it was going in.''
"He's amazing,'' Puccio said. "He's a machine.''
Then they were on the move again, trying to make sure they got a good spot
for the seventh hole.
"We're just part of the entourage, baby,'' Sargent said.
For David Sacchetti, 39, of Quincy, the chase went beyond TPC Boston.
Sacchetti got a bead on Woods's hotel in Providence and made the commute
every day in search of autographs and photo opportunities.
"It's been a roller coaster,'' said Sacchetti, who did manage to get a photo
with Woods for his efforts.
Some people found themselves with an unexpected close encounter with Woods.
With Woods at 6-under on his round through the front nine, his crowd at the
turn had reached Times Square status.
At the par-3 11th, John Albano of Lynnfield was waiting for Woods along with
his 12-year-old son, Matt, and his friend, Brett Donovan. The trio passed
the time debating the top three golfers of all-time. Then, their consensus
No. 1 was standing inches away.
"In my head,'' Donovan said, "I just had a big "W-O-W.''
Woods was close enough to reach out and touch.
"I wanted to shake his hand,'' Matt Albano said. "That was freaky. It was
kind of amazing. We just came here to watch it. It was cool.''
The magnitude of a Woods moment doesn't diminish no matter how many times
you've been a part of one. Marc Dulac has worked as a volunteer at the
Deutsche Bank for five years, and marshalling the third hole yesterday he
said he has never seen anything like Woods's following.
"There's no comparison to any other group,'' said Dulac, 54. "It's just a
massive crowd. He's just totally amazing. He consistently draws a huge
crowd. There's just nothing like it.''
Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@....
-----------------------------
Jason Sobel of ESPN says not to get alarmed about Tiger's game -- yet.

NORTON, Mass. -- This was supposed to be one of those "What's wrong with
Tiger Woods?" pieces.


It was going to investigate his three straight tournament starts without a
win and analyze his T-30 standing through 54 holes at the Deutsche Bank
Championship. It would inspect his increasingly poor driving accuracy and
examine his recently suspect putting stroke.


Thank goodness for the control-X function.


  Michael Dwyer/AP

Tiger Woods was 6 under through seven holes on Monday at the Deutsche Bank.
If his two back-nine bogeys were pars, he would have shot 10-under-par 61 .


Woods emphatically responded to questions about his struggles during a
final-round clinic that included an eagle and eight birdies against just a
pair of bogeys, resulting in an overall tally of 8-under 63 that left him in
a tie for 11th place at the end of the day.


Though he didn't win the tournament -- that honor went to Steve Stricker --
Woods did his best to silence the critics following an August in which he
finished 1-1-2-2 in his four appearances. Of course, it wasn't the two
losses themselves that had people crying about the "S" word (hint: rhymes
with "clump"). It was how each of them happened.


At the PGA Championship, he led entering the final round, but for the first
time in 15 career attempts at a major championship, failed to seal the deal
on Sunday, as playing partner Y.E. Yang came from behind to claim the
Wanamaker Trophy. Last week, Woods rallied to put himself in position for a
playoff at The Barclays, but missed a 6-foot, 10-inch birdie effort on the
final hole -- the kind of putt we've become accustomed to watching him make.


There is a fine line between explanations and excuses, so tread carefully
when trying to place a label on Tiger's reasoning for his recent struggles
on the greens.


"Hazeltine, not a lot of guys made a lot of putts there. ... I don't know
how anyone made anything. It's hard to make putts on those greens," he said
in reference to the hairy surfaces at the PGA. "[Liberty National] was just
tough reading for me. I just had a tough time reading the greens. That's
just the way it goes."


It makes sense that two courses rarely, if ever, seen by the pros --
Hazeltine last hosted an event in 2002; Liberty National had never held a
PGA Tour-level tourney before last week -- would in effect level the playing
field, as each competitor was dueling with the unknown.


The host course for the Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, is TPC Boston, a
venue at which Woods has one victory and two runner-up finishes in five
previous starts. It's been said that familiarity breeds contempt, but for
Tiger, such intimate knowledge of the greens often leaves him content with
the end result.


"These greens are so smooth," he said in comparison to those of his previous
two events. "Every putt, you hit it on line with the correct speed, it's
automatically in. It's not going to deviate. And not a lot of double
breaking putts here like last week from 10, 12 feet. Here they're pretty
simple."


And yet, "simple" wasn't so easy through 54 holes. Woods needed an average
of 28.67 putts per round during the first three days, but curbed that number
to 25 on Monday.



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Call it an explanation or an excuse, but he had a reason for needing time to
find the bottom of the cup.


"I went out there and I did the same things," he said after a final round in
which he holed out from the fairway on No. 6 and had 10 1-putt greens.
"Yesterday, I hit lip after lip, was hitting good putts. The last three days
I hit about three to five lip-outs per day, and you just stick with the same
things. I'm hitting good putts. OK, so hit good shots, same thing I've been
doing, and maybe those putts will fall. All of a sudden, boom, they start
falling, and here we go."


That boom sent an eruption through TPC Boston on Monday, as a score of 59
appeared viable when Woods opened 6-under through his first seven holes.
Sidetracked by bogeys on Nos. 11 and 17, he wasn't able to keep up that
pace, but such a performance should bolster his confidence entering the
final two rounds of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs.


Or maybe not.


Though Woods has never been shy about being a player who putts on memory --
"I do have a thing for remembering putts," he allowed recently -- he'll be
forced to reboot his personal hard drive for each of the next two events.


He owns four career victories at Cog Hill G&CC, site of this week's BMW
Championship. But with new greens on all 18 holes, he won't be able to putt
by sheer recognition. The same goes for East Lake GC, where in his last
start there in 2007, he won the Tour Championship;


It's a predicament that leaves the door slightly ajar on two venues that
Woods typically enjoys. Yes, every other competitor has to putt the same
greens, but when Woods is a tad unsteady with his reads, it greatly
increases the chances for the field.


So what's wrong with Tiger Woods? Well, it's the same issue that troubles
every other golfer, too. If the putts aren't dropping, he doesn't win
tournaments.


That's been the case in each of his past three starts. If the pattern
continues, don't expect him to find the winner's circle anytime soon.


Then again, as Woods proved on Monday, unlike many of his PGA Tour peers, he
can reverse such a trend during any given round. In this latest instance,
the only correct answer to that query was, "Absolutely nothing at all."

Tiger shot a dazzling 63 to wrap up the Deutsche Bank yesterday. Here are
his press conference comments:

September 7, 2009


Tiger Woods

NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Q. What did you have there?
TIGER WOODS: I had 30 hole, and I hit a little 9-iron just past the hole,
used the slope and came back.

Q. Talk about the front nine.
TIGER WOODS: Well, I got off to a pretty good start there, birdied three of
the first four, birdied 2, 3 and 4 and made a good save at 5, and I think
that's basically what kept -- that kept the round going, to be able to make
that save there.
From there just kind of continued. I hit it in there tight at 8, had a
chance there, hit a good putt at 9 and made a putt at 10 and just made that
mistake at 11. That and 17. But overall it was a pretty good day.

Q. What was your mindset, trying to birdie every hole?
TIGER WOODS: Well, the whole idea was to try and shoot something in the low
60s and that would probably get me in the Top 10. Certainly from where I was
at, I couldn't win the tournament, even if I shot 60 or something like that.
I was so far back, these guys are -- no wind, soft greens and pretty benign
pins, they'll go low.

Q. Did you make any adjustments in your putting stroke?
TIGER WOODS: No, I just kept on doing the same thing. I kept hitting lips,
lip after lip after lip, so I'm not that far off. Just stay the course, and
boom, all of a sudden I started making putts. I was hitting the ball just as
good, and things just started rolling.

Q. Are you a little bit disappointed or how do you feel today?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it could have been a little bit lower. I made that
mistake at 11, hit the wrong club there and three-putted 17. But yeah, it
probably could have been a couple less than that, but still wouldn't have
been good enough.

Q. Did you change anything between yesterday and today?
TIGER WOODS: Nothing, absolutely nothing. I went out there and I did the
same things. Yesterday I hit lip after lip, was hitting good putts. The last
three days I hit about three or five lip-outs per day, and you just stick
with the same things. I'm hitting good putts, okay, so hit good shots, same
thing I've been doing, and maybe those putts will fall. All of a sudden,
boom, they start falling, and here we go.

Q. How did the course play today?
TIGER WOODS: It's a lot easier. The wind yesterday was all over the place.
It was hard to hit the ball pin high. It was really hard. Today was actually
pretty interesting. I think we played 13 out of the 18 holes into the wind.
For some reason we just kept getting the into the wind gusts, and it was
just one of those days. It's just not blowing hard enough, but when it does
come up, or when it did come up, it was in our face. It was just one of
those weird days.

Q. (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: No, no, I was in between clubs. I was pushing 3-iron to get to
the front, and I figured a low 3-iron lands on top, rolls to the hole. If I
hit it too hard, which normally when I hit the ball too hard, it goes left.
Left is no big deal, I've got a big bank over there.
But in hindsight I was really thinking about hitting a nice, soft 5-wood in
there, using the bank and kind of feeding it back there. The only thing, we
were kind of worried about if it landed on top, it's out of here, and that's
a brutal up-and-down. I was just caught. I was 50 feet either way.

Q. When you pretty much know you're not going to win the tournament, how do
you stay motivated?
TIGER WOODS: You play. You play like you always do. You always go out there
and you try and shoot the lowest round you possibly can. Whether you can win
a tournament or not, it doesn't matter. You go out there and post a low
number, as low as you've got for that day. It doesn't change, whether you've
just made the cut or you're dew sweeping on the lost day. It doesn't matter.
You post a low round and see what happens. You can feel good about it, you
know?

Q. (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: You know, ball-striking wise it was the same. I just made a few
more putts today. That's the difference. If you look at the way I've played
the last two weeks, I've hit the ball really well, just haven't got anything
out of my rounds.
Today I got something out of my round.

Q. (On the spectator wearing the Tiger suit.)
TIGER WOODS: He lost a few pounds today, there's no doubt. He took the head
off there on No. 1, and he said he was dripping wet. Hey, you've got a guy
in a Tiger suit, you've got two guys in green.

Q. (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, on top of that, these greens are so smooth, too. Every
putt, you hit it on line with the correct speed, it's automatically in. It's
not going to deviate. And not a lot of double-breaking putts here like last
week from 10, 12 feet. Here they're pretty simple. You know, I kept hitting
them in good spots today and had a lot of looks.

Q. How do you think the Playoffs system is working?
TIGER WOODS: It's still pretty interesting because you could have a great
year, you could win the first three Playoff events and not win the FedExCup.
I don't know, maybe that's the way they want it just in case it does happen,
you know, like Vijay did last year. We'll see how it plays out.
I'm sure it'll be tweaked again and again and again. That's just the way it
is until you get it right.

Q. (On the Money List.)
TIGER WOODS: That's how you know it. I'll be honest with you, I don't really
know the points. I don't think anyone knows. You come in there and you go
how many points did I make today, and no one has a clue. But we understand
the Money List because that's what we've done our entire careers. It's just
a different way of looking at it. It's going to take time to get used to.
We've done it for a few years now, and you start getting the hang of it, but
still, you still need a few more years of familiarity.

Sunday's (Round Three) Tee Time: 10:55 a.m. ET, paired with Lucas Glover

Tiger's post-Round Two Comments:

Q. I assume your goal when you get to the back nine is try and cut into as
much of the lead as you could. How do you think you did?
TIGER WOODS: I wanted to give myself a chance. Now I've got to go low two
rounds.

Q. (Inaudible.)
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I made a few par putts, I made a couple birdie putts here
and there. But you know, as you look at it, I'm close on nearly every hole.
That's the way I'm playing. They haven't been lipping in, they've been
lipping out. I had five lip-outs today. That's about par for the course
right now.

Q. The way you played coming in, six or seven holes in a row inside whatever
feet.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, that's how I've been playing. That's how I played at the
PGA, how I played last week, how I've played this week. I've hit it pretty
good in stretches. Today is one of those days where I could have gone really
low. Could have had a really low round.

Q. How bad was your lie in the bunker on 11?
TIGER WOODS: It was buried.

Q. That was a big momentum maker then to get up-and-down and make that putt?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, absolutely. At the time I was 11 back of the lead and
right on the cut line. I saw a lot of media guys out there, so I thought,
I'd better turn this thing around and make them go away. (Laughter.)

Q. You hit a great drive afterwards and it just seemed to kind of go from
there.
TIGER WOODS: I needed that putt. I made a good par putt at 9, another one at
10 and a nice one at 11, just to kind of keep me right there. I still had
some easy holes that I could take advantage of there coming in, and I did
that.

Q. Especially with Heath in the bunker on 11, why did Stevie -- why was it
important that he rake?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I was asking Heath do you want to go first because if you
don't get it out, it's going to roll back. If I play, if he elects not to
rake it, then it could roll in one of my footprints. But Stevie can rake
after I play. It's just that you don't want to disturb the sand that's right
next to the ball. Where I stepped was really close to his golf ball, and we
had to be really careful how Stevie raked the bunker, that he didn't affect
his ball, and that's one reason why I asked Heath to play first, if he
wanted to play first, because I would be right next to his golf ball.

Q. What would have happened if Stevie would have raked and disturbed his
ball?
TIGER WOODS: That's the thing, I didn't want to take that chance. That's why
I asked Heath if he wanted to play first.

Q. Not counting 17 perhaps, it seemed like you were putting much better on
the back nine on the front nine. Did you make any adjustments?
TIGER WOODS: You know, I really didn't, actually. I just started seeing the
line a little bit better. You know, my speed was good all day today, I just
started seeing the breaks a little bit better and I poured a few in there.

Q. Is grinding on a cut line any different than grinding in contention at
all? Is there any philosophical and emotional difference?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, if you're grinding on the lead, you're playing a lot
better than you are grinding on the cut line.

Q. Do you feel if you continue the way you're playing, the putts are going
to fall?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, absolutely. I feel as if I've been hitting it pretty much
all year. If I putt well, then I'm right there and I win golf tournaments.
And if I don't, then I'm still right there with a chance.
But you know, you have to make putts. You can't out-ballstrike these guys.
The equipment is too good now. The ball doesn't move too much, and the
drivers are so forgiving, the irons are so forgiving, that you just can't
out-ballstrike the guys. You have to make putts.
Most of the guys that win on TOUR, they're usually in Top 10 in putting for
the week.

Q. Have you ever gone two weeks like this in the past? I know you've had a
few rough West Coast stretches on the poa out there way back in the day, but
just from a putting context, been a while?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it's been a while. They had bumpy greens at the PGA, and
last week the golf course was very unique and very different for us. These
greens are absolutely perfect.
But yeah, you go through stretches like this. Some guys go through months,
years before they turn it around, weeks. Everyone goes through stretches
like this. It's not the first time in my career I've gone through this, and
I'm sure it won't be the last.


End of FastScripts

Q. Kind of an up-and-down round today.
TIGER WOODS: I didn't really do much of anything positively today. I didn't
feel good over any shot today and didn't drive it very good, hit my irons
worse and didn't make any putts. Other than that, it was a good day.

Q. Did that last putt kind of do in the round?
TIGER WOODS: I just didn't have enough speed in that putt. I had the read
right, just didn't have enough speed.

Q. A lot of chances, mostly just speed or what?
TIGER WOODS: Some was. Some were bad putts. Most of the putts I hit today,
if anything they were lacking pace. They were kind of rolling by about six
inches past the hole, maybe a foot. I just wasn't carrying enough pace to
the hole. A little bit more break at the end than I should have.

Q. This is the fourth week here; the last three you've been right in the mix
up until the last couple of holes. Do you feel any emotional difficulty in
grinding it back up and coming back out here and getting it going on a first
round?
TIGER WOODS: Long stretch. Most of this year I've been in contention, so
it's not just the last few weeks. Being in contention, you have to deal with
a lot of different things, pre-round, post-round. It just adds to it.

Q. You hit a couple drivers down the stretch (indiscernible.).
TIGER WOODS: I told you I felt terrible over any tee shot, didn't matter
what club it was, whether it was an iron on a par-3 or a driver on any hole.
I didn't feel great over any shot. It was one of those days.
Iron shots into greens were not very good, and as I said, I didn't make any
putts, either.

Q. What did you think of that putt Stricker made at the end?
TIGER WOODS: It was unbelievable. We thought he was going to shoot 62 at the
turn the way he was going. The putts were center cut, iron shots were right
at it, and he was driving the ball great. He made one mistake there at 7,
his lay-up was left. But other than that you'd be hard pressed to find a
shot that he hit off line.

Q. Did it make it any tougher for you seeing how well he's playing?
TIGER WOODS: No, I've got to worry about my own game. It's a four-day
tournament. If you have a bad day, the whole idea is just to mitigate the
mistakes and keep yourself in the ballgame. Today is a day I certainly could
have shot over par, but I kept it under par, so that's a good sign.

Q. There have been times you've done very well on this course. Is that
something you can call upon in your mind?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I've hit the ball a little bit better than I did today.
It's one of those days. But yeah, I've had some success here. I've felt
pretty good going into today. Unfortunately I just didn't hit the ball as
well as I wanted to and certainly didn't make anything.

Q. Just a flash of frustration on 5?
TIGER WOODS: How about every hole.

Q. Talk about the course.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the course is -- I haven't played it in a couple years.
There was one change I saw out there at 15 tee, but that's about it. A
couple mounds they've added here and there throughout the golf course, but
it's virtually the same. The greens are perfect, the fairways are in great
shape. Surprising how dry it is considering how much rain they've gotten
here. The golf course is really draining well.

Q. In a pro-am like this do you find yourself talking to these guys about
golfer business?
TIGER WOODS: We're all over the map on that. Very little about business and
what they do because I'm sure they want to get away from that. We're out
there just telling jokes, having a great time, telling stories. A lot of
needling, a lot of needling. It was good. We had a great time. Some of the
guys I've either met or played with before, so it was good to see them
again.

Q. You've had a lot of victories. Have you ever been pleased with second
place?
TIGER WOODS: No. There are sometimes when you are somewhat pleased, but you
got to that position because you were so far out of it, but ultimately you
didn't win the tournament. Can you be completely pleased with second place,
no. But sometimes it is not too bad considering that you made a big run,
shot a low round on Sunday to give yourself a chance, which I've done that a
few times.

Q. Do you remember the last time you did that?
TIGER WOODS: Maybe sometime this year, I don't know.

Q. Can you talk about the relationship of this tournament to your
foundation?
TIGER WOODS: It's been huge. What Deutsche Bank has done for us, getting our
brand awareness not just in this area but they've helped us around the
United States. It was our first part of being part of the PGA TOUR. Seth has
been so nice to us to let us be a part of it, and we've tried to help as
mutually as we possibly could in the last six, seven years.
I think it's been a great relationship and one we want to continue.

Q. Do you like this area?
TIGER WOODS: I've always liked this area. I've played well here, and the
people are thoroughly enthusiastic about sport. You don't find that
everywhere you go. Growing up in LA at the time, we had a lot of different
sports. Some have moved on, but it's just neat to come to an area like this
where you see it is truly a sports town.

Q. You've come back pretty well from your knee surgery. Any hints for a guy
playing football coming back?
TIGER WOODS: Well, you have to understand that you've done the legwork,
you've busted your butt all these months to get to this position, which I
know Tom has. He's worked extremely hard. He's taken a few shots, and
obviously I think it's good. He needs the experience. For me it was about
being out here and playing under the gun, on the back nine on Sunday, and
see how it feels.
The thing is about my sport is I can continue to get better as the year goes
on. He's going to continue to get hit pretty hard. That is always going to
be the case for football players.
For me you have days where you think there's no way it's going to get any
better, and a week later it's unbelievable again, it's even better.
Hopefully Tom will continue to get better throughout the season and the line
protects him.

Q. Do you kind of have that common bond?
TIGER WOODS: It's not a bond you want; blowing out ACLs is definitely not a
bond you want. But certainly I've always admired him for what he's done,
even though that tough rule got us.

Q. Ernie Els had a three-year plan to catch you for No. 1 in the world. What
did you think about that at the time and what do you think about how he's
playing lately?
TIGER WOODS: After he came off that knee surgery, it takes time. Ernie is
not a big worker physically, and that's one of the things that you have to
do with an ACL repair is you've got to really do a lot of work. I feel
pretty good with what I've done, and I think Ernie, he could have worked a
little bit harder.
But Ernie travels all around the world, more than any other golfer. He plays
all over the place, and it's harder for him. He's not just here in the
United States, he's not just in Europe, he's not just in South Africa, he's
all over the place. Ernie is starting to put it together a little bit.
Obviously he changed coaches in the last couple years, and we all know he's
got the talent. We've seen it. It's just a matter of him getting the
confidence in what he's doing.

Q. How much work have you done on putting the last few days?
TIGER WOODS: I've worked on it just a little bit, not much, though. I really
putted well on the weekend, I just didn't make a lot of putts. When you're
lipping out a lot of putts, you're not putting forward. Those greens were a
tough read for a bunch of people. As I said earlier to Doug, when you have
ball in hand and you're playing the tees way up on Saturday and the lead
over the weekend only goes 2-under par, that's something to say about how
the golf course is playing.

Q. (On kids emulating Tiger.)
TIGER WOODS: It's pretty flattering, no doubt. Having kids of my own
certainly has changed that. You always want to do the right thing and you
always try. You don't always do it, but you always try.

Q. What kind of positives did you take away from the PGA and last week?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I think this last stretch there, I think I've hit the
ball pretty good. I've putted well in stretches. Win one, second, second.
That's not too bad. Some people have alluded to other things, but that's not
too bad for my last four events. The overall year has been very consistent,
especially at this time last year I was just coming off crutches. It's still
pretty cool.

Q. Your putting on the last two golf courses you've never seen, Hazeltine
and Liberty National. How do you think you did on the putting side?
TIGER WOODS: Well, Hazeltine, not a lot of guys made a lot of putts there,
either. I don't know if you played there on Monday afterwards like some of
the media guys did, but I don't know how anyone made anything. It is what it
is, we all have to deal with it. It's like playing on the West Coast early
in the year. It's hard to make putts on those greens, and you get in
stretches where you make everything and you get in stretches where you make
nothing.
Last week was just tough reading for me. I just had a tough time reading the
greens. That's just the way it goes. You have weeks like that and you have
stretches like that and sometimes you have years like that. But I think in
the overall, this year I've putted a little bit better, been a little bit
more consistent. But overall the year, I think, has been pretty good.

Q. How do you feel about these greens?
TIGER WOODS: They're rolling perfect. They're rolling great. I was telling
Stevie, every time we come here we think the greens are undulating. Not
after last week.

Q. From a teaching standpoint, could you explain or share the toughest thing
for the average golfer to understand?
TIGER WOODS: One of the hardest things about understanding the golf swing
is, one, I think trying to get your ball flight consistent because there's
so many different things that go into it, how your swing plane is, how tall
you are, how your body feels, club head speed, how fast you can swing the
club. A lot of these things go into it. One of the things I've always
alluded to, you have to get clubs that fit you, and if you look at my
upbringing, I'm very lucky that my dad was such a stickler for having clubs
that fit me and I didn't have to make concessions in my golf swing because
the clubs fit; they were never too big, too heavy, too long. I think that's
one thing before you even get started that all amateurs can do is to get
something that fits, and then from there keep expanding your knowledge and
understanding how to play.

Deutsche Bank Championship

September 4 - 7, 2009
TPC Boston
Norton, MA
Par 71 / 7,207 yards
Purse: $7 million with $1.26 million going to the winner
Defending Champion: Vijay Singh


TV Times [all times ET]:
Fri: 6:00 AM-8:00 PM XM 146
Fri: 3:00 PM-6:00 PM TGC
Sat: 6:00 AM-8:00 PM XM 146
Sat: 3:00 PM-6:00 PM TGC Sun: 6:00 AM-8:00 PM XM 146
Sun: 3:00 PM-6:00 PM NBC
Mon: 6:00 AM-12:00 PM XM 146
Mon: 2:00 PM-6:00 PM NBC

As an aside to the current tournament comes this truly touching article by
David Feherty on golf. com.

The final round of Tiger's AT&T National at Congressional Country Club in
July was particularly satisfying for me to witness because I followed the
host toward his oneshot victory over Hunter Mahan, who had earlier posted an
incredible 62. Hunter has supported my Troops First Foundation events since
the beginning, and like Tiger, his dad served in the military. Earlier that
week, Hunter, Rod Pampling, Jason Gore, Pat Perez, Kelly Tilghman and Tom
Watson played with thirty or so seriously injured servicemen and women (most
of them amputees) in my 2nd Annual Improvised Explosive Day of Golf at the
Chevy Chase Club. This year I had another amazing group of warriors, from
Rob Brown - a below-the-knee amputee who may represent the U.S. in both the
regular Olympics in kayak and Para-Olympics in track and field - to
22-year-old PFC Brendan Marrocco of the 25th Infantry, who on Easter Sunday
in Tikrit was robbed of all four limbs plus his left eye.
It takes a while to figure out how to react to the severely injured members
of our armed forces, but after almost three years of being around them, I
think I have it figured out. This year's IED of Golf was the first time I'd
met Brendan, with whom it is impossible to shake hands, play footsie, chest
bump or, for that matter, pull his finger. A stump-to-knuckles thing had to
suffice, and after that I embarked on what is now my normal procedure for
getting to know a new member of my F-troop, who was being driven around in a
cart by his brother Mike. It went something like this:
Me: "You know, you're not as tall as I thought you'd be."
Brendan: "I used to be taller."
"Yes, I can imagine. So, what would you like to do today?"
"I'd like to kick your ass."
"Well, that seems unlikely. Obviously you can't walk, but you look like
you'd bounce pretty well. Are you going to be okay in that cart without a
seat belt?
"Yeah, I can hold on with my butt cheeks."
"Excellent! Well, clench on, brother - I'll see you out there."
(Later that morning)
Me: "Hey, Stumpy, how's it going?"
Brendan: "I like this - is there any chance I can go watch Tiger with you
this week?"
"I'll get you inside the ropes if I have to wear you like a f-----g hat."
"Man, that's cold."
"Hey, get used to it, kid - you're an F-trooper now."
These exchanges usually horrify first-time witnesses, but after a few
moments, everyone gets it. Brendan has lost his limbs, not his mind, but
more important for a man who has been trained to be one of the best soldiers
on the planet, he has lost his dignity. By his reactions to my seemingly
callous assaults on what is left of him, Brendan regains a little of that
dignity each time. Brendan, like the rest of my men and women, is more
courageous, more inspiring, more complete, and funnier than any able-bodied
person I know. His intelligence and his sense of humor are the only weapons
he has left to defend himself, and he will use them in a manner that leaves
those of us who are lucky enough to have him and others like him defending
our freedom utterly awestruck and humbled.
Tiger had a one-shot lead after the 17th hole, and as he stood waiting for
Anthony Kim to putt out, I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that
Brendan, who had followed him all day in a cart inside the ropes, was now in
his wheelchair where Tiger would turn the corner to go to the 18th tee.
Tiger smiled at me and nodded. Before heading to the last tee, Tiger
hunkered down and knuckle-stumped one of his heroes, PFC Brendan Marrocco.
Brendan, who before that day had been ashamed and frightened to go out in
public, was wheeled by his father, Alex, and his brother Mike down the
center of the 18th fairway to an overwhelming, roaring, standing ovation. He
lifted what is left of one of his arms in a salute, and this announcer wept
like Gary McCord at a Barry Manilow concert as Tiger looked on in the
background, smiling.
It's hard to know which boy the old Green Beret Earl Woods would have been
prouder of at that moment, but I do know this: Because of Tiger Woods,
Hunter Mahan and the Troops First Foundation, PFC Brendan Marrocco is no
longer ashamed to go out in public. And by this winter, he will be hunting
birds with us and pulling his own damn trigger, or I'll make the little
swine drop and give me twenty. Only a fool would bet against him being able
to do both. Like they say, there's strong, and then there's Army Strong.

TV coverage (all times Eastern):
Golf Channel Thursday 3 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
	 Same on Friday
Golf Channel Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

CBS Saturday 3 p.m. - 6 p.m.
     Sunday 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Live Video Coverage on pgatour.com on Thursday and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6
p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
-----------------------------------
Tee Times:

Tiger is paired with Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson.
Tee of on Thursday from the 10th hole of Liberty National Golf Club at 8:21
a.m.
Round Two, Tee #1, 1:11 p.m.

-----------------------
Watch for the press conference in the next day or two!

From golf.com:
Tiger Woods wins Notay Begay III skins game
Published: August 25, 2009
VERONA, N.Y. (AP) - Notah Begay III couldn't have scripted it any better.
With more than 3,000 awestruck fans watching his every move, Tiger Woods
captured the second annual Notah Begay III Foundation Challenge on Monday,
surging past Camilo Villegas in the closing holes at Turning Stone Resort's
Atunyote Golf Club.
After Villegas won $180,000 with a birdie at the 14th hole to boost his
winnings for the day to $200,000 in the skins game format, Woods won the
next three holes to finish with $230,000.
Begay birdied No. 18 for $70,000, while Canada's Mike Weir was shut out for
the second straight year.
Begay received a check for $750,000 for his foundation and Woods, his
roommate in college at Stanford and his longtime friend, departed with the
winning trophy, a piece of Pueblo Indian black pottery from Begay's home
state of New Mexico.
It was a rare appearance by the world's top player, whose schedule leaves
little room for such forays. Woods was glowing afterward, the stunning loss
to Y.E. Yang in the PGA Championship a week ago erased by a few swings for
charity.
``Today was incredible, to come here and bring awareness to what Notah is
trying to do,'' said Woods, who won five holes to three for Villegas. ``It's
great to see what he's doing, to put his heart, soul and passion into
something like this and bring this many people together to help them
understand and educate the public. I'm just so proud of him as a friend.
We've been through a lot together.''
The event is a collaboration between the Oneida Indian Nation of New York
and San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians of California. Begay, the
only full-blooded Native American to play on the PGA Tour, established his
foundation in 2005. It uses the sports of golf and soccer to promote
physical fitness and wellness among Native American youth, who are plagued
by obesity and diabetes.
``To have Tiger be a part of this is just a tremendous asset for the
foundation and the event,'' Begay said. ``I think he enjoyed himself. He
beat us, but I think we've kind of grown accustomed to that.''
Just like a year ago, the first six holes were worth $10,000 apiece, the
second six $20,000, holes 13 through 17 were worth $50,000 each, and No. 18
was worth $70,000.
Villegas won the inaugural event and seemed set to make it two in a row.
After Woods birdied No. 8 to reach $80,000, the players halved the next five
holes to boost the purse for No. 14 to $180,000.
Villegas hit his second shot at the 410-yard, par 4 to within 8 feet of the
pin, then dropped to the turf in his spiderlike stance to study the line for
the putt. After Woods' birdie try slid a foot past the pin and Weir's slid
just left of the hole, Villegas calmly rolled his in.
Undaunted, Woods, the bottom of his gray pants wet from walking the soggy
course, hit his second shot at the par-4 15th hole, a 442-yard dogleg,
inside 10 feet of the pin and won the $50,000 hole.
With a stiff right-to-left wind blowing at they teed off at No. 16, Woods
hit to 8 feet and curled in another birdie putt for another $50,000 as this
three rivals failed to match him.
At No. 17, another par 4, after Villegas lipped out a 15-foot birdie putt
and Weir missed again just left, Woods calmly sank the winning putt, a
perfectly paced 12-footer for birdie.
Villegas had a chance for the win at the par-5 18th hole when Woods found a
greenside bunker with his second shot. But after the Colombian star pitched
to within 5 feet of the pin on his third shot, he missed the birdie putt and
Begay, despite an ailing back that relegated him to riding in a cart for a
few holes, capitalized for the only time in two years.
The last time Woods appeared in a major skins game format was in 2005, when
he competed against Fred Couples, Fred Funk and Annika Sorenstam. Funk ended
up the star in that nationally televised event, winning the most skins and
showing some skin of his own by donning a skirt at one point after getting
outdriven by Sorenstam.
Woods was scheduled to play in Begay's event a year ago but had to skip it
after injuring his knee. He made good on his promise this year and hinted
that he might return.
``I'd do anything for him,'' Woods said. ``What he's trying to do, and what
he has done for Native American communities is unheard of, really.''

I am back from a ten day business trip. Sorry to have been scanty in
covering the pGA. This weekend is the beginning of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Look for more info in the days ahead.
---------------------
This news in the meantime:

BEIJING (Reuters) - PGA Championship winner Yang Yong-eun will renew his
rivalry with Tiger Woods on Asian soil in November after confirming his
participation at the $7 million HSBC Champions Monday.
The 37-year-old South Korean, who became the first Asian man to win a major
by out-dueling world number one Woods in Minnesota this month, will return
to Shanghai for the November 5-8 tournament, now a World Golf Championship
(WGC) event.
Yang is a former champion at the Sheshan International Golf Club, having
stormed up the leaderboard in the final round of the tournament in 2006 to
beat Woods by two strokes.
"Winning the tournament set the foundation for bigger things to come," he
said in a statement released by organizers. "It gave me the courage to
achieve bigger goals."
Spain's 2008 champion Sergio Garcia and world number two Phil Mickelson, who
won the 2007 version, will also return to the course outside China's
economic capital.
"After the Open Championship, it's hard to think of a bigger or better
tournament held outside the U.S.," said Mickelson.
With Britain's Paul Casey, regular China visitor Henrik Stenson of Sweden,
Australian Geoff Ogilvy and American Stewart Cink all signed up, the
tournament will boast seven of the current top 10 players in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, Tiger played at Notah Begay's charity event. Photos available for
viewing here:

http://www.golf.com/golf/gallery/article/0,28242,1918312,00.html

The press reaction to Tiger's second-place finish has been discrouaging, to
saythe least. Our man will be back! Here is a balanced view from Cameron Morfit
of golf. com:



CHASKA, Minn. — Phil Mickelson holed a 205-yard 5-iron for eagle on the first
hole and still shot 76.

Padraig Harrington came close enough to the trophy to fog it up with his breath
until he barfed up an 8. Again.

And, oh, yeah, Tiger Woods blew a major.

Yep, you read that right. Woods lost a two-shot lead at the 91st PGA
Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club to a 37-year-old South Korean named
Y.E. Yang (Y.E. not?), who shot a two-under-par 70 to Tiger's ragged 75.


And here's the funny thing: It's the best possible thing that could have
happened to Woods.

We now appreciate all the more the 14 major championship victories, the 70 PGA
Tour wins. You know how hard it is to win one major, let alone 14? You do now,
courtesy of Tiger's lost weekend, which included 33 putts Sunday.

Tom Watson was asked at the British Open last month: If he went on to win the
tournament, would that be the greatest golf achievement ever? Watson didn't
hesitate. The greatest golf achievement, he said, was Tiger Woods winning the
2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots. Next question, please.

But we didn't appreciate that then. We took Tiger Woods for granted. We were so
sure he was going to win this PGA that a U.K. bookmaker, Paddy Power, said it
mistakenly paid out $2.1 million to Tiger-backers before he'd even teed off
Saturday.

We started to think he was a machine, and we declared it so.

"Cut him open and I'll tell you what you'll find," Rocco Mediate said of the man
who beat him in a playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, despite playing
on a broken leg. "A bunch of wires and levers, and a big heart."

Um, no, you won't. Woods bleeds, and he bogeys.

On Sunday, he yanked his tee shot into a greenside bunker on the par-3 eighth
and couldn't get up and down for par. He hit 3-wood for safety smack into a
canopy of tree branches on 10. And, reeling from Yang's chip-in for eagle at the
drivable par-4 14th hole, he chunked a 5-wood from the middle of the 15th
fairway.

After Woods bogeyed the last two holes to lose to Yang by three shots, he met
with the media and blamed his faulty putting, then went to the parking lot and
hugged his wife, Elin, who handed over their 7-month-old son, Charlie. After a
lengthy car-seat transfer from Elin's courtesey Mercedes into Tiger's Buick,
Team Tiger's motorcade left Hazeltine.

No truth to the rumor that their headlights were on.

A large crowd watched from a barricade by the parking lot, stunned at what had
transpired over the final nine. Yang: 34. Woods: 37. It was as if we were
waiting for Tiger to lean out the driver's side window and yelp, "Just kidding!"

Yang shocks Woods! It reads like a headline from The Onion. But the real
surprise is that it didn't happen sooner, Woods giving up a major championship
he seemed to have seized with one incisor.

The human frailty only makes you appreciate the greatness. And here's another
bright side: No longer will Woods have to answer questions about being 14-for-14
at closing out majors when he holds or shares the 54-hole lead, or
eight-for-eight when he holds the 36-hole lead. It's now 14-for-15,
eight-for-nine.

The streak is over, and the pressure is off. It's okay to sit next to Woods on
the bench again; he's no longer pitching a no-hitter.

Ask Mickelson, Greg Norman, Watson or even Jack Nicklaus how hard it is to bring
it home in a major 14 times in a row.

Ask Woods, who could tell you about the gust on the 17th hole that carried his
ball over the green, or the four-foot putts he missed on the fourth hole two
days in a row, or how he burned so many lips his putter should be tested for UV
radiation.

"I made absolutely nothing," he said. "I just have to say, terrible day on the
greens, and I had it at the wrong time."

You can ask Yang how hard it is to turn a 54-hole lead into a tournament win 36
straight times, as Woods had done before Sunday. Trying to secure victory No. 1
at the Honda Classic earlier this year, Yang nearly lost a four-shot lead with
four holes remaining.

"Those four holes," he said, "seemed longer than my career."

All the more reason why Yang, a 150-to-1 shot, beating Woods was like Buster
Douglas flooring Mike Tyson. CBS's Nick Faldo, practically beside himself over
Yang's final 3-hybrid approach, said, "Tiger cannot believe it!"

What we really couldn't believe was that Tiger could not do anything to answer.

The slippery, bumpy, 72nd-hole putts Woods made at Torrey in 2008 and at
Valhalla in 2000 look all the better after watching his orb veer everywhere but
the cup at Hazeltine. Woods loosed so many F-bombs on 17 that he eventually
buried his head in his arm, so as not to offend television viewers who read
lips.

Hazeltine's greens and fairways will be resodded after this PGA. It'll be too
late for Woods, whose putting was not his only problem. Iron shots flew to the
fat of the green, away from pins. Chips went off in his hands, or came out
chunky.

But Tiger wins anyway. With the airtight record, gorgeous wife, cute kids and
yacht, Woods kept such a razor-sharp crease on his life that we had started to
think of him as a brand leader or an action figure. (Comes complete with
sidekick Stevie!)

But he's human, we were reminded Sunday, a gifted man who had bucked the fickle
nature of golf to win 14 of 14 majors and close out 36 tournaments in a row when
he had the 54-hole lead.

With all due respect to Watson, it may be the greatest achievement the game has
ever seen.

---------------------------------------

Tiger's last press conference:

KELLY ELBIN: Tiger Woods, ladies and gentlemen, runner-up in the 91st PGA
Championship here at Hazeltine. Tiger shot 75 today, finishing 5-under par for
the Championship. Three strokes behind champion Y.E. Yang. Tiger, comment on the
round today and not being able to get that 15th major championship.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I hit the ball so much better than obviously my score
indicates. I hit it great all day.
I made absolutely nothing. I just have to say terrible day on the greens. And I
had it at the wrong time. I either misread the putt or had bad putts. I didn't
make anything except for the 14th hole. I think it was the only putt I made all
day. I had plenty of looks.
I was certainly in control of the tournament for most of the day, but just
didn't make anything today. I hit the ball great off the tee, hit my irons well.
I did everything I needed to do except for getting the ball in the hole.
KELLY ELBIN: Tiger's 33 putts today were the highest for his four rounds.

Q. Is there part of you that you do feel as if YE won this tournament or do you
feel there's a part of you that lost this tournament?
TIGER WOODS: It's both. I mean, I certainly -- as I say, I was in control of the
tournament most of the day. I was playing well, hitting the ball well. I was
making nothing, but still either tied for lead or ahead.
And YE played great all day. I don't think he really missed a shot all day. He
just made that mistake at 17. But other than that, he hit it great all day. And
it was a fun battle. Unfortunately, I just didn't make the putts when I needed
to make them.

Q. Can you talk about where you thought you started losing control or lost
control of this tournament, and what it was like going down the stretch in the
situation that you've rarely been in in your career?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I've been in this situation a lot, actually. But as far as
the tournament switching, 13, I stuffed it in there. He made a mistake, hit it
in the left bunker. He blasted out. I missed my putt. He made his. And then he
chipped in on the next hole. So that two-hole stretch turned -- if I make my
putt, he doesn't chip in, you know, he doesn't make his putt on 13.
A lot of different things, a lot of different scenarios could have happened in
those two holes. But I didn't execute. I didn't make the putt, and certainly he
did. And he chipped in as well.

Q. Can you talk about 17? Looked like you put a great swing on it. Did you feel
the ball was going to hold when you hit it?
TIGER WOODS: I made just a sweet swing. If you notice, I backed off because the
wind had switched dead against me. And it was supposed to be down and across. YE
got the same gust that I got when I backed off. He hit a good shot, but you
could see the ball stand up.
He got the wrong gust, got it into his face. And I hit my shot. I got the
downwind gust. I couldn't ask for a better golf swing, just hit it right over
the top of the flag. And unfortunately didn't get up-and-down.

Q. You've had a few seconds here in the last couple of years, couple of three
years. Early on it was kind of winning or nothing. I'm wondering, maybe it will
take you a few weeks before you can look back on this as a positive development,
if at all. But putting yourself in contention so much more often I guess these
days is not a negative, is sort of where I'm going with that.
TIGER WOODS: That's certainly one of the reasons why I changed my game with
Hank, is to be more consistent in the big events. My career has certainly been
much more consistent over the last five years. I've finished higher in major
championships, if I don't win. And I give myself a lot more chances. That's the
only way you're going to win major championships over the long haul is give
yourself as many chances as you possibly can. Nobody in the history of the game
has done better than Jack, finished second 19 times. You have to give yourself
enough chances to win them and I've done that. And very proud of the changes
I've made to get to this point. But unfortunately today I just didn't get it
done.

Q. Was this day, statistically, inevitable? Nobody is bulletproof through life?
TIGER WOODS: I don't think anyone has gone 14 for 14 or 15 for 15. So I've
certainly -- like today I played well enough to win the championship. I did not
putt well enough to win the championship today.
I didn't get it down on the greens, and consequently I didn't win the golf
tournament.

Q. For many of us, I think there's a feeling of disbelief, because you were 14
for 14 and all those other finishes you've had. Are you sort of in disbelief
that you didn't win this tournament, because you were leading basically from day
one?
TIGER WOODS: You know, I felt, as I said, I played well enough to win today. And
the frustrating thing is I didn't make any putts and that's something I had been
doing over the last three weeks. I've been putting pretty good. And the last
three days, the last three weeks.
Today was not very good at all. I had a few misreads out there and as well I hit
some bad putts, too. So it was just a bad day at the wrong time and that's the
way it goes.

Q. Beyond just the context of today and the struggles with the putts, given the
context of this year, what disappoints you most today?
TIGER WOODS: I didn't win today. As I said, I played well enough the entire week
to win the championship, and especially today I hit the ball well enough.
And you have to make putts, and I didn't do that. All the other 14 major
championships I've won, I've putted well for the entire week. And today was a
day that didn't happen.

Q. There's a lot of talk on TV about you playing conservatively, erring on the
side of conservativism, 6-under on the par 5s. Is that just a case of not making
the putts? Would you look back and think things I could have done differently,
mentally, maybe playing more aggressive at times? Just talk about that.
TIGER WOODS: When you've got 640-yard par-5s I really can't get there. I don't
know how aggressive I can play. The only hole that I really laid up on was today
on 7. That shot was off a downhill sidehill lie, would have been a cut 3-wood
out of the middle of the lake. Coming on slice wind to that green, I told Steve
if we got a 5-wood number, I'm going. But the number was a 3-wood. So that was
the only other hole that I could have actually have gone for and been more
aggressive.
Other than that, I couldn't get there or I just played the hole how you're
supposed to play it.

Q. Taking a broader view of today's outcome, do you think there was a certain
inevitability about an Asian player making this sort of break-through?
TIGER WOODS: You know, it was going to happen one day. If anyone would have
thought it would have been a Korean player, people probably would have suspected
it to be KJ because obviously he's played well for such a long period of time.
YE has won now a couple big events.
He won one here in the States prior to this down in West Palm. He's getting
better. He's playing better. And it's a matter of time before an Asian-born
player was going to win. We've had a lot of great players over the years
starting with Jumbo, and Isao (Aoki) has come close. And even Tommy.
But it was just a matter of time.

Q. Out of all your wins, compare this one to -- for 18 holes, the locked battle
with Bob May even though you had more scoring in that 18-hole stretch, from an
intensity standpoint, has this been the most intense final round you've had in a
major since that time?
TIGER WOODS: Probably not, no. I thought the U.S. Open last year was pretty
good. Sorry (smiling).

Q. You've played with a lot of different guys in the final group of majors in a
lot of tournaments. Can you talk about the way YE was able to handle the
situation having never been there with you before and what it was that was
different about what he could do today that others haven't done?
TIGER WOODS: Well, if you look at him as a player overall, he's always been a
wonderful ball-striker. And I think the only thing that's really held him back
was the flat stick.
And today he went out there and executed his game plan. He was driving the ball
beautifully, hitting his irons in the correct spots. He didn't really make a lot
of putts except for a couple par putts here and there.
But he was doing exactly what you have to do, especially in these conditions. It
was so blustery out there, nobody went low. I thought today if I shot under par
I would win the tournament. And that would have been the number.
But it was just a tough day. He did things he needed to do. He was driving the
ball in play, hitting the ball in the correct parts of the green and giving
himself looks. And he did all the things he needed to do at the right time and
just had that one hiccup there at 17. But other than that, you look at his
round, I think he played beautifully.
KELLY ELBIN: Tiger Woods, thank you very much.

Tiger is in the final pairing with Y.E. Yang, teeing off at 1:45 Central time.



Press Conference transcript:



KELLY ELBIN: Four-time PGA Champion, Tiger Woods joining us after three rounds
of the 91st PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club. Tiger is the
leader at 8-under par, two-stroke lead.
Tiger, fairly clean round today, two birdies, one on the front and one on the
back, bogey on 4. Comments on the round and feelings going into the final round
tomorrow.
TIGER WOODS: I was pretty consistent today all day. Only mistake I made was
3-putting there at 4.
But other than that, card was pretty clean. I didn't give myself a lot of looks
at putts, though. I was lag putting a lot. Given the conditions and my position
in the tournament, I didn't mind it.
KELLY ELBIN: Talk about the blade shot on 14 for birdie, what your thinking was
on that, in terms of why you used that club and so forth.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I just couldn't get a putter on it, and I couldn't chip it.
It was sitting down. I couldn't get a club on it clean enough. And so my only
shot was to just kind of basically blade it and have kind of a topple out of
there and hopefully it jumped straight, and it did. It jumped perfectly straight
coming out, and held its line and broke at the end and went in.

Q. How far?
TIGER WOODS: About a 15-footer there.
KELLY ELBIN: For the record, Tiger had 28 putts today, fewest of any of his
rounds this week.

Q. So even though you definitely had a clean round today, the other guys were
going low, or certainly going lower than they had been the last few days,
four-shot lead is now a two-shot lead. Is it going to change the way that you
approach tomorrow, and do you feel that you can't be as cautious as you might
have otherwise been?
TIGER WOODS: Well, that all depends on the weather, what we get tomorrow, how
much rain we get overnight, and how soft the golf course is going to play. You
know, I thought it was going to be playing a little bit more difficult today,
but it wasn't. They gave us a lot of room on a lot of these pins, six and seven
even from the side, so you can be fairly aggressive. I just felt that with my
lead, I erred on the side of caution most of the time. If I did have a good look
at it, a good number at it, I took aim right at it. Otherwise I was just dumping
the ball on the green and 2-putting.

Q. It's pretty clear that you're tight with Harrington, you admire him and
respect him; can you say what the qualities are that make you feel that way?
TIGER WOODS: Well, Paddy is just -- I've always felt he's a great guy and I've
known him, as I said, since amateur golf. We've gone back a long way.
Paddy is an extremely hard worker, very patient and really believes in himself
and his game. It's really nice to see someone who works that hard at his game to
accomplish his goals, and that's certainly one of the things I've always admired
about him.

Q. I know you keep your head down the final round of a major; can you address
the dynamics of if Paddy does not bogey 18 and you would be playing with him
again; but instead you'll be playing with Y.E. Yang; would you rather play with
a guy like Padraig in the last round?
TIGER WOODS: Well, no, because if I was, I'd have a one-shot lead. (Laughter).
Just kind of the way it turns out. Y.E. played just a great round of golf today,
shooting 67, and he got himself into the final pairing and Paddy put himself
right back in the tournament. It will be a fun day tomorrow and hopefully we can
get it in.

Q. It was remarkably windy out there today, and yesterday; have you made any
adjustments in the way you play in severe winds over the last couple of months?
Because we know at Turnberry it was a little rough and back in Muirfield a
couple of years ago, as well.
TIGER WOODS: Well, today and yesterday, you have to really be committed to what
you're doing and hopefully you time it right. If you look at what Vijay and I
both did on 13 today, just kind of waiting out the gusts, normally you don't do
that. Usually you can play because wind is not blowing that hard. But it was
blowing so hard today, at times. Other times you get in lulls, and when you get
the lull, you have to go and you have to take advantage of it because obviously
the ball is not going to move as much.
You just have to be committed, hit a really solid shot, and as we all know,
solid shots don't get affected by the wind that much, so you have to really be
committed to that. The last few days I've hit the ball pretty good.

Q. Paddy was saying that he senses the fans want you to win, but they also want
it to be close down the stretch for drama purposes; do you sense that?
TIGER WOODS: Mm-mm, no. (Laughter) I see them yelling a lot.

Q. If you win tomorrow, you'll tie Jack Nicklaus for five PGA Championship
victories, could you talk a little bit about what that would mean to you?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I have a long way to go before that happens. Hopefully I can
play a good enough round tomorrow and get into that position -- yeah, I know.
KELLY ELBIN: A victory would also tie Tiger with Walter Hagen for the all-time
mark.

Q. 18 holes to play, you've got a two-shot lead, not trivial by any means. Major
No. 15, what is your mind-set, exactly, tomorrow, in order to close this one
out?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, obviously you've got to play well tomorrow. With what the
guys did today on the golf course, you know the guys can shoot some good numbers
today -- or they did today in the wind.
And obviously, a lot depends on the weather. You know, it's supposed to be bad
tomorrow, and I don't know quite how bad, and hopefully we can get it in, if it
is bad. You know, if it becomes softer, obviously the fairways get bigger, but
you can get a little more aggressive going into some of these flags. But boy,
these greens got a little bit interesting this afternoon. Towards that back
nine, you had to be very cautious on your putts and not run them by.
So if we get some more rain tomorrow, it will be even worse.

Q. I've asked you this before, and I'll try again. You have a significant shot
differential between yourself and your playing partner in the final pairing,
final round of a major. Why? How do you explain that?
TIGER WOODS: I just go out and I play my own game. You just go out there and
just play and see what happens.
You know, the guys, you have to realize, we are fighting for a major
championship. We are all nervous out there. I'm in the same boat as everyone
else, but you've got to go out there and execute shots, and that's the fun, and
that's the rush and that's the thrill of it. That's why you play hard.

Q. I know you're not walking in their shoes and you're in your own game, but
time and time again, what do you witness from a playing partner, as minimally as
you pay attention to them, that you see any effect that that pairing has, if
anything?
TIGER WOODS: I think more than anything, it's just the amount of distractions
inside the ropes. There's a lot of movement, a lot of cameras, a lot of media, a
lot of people moving, and it can get you at times. It's gotten me and it's
gotten my playing partners.
You know, other groups don't quite have to deal with the amount of distraction
inside the ropes. We all have to deal with it outside the ropes, but inside of
it, it gets a little bit interesting at times.

Q. You've said many times that you prefer Pebble Beach in 2000 and the majors
when you run away, but you obviously really relished that duel with Padraig last
week. Can you describe the adrenaline when you're in a battle like that, and
maybe the electricity in the crowd; it seems like fans really want that again.
TIGER WOODS: It is a rush and especially when there's a major championship
involved. You know, if you're in that position, you know you're not playing
poorly. It's fun to go out there and test what you have, and other guys are
throwing it at you and hopefully I can throw it back at them.
It's fun. As I said, that's the rush of it is to try and go out there and try
and deal with it and execute.

Q. The closer thing, 47 out of 50 now, I think it is, you know, better than
Trevor Hoffman's winning percentage. What do you attribute that to, and in terms
of, you know, your many accomplishments, the cut streak and all those long,
impressive runs, where does that fit in your mind in terms of the things you've
done?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's -- you have to enjoy being in that position, and
also, too, that to be in that position, as I said, you're not playing poorly.
You know, I've played well to get myself in those positions, and fortunate to
have won most of those events. You know, you just have to go out there and
compete and play, and that's what's so much fun about it.

Q. When you have been in this position before, do you look at the calibre of the
leaderboard, do you look at the guys behind you and consider, okay, Harrington
has won before; does that make any difference in your approach going into the
final?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, it does, absolutely. You know, because you get guys who
understand how to win major championships, and the guys that know how to deal
with the situation, and how -- they know and they believe themselves, they know
how to get it done.
It's something to be said that when you go out in the final round of a major
championship and say, I've gotten it done before. I can say that. Harrington can
say that. Ernie was up there and he can say that. Definitely you understand how
to do it and it's just a matter of replicating it again.

Q. On 16 when you hit it over the green, your ball appeared to be in a
marked-out circle. Was it in the circle and did you have an option to get a
relief?
TIGER WOODS: No, it was in a drop zone. There was no relief there. I was very
lucky for it to stay up because I did tug it and it landed on the downslope just
on the left edge of the green and it shot over the top. I thought it was going
to be wet. Very fortunate to have it hang up and hit a good pitch and a good
putt from there.

Q. I think Yang won the tournament you were in in Shanghai?
TIGER WOODS: Yes, he did, the HSBC event.

Q. Anything you can recall?
TIGER WOODS: Yes, he was playing a group or two behind me. He was leading the
event, played well -- (looking upwards at sound of rain) -- yeah, I think it's
going to get softer, you're right. You're pretty smart, Steve, you know that.
(Laughter)
Yeah, Y.E. played great. I think he held off myself and Howeller, I believe, and
it was -- I believe he won by two, I think, I think.

Q. In terms of distractions and turning a negative into a positive, do you feel
that all of the distractions that you deal with every single time has in a
strange way made you a better player and made you block out things, block out
rain, block out distractions?
TIGER WOODS: Well, you just have to be a little more patient and let people
settle down and quit moving sometimes, and it helps that I have just a great
caddie to help me out. Steve does a great job at giving me an opportunity to
play. As I said, sometimes it can be a little bit distracting. It can be a
little bit tough at times, but you just deal with it and you move on, stay
patient, execute your shots and go ahead.
KELLY ELBIN: Third-round leader Tiger Woods, thanks very much.

End of FastScripts

Third round tee time for Tiger and Vijay --- 1:40 p.m. So I wasn't too far off!



An article by Gary van Sickle of SI's golf.com:



CHASKA, Minn. — The 91st PGA Championship isn't over, it just feels that way.

On a gut-check day in tough, swirling winds, Tiger Woods put his stamp on this
tournament and put his foot on the necks of his rivals. Three birdies in a row
on the back nine helped Woods get to seven under and open a four-shot lead going
into the weekend at Hazeltine National. You know what that means. Woods loses
four-shot leads in major championships as often as the Internal Revenue Service
sends out thank-you notes.


Asked if that lead in a major championship is any bigger when Tiger Woods has
it, Padraig Harrington grinned and drew laughter with his answer: "Well, what do
you think?"

Yeah, we think so. Woods is 8-for-8 when leading majors after two rounds. If
Woods wins, it'll be major No. 15 and will leave him just three behind Jack
Nicklaus on the all-time list. That will excite the folks in Wisconsin, who
could have a chance to see history made four majors from now when the PGA
Championship ventures to Whistling Straits in Kohler.

"I was very pleased with my execution today, especially with this wind," said
Woods, who added a two-under-par 70 to his opening 67. "The wind was up today,
changing directions and affecting putts. It was a very difficult day. I had to
grind it out."

Nobody does that better than Woods, who has a four-shot edge over Harrington,
Vijay Singh, Brendan Jones, Lucas Glover and Ross Fisher. Ian Poulter and Lee
Westwood are five shots back.

One three-hole stretch Friday may prove to be the signature moment of this
tournament. After a lipped-out birdie putt at the 13th, Woods drove the green
with a 3-wood at the par-4 14th, a 290-yard carry. He narrowly missed an eagle
putt but made a tap-in birdie.

"It was a perfect 3-wood and carried onto the green," Woods said. "I thought I
made the putt, but I picked up one there and got two more."

At the par-5 15th, he came to the tee with a three-shot lead, took a big swing
and blistered a tee shot out of sight. Even Superman would've had to squint to
see this one. Woods quickly picked up his tee after the shot, pursed his lips
and began to stride away. You know how Tiger always twirls his club after a good
shot? This twirl was extra hard, the equivalent of an Olympic ice skating triple
toe-loop. He really, really liked it, and for good reason. It's a 642-yard hole,
and he had 276 yards for his second shot. Simple math says Tiger's drive covered
366 yards. Downwind or just straight down, that's big.

You were wondering if Woods really and truly has his A-game this week? That
shot, down the middle of the fairway, should answer the question. If not, check
out the next two.

First, Woods hit a 5-wood second shot that bounded hard and ran over the green
into the rough near a bunker. Next, he faced an awkward chip from thick rough
and was forced to stand with one foot in the bunker and one in the grass,
gripping down on the metal shaft of his wedge. It was a dicey shot to a downhill
pin position. Woods deftly chipped it and his ball stopped within a foot of the
cup for a tap-in birdie. Three swings, three brilliant shots and an easy birdie.
All you can say is wow.

Harrington tried to keep up with Woods. On the 15th, Harrington pulled his drive
into the left fairway bunker and faced a 301-yard shot from an uphill lie. He
rolled the dice and pounded a fairway wood out of the sand. He sent it high into
the air, watched it bounce short of a greenside bunker, take a second bounce in
the thick rough short of the green and roll to the middle of the green,
pin-high, 15 feet from an eagle. It was a remarkable shot and sent a message to
Tiger: you're not getting away from me that easy.

"That's one of the best shots I've ever seen," Woods said later. "You could
hear, he didn't mis-hit that; he hit it flush out of an uphill bunker lie where
you can't use your legs to get any power and the chance of slipping is there. It
was a pretty impressive shot, definitely worth the price of admission."

Harrington's eagle putt lipped out of the right side, so he too settled for
birdie. That kept him within three shots of Woods and put him in sole possession
of second place.

Woods wasn't done yet. On the picturesque 16th, Hazeltine's signature par 4,
Woods rolled in a 20-footer for birdie, a putt that just barely toppled in over
the right edge. Harrington had a putt on the same line, but his broke outside
the hole on the left and he settled for par. With birdies at 14, 15 and 16,
Woods was eight under and had a four-shot edge on Harrington and Lee Westwood.

Westwood dropped back when he doubled the par-3 17th hole, three-putting from
three feet. Woods and Harrington gave shots back at the 18th when they failed to
get up-and-down to save pars.

Not even Friday's windy conditions, which affected the afternoon half of the
draw much more than the morning half, could slow Woods down. Despite the calm
early conditions, Phil Mickelson struggled, finishing at four over par. He made
double-bogey 6 at the fifth hole to fall to six over for the tournament, and he
needed an eagle at the par-5 seventh to shoot his second consecutive 74. He was
in danger of missing the cut, but the wind helped him out. He made a charge up
the leader board after he finished, ending up in 62nd place and making the cut
on the number.

Ian Poulter, another early finisher Friday, shot 70 to get to two under par and
was glad to get off the course as the wind strengthened in the middle of the
day. "It got very interesting the last hour," Poulter said. "That wind
definitely picked up 10 or 15 miles an hour. It will be some good viewing from
my armchair this afternoon."

As a true sportsman, Poulter refrained from cackling. Besides Harrington and
Woods, there was a mix of the usual suspects and some surprises.

No surprise was Vijay Singh, who backed up his opening 69 with an even-par 72.
"These conditions don't favor anybody," said Singh, a two-time PGA champion.
"Not even me. If it blows like this, it favors whoever is hitting the ball the
best and putting the best. So you have to go out there and hit it solid."

Also at three under was Fisher, who briefly took the lead from Tom Watson early
in the British Open's final round at Turnberry; Jones, whose main claim to fame
in America was losing to Tiger Woods in the WGC-Match Play's first round in
February; and Glover, who won the U.S. Open at Bethpage.

Glover has made 10 birdies in two days. "I've played my best golf on hard
courses this year," said Glover. "I'm just driving it good and putting well."

Jones, 34, an Aussie who has won eight times on the Japanese tour, where he
plays most of his golf, is a good wind player and took advantage of the
difficult conditions to shoot 70 and tie Singh. Jones eagled the short par-4
14th when he drove the green with a 4-wood and sank a 15-foot putt. He played
with Steve Marino, who chipped in for eagle just before Jones putted.

"That one at 14 was a bonus," said Jones. "I grew up on the south coast in New
South Wales and it's very, very windy there. I feel pretty comfortable in the
wind. The harder it gets, I pride myself on toughing it out in tough
conditions."

Grant Sturgeon, an assistant pro at Oakmont who played college golf at
Louisville, made the cut and was the low club professional at even par after
rounds of 73-71. He called his boss, Oakmont head pro Bob Ford, for some last
minute advice. "Bob said, 'Swing hard and hope you hit it,' " Sturgeon said,
laughing. "That was about as deep as we got into strategy."

Sturgeon was more fortunate than those players who won't be sticking around for
the weekend. Those include John Daly, who shot 78 Thursday and withdrew, citing
back pain. Adam Scott birdied the 18th hole Thursday to shoot 82, then backed it
up with a 79 on Friday. Scott looks completely baffled by his swing, and at this
rate may be left off the International side for the Presidents Cup in October.
European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie posted 78 and ballooned to nine
over par.