Tiger Talks About PGA Tourney Win At Doral
JOE CHEMYCZ (Ford Championship media room moderator): We welcome Tiger Woods to the interview area. Tiger, congratulations, another great win, a difficult day out there for you, but just talk about Sunday again and coming down the stretch and holding everybody off.
TIGER WOODS: Well, the golf course was playing a little bit faster today. The greens, especially, they were really quick. A couple of putts out there reminded me a little bit of Augusta how they are. You just had to be patient and still understand that you had to make birdies. The guys ahead of me, Dave Toms and Camilo [Villegas], were making birdies. So even the greens are getting a little bit quicker, so I had to be aggressive and still had to try to make some birdies.
JOE CHEMYCZ: The front nine, statistically the computer said zero fairways but nine greens hit and still 3-under-par.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I didn't hit a fairway, but hit like I guess.
Q. You hit two fairways. ShotLink was wrong.
TIGER WOODS: Okay, cool. (Laughter) 3-under, there you go.
Q. How aware were you of the situation when you were playing 17? Did you know you were two ahead?
TIGER WOODS: I knew that there was a board there, and after I knocked it over, I looked over at the board and saw that DT had made par, so I had a two-shot lead, yes.
Q. Why were you missing left early? Because you had missed right, your misses had been right all week.
TIGER WOODS: Correct.
Q. So you overcorrected?
TIGER WOODS: No, just hanging my head back a little bit, I was releasing my body but wasn't releasing my head as well. Rectified that and hit some good shots on the back nine. If anything, just overcooked it, which I don't mind starting the ball on line and overcutting it or something like that. Just as long as I strike the ball on line.
Q. When you stood there in the 17th fairway with I presume a wedge in your hands, did you think you were going to have work this hard at the end?
TIGER WOODS: No, no. I had 116 yards, I'm trying to land the ball about 105, and it was slightly downwind. I just hit a good shot, I thought. If there's anything I would say, it was just maybe a touch too flat. But being a touch too flat, I thought it would have landed shorter than it did but it landed pin high.
Q. From 18, what point when you got to your ball did you see David and figure out what was going on?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I saw where, well, we were on the tee, we were walking off the tee and I saw David was over to the right. I was just hoping I could grab a lie so that if I had to make a 4, I could. So once David Toms had made his mistake, I just said anything in the back bleachers, right bleachers, just anything over there to the right and over the water is all I had to do, just trying to play for 5. I wasn't even trying to make par.
Q. Did you have the kind of lie that if you had made that putt you could have hit the green?
TIGER WOODS: I could have hit the green, yeah, but I didn't have to. So just try to play anything to the right, just take the water completely out of play, 9-iron.
Q. Can you talk about the situation in the bunker on 18, the lie?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I saw it bounce over the hill and I'm thinking, well, it's perfect right in the middle of the bunker and if not it looked like it had enough steam to get on the upslope of the other side, no biggie, I got over there, didn't see it, didn't see it and finally saw it and, oh, boy. It was all right, you know. I actually caught a break where they were raking the edges and rolled up on top of one of those rake marks, so I had a little bit of a cushion underneath it. If it had settled down into those rake marks, I would have had a hard time keeping the ball on the green.
Q. Where was that rock that you picked up in relation to your ball?
TIGER WOODS: It was right behind it.
PGA update for first week in March '06
PGA TOUR Ford Championship at Doral Site: Miami.
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: Doral Golf Resort and Spa, Blue Course (7,266 yards, par 72).
Purse: $5.5 million. Winner's share: $990,000.
Television: USA (Thursday-Friday, 3-6 p.m.) and NBC (Saturday-Sunday, 3-6 p.m.).
Last year:
Tiger Woods won a dramatic duel with
Phil Mickelson to take the top spot in world ranking from
Vijay Singh. Woods made a 30-foot birdie putt on No. 17 to grab the lead and closed with a par to hold off Mickelson by a stroke. Woods had a 24-under 264 total to break the tournament record by a stroke.
Last week:
Australia's Geoff Ogilvy won the
World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship at La Costa, beating
Davis Love III 3 and 2 in the 36-hole final. Ogilvy played a record 129 holes in the event, also beating Michael Campbell, Nick O'Hern,
Mike Weir, David Howell and
Tom Lehman. ....
Kirk Triplett won the
Chrysler Classic of Tucson for his third PGA TOUR victory, closing with rounds of 64 and 63 to edge
Jerry Kelly by a stroke.
Notes: The tournament is in its final season as a regular PGA TOUR event. Doral will become a World Golf Championships stop in 2007 with a new title sponsor. ... Woods is coming off a third-round loss to
Chad Campbell in the Accenture Match Play Championship. After opening the season with victories in San Diego and Dubai, Woods withdrew from the Nissan Open because of the flu after making the cut by a stroke, then beat
Stephen Ames and
Robert Allenby before falling to Campbell at La Costa. ... The second-ranked Singh also is in the field along with No. 3
Retief Goosen, No. 4
Ernie Els, No. 5 Mickelson, No. 6
Sergio Garcia, No. 7
Jim Furyk, No. 9
David Toms and No. 10
Chris DiMarco. No. 8
Adam Scott is taking the week off. ...
Australia's Craig Parry won the 2004 tournament, holing a 6-iron shot from 176 yards for an eagle to beat
Scott Verplank on the first hole of a playoff. ... The TOUR will remain in Florida the next three weeks for
The Honda Classic,
Bay Hill Invitational and
THE PLAYERS Championship.
TOUR leaders: Victories, Woods, Ogilvy,
Chad Campbell,
Rory Sabbatini,
Arron Oberholser, J.B. Holmes,
Stuart Appleby and
David Toms, 1. Money, Sabbatini, $2,219,294. Scoring, Scott, 68.12 per round. Putting,
Scott Verplank, 1.669 per green reached in regulation. Greens in regulation, Bob May, 75.7 percent. Eagles,
John Senden, 45.0 holes per eagle. Birdies,
John Huston, 5.33 per round. Sand saves,
Michael Allen, 75.9 percent. Driving distance, Bubba Watson, 320.1 yards. Driving accuracy,
Fred Funk, 78.3 percent. Total driving, Allenby, 47 total placings in distance and accuracy categories. All-Around,
John Rollins, 291 total placings in all categories.
Its Tiger & Mickelson In Another PGA Showdown
MIAMI -- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson resumed their duel at opposite ends of Doral on Thursday, and the outcome didn't change.
Woods was still one shot better.
In a balmy start to the Florida swing, Woods again reached the 603-yard 12th hole in two shots and ran off a string of birdies along the back nine of the Blue Monster for an 8-under 64 and a one-shot lead over Mickelson and four others in the Ford Championship at Doral.
"This guy Tiger seems to play well every day, every week," Mickelson said. "I'm just trying to keep pace. I'm trying to maybe have another shot at dueling out with him on Sunday, and I'm glad that he's playing well. I've got to do my part and stay with him."
Woods won last year in a scintillating showdown between golf's two biggest personalities, with Woods pulling ahead on a 30-foot birdie putt at No. 17 and Mickelson lipping out a birdie chip on the last hole.
They teed off at the same time Thursday, but on opposite nines.
They were together only on the leaderboard, although both had some catching up to do on a day when 60 players broke 70 and 116 players were at par or better.
The times I looked at the board, neither one of us were up there," Woods said. "We weren't leading. I knew 7 (under) was leading, so try to get up there somehow."
Woods got off to a hot start on a tropical afternoon with birdies on three of his first four holes, including a tee shot within a foot on the 222-yard fourth hole. Mickelson made three straight birdies around the turn, and while his gallery was about one-fourth the size of those watching Woods, they were as passionate as ever.
There were throaty cheers when Lefty made a 12-foot birdie putt on No. 5, and one man yelled, "Yeah! He's letting Tiger know that he's coming!"
At that point, Woods was only about 250 yards away as he walked down the 14th fairway. He hit 9-iron into 10 feet, the start of three straight birdies that shot him to the top of the leaderboard. His 64 was his best score in the first round on the PGA TOUR since a 63 in the 2003 Western Open, which he went on to win by five.
It was sizzling stuff, even though it was only Thursday.
There are still three days left, and loads of other players capable of denying fans an encore.
Camilo Villegas, one of several promising rookies who hit the ball a mile, birdied four straight holes until settling for a two-putt par from about 8 feet on the 18th. That put him at 65, along with former PGA champion Rich Beem, Ryan Palmer and Mark Wilson, one of five players who got into this elite field with a top-10 finish in Tucson last week.
At times, it seemed like a replay from last year.
Woods had 282 yards to the hole on the monster 12th hole, and hammered a 3-wood that floated enough in the air to clear the bunker and reach the green. This time, he had to settle for a two-putt birdie, bouncing on his feet as the ball trickled to a stop inches from the front of the cup.
Then there was Mickelson, facing a 30-foot birdie chip after having to lay up on the par-5 eighth. The ball ran hot toward the hole, spun out of the cup and Lefty threw his head back in disbelief.
The good news for Mickelson? It's only Thursday.
And with a mild breeze in the afternoon and soft conditions, no one could afford to take their foot off the gas if they wanted to keep their positions.
"If you shoot even par, you're going to get run over here," Woods said.
Steve Elkington has been playing Doral every year since 1988, and after a 67, he kept his optimism in check.
"This course always gives up low scores early in the week," he said. "It's nothing to get too excited about."
But there was plenty of buzz with Woods and Mickelson.
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Tiger Woods carded a 31 on the Blue Monster's back nine. (Cohen/WireImage) |
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Woods, coming off a third-round loss in the
World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, played one of his most thorough rounds of his short year by keeping the ball in play, hitting solid irons and making putts on the smooth greens of Doral. He missed only three fairways, four greens and took 26 putts.
And his 64 could have been better had he not wasted shots on the par 5s.
He was pin-high on the par-5 eighth in two, elected to chip and put it past by 6 feet, missing the birdie putt. From the 10th fairway, he hit 5-wood toward the green which landed in the water hazard. He took a penalty drop and chipped close to save par.
But he atoned for that with tremendous drives that left short irons into the green, and one good break when he chipped in from 25 feet on the par-3 15th.
Asked if it was his best round of the year, Woods paused to think before remembering the Accenture Match Play Championship.
"I played similar to this -- at least for 10 holes -- at La Costa," he said, referring to his record 9-and-8 victory over Stephen Ames in the first round, when Woods birdied seven of his first nine holes.
Mickelson has been held back only by his putting, and that was among his best clubs in the bag Thursday. He took only 25 putts, although he sure would have liked to make the 20-footer on his last hole.
"I was trying to get the last one to pull even with him," Mickelson said. "But I just couldn't quite do it."
There's three more days to sort that out.
