Tiger's Pre-PGA Press Conference

Tiger Woods managed to go the whole press conference without one "it's right in front of you" compliment of Medinah, and he also got through it without screaming "why!??!?!!" at the top of his lungs after some really wonderful questions. First, the golf course and course management stuff.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the golf course is absolutely fantastic. Obviously they've lengthened some of the holes and the greens have been redone, but the golf course is such a wonderful layout, wonderful shape to it. It's one of the neat golf courses we get to play. It's old and traditional and it's just very straightforward. I mean, you've got to hit the ball well and obviously control your irons into these greens in order to have a chance.

Q. A lot has been made about your driving accuracy. Do you think too much has been made about it? And secondly, playing a course like this, do you need, do you think, to hit driver a lot, or can you hit the 5 wood stinger and 3 woods and get away with it.

TIGER WOODS: I'm not going to hit that many drivers because it won't really allow me to. Most of the holes are doglegged. Obviously I'd have to take driver up over the top of these tall trees, and it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I'm going to use it a few times, definitely.

But overall, just like it was back in '99, I hit just a bunch of 2 irons and a bunch of 3 woods here. Just because that's the way the golf course allowed you to play. You play to a lot of the corners and obviously fire from there. If you try to take on a lot of the corners or shape the ball around the corner, yeah, you can, but it's not always the easiest thing to do.

And with this next question, the affair sprialed rapidly. Where was Julius Mason to pull the plug!?!

Q. My doctor doesn't think that golf is a very physical game, but you have a lot of ups and downs here at Medinah. How would you rate it compared to other courses as far as a walk for four days?

TIGER WOODS: Not that tough. I mean, I think I'm in decent shape. Walking 18 holes shouldn't be that hard. Twenty more years before I can ride in a cart (laughter).

Some of the other questions Tiger faced...

Q. How old were you, and was there a specific shot or a specific tournament when you knew that you were good enough to play on the PGA TOUR?

Q. Best we can tell, the only other time you play with Phil in a major is '01 at The Masters. Can you think of another? Then I have a quick follow up.

Q. Do you find it more enjoyable to play with Phil in a major or at a Ryder Cup?

Q. You kind of made reference to it earlier, 20 years until you've got to ride in a cart. I am kind of curious where you see yourself at 50. Are you still trying to add to your major totals, or are you a soccer dad or what do you see?

Q. Is it okay to ask on the spectator side I know you are a great player, great champion. I've seen this like four times in a row, but no matter what, you are a great player. I remember there was a long time ago at The Masters, you won The Masters, and I think the channel 2 commentator introduced you, and when your father passed away everybody felt sorry. My question is going to be in the near future about a charity in the memory of your parents who have passed on?

I'm going take a guess here and say that question came from an uh, overseas writer. Or a drunk one.

Q. You look at some of the guys who have played you tough in majors, Rich Beem, Bob May, even Chris DiMarco would sort of fit into this category of guys who maybe they wouldn't be the first guys you would think of. This might be a tough question for you to answer, but do you think it's easier in a way for those guys who have lower expectations to play up to their abilities against you, as opposed to guys who are ranked second, third, fourth in the world?

Q. What do you think is your impact on golf in the last decade?

Q. What are you bowel movements like?

Oh, okay, I slipped that last one in. 
 

Pelz: Phil "has more imagination and a few more shots around the green"

Ed Sherman offers some quotes that should make Thursday's Tiger-Phil pairing that much chillier:

"When Phil's at his best, I'm thinking nobody can beat him," Pelz said.

Does Pelz's bold pronouncement include a certain player who has won 50 PGA Tour titles and 11 majors?

"You bet it does," Pelz said. "If Phil's long swing is good, his short game, I believe, is the best in the world. He doesn't have a serious weakness inside 150 yards.

"I'm not saying Tiger's short game is bad. He has a great short game. But I think Phil putts more consistently than Tiger does. He has more imagination and a few more shots around the green."

Pelz adds one caveat.

"The question is, how often is Phil on his best game?" he said.

Jackie Burke Unplugged

There's a killer book excerpt in the new Golf Digest featuring Jackie Burke's thoughts on the Ryder Cup, but since it's not linked, here's Burke talking to Jim McCabe about his PGA Championship win and other topics.

He has been around the game for nearly all 83 years of his life, which is why when he speaks, people listen. Burke has a passion for the game, particularly for great amateur play, but he cares little for some aspects that shape the landscape. He's fearful that a player on a practice range somewhere is going to get seriously hurt by a teaching device what with all the ropes and metal, and he feels pity for what they've done to the club professional's job description.

``He's got to worry about carts and shirts and the hypotenuse of a triangle," said Burke.

As for the phenomenon called Tiger Woods, Burke said it isn't a mystery.

``He's the only one who understands how to play the game, how to make shots," said Burke. ``The other guys? They're all out there plumb-bobbing the world, worrying about their launch angle and their ball speed. But Woods is like the great pool player -- he doesn't see the cue, doesn't see the ball, he just sees the whole game."

Tiger's Brands

Gene Yasuda and Kevin Dwire look at at all of Tiger's sponsors and what he brings to the table. Lots of references to what he brings to the brands. Obviously it's a slow week.

Detroit Tiger?

Vartan Kupelian spent a few too many days in the hot Flint sun last week, because he's proposing that Detroit find a way to build the first ever Tiger Woods design to replace the "too easy" Warwick Hills. Oh and he wants to pair Tiger up with Tom Doak.

Apparently Vartan is trying to make enemies in IMG Design Services, Inc. 

Tiger, Do You Like Golf?

Okay, so none of the stenographers asked anything that silly, but check out these beauties following Tiger's win at the Buick.

For fun, I've supplemented Tiger's answers with my own versions of what he might really like to say. You can go to ASAP to read his actual answers to these thoughtful questions.

Oh, and note that not ONE "reporter" asks about the apple that rolled by his first putt on 17, or how it is that he didn't flinch when it happened!

Q. Your relationship with Buick, what does it mean to win the 50th tournament here, the birthplace of Buick?

A. Actually, it really tops everything I've ever done. The Masters, The Open Championships, the Foundation, the four majors in a row. I'd trade them all in for more wins in Buick events.

Q. We're used to seeing you wear red on Sunday and used to seeing you win. How far back does that good where you've worn red? Have you done that since your rookie year and what's the story behind that?

A. Wow, it's funny, but no one has ever asked me about that or ever written about that. Your name again?

Q. You have 50 wins now. Do you see yourself getting to 83?

A. No, no, winning this Buick is it for me on the PGA Tour. The rest will be majors, no more Tour event victories. So 83 is likely out of the equation.

Q. When is the last time you felt like you were playing this well going into a major?

A. Hmmm, well let's see. I just won a major and I played well the tournament beforehand, so I'm going to have to say the Western Open.

[This is why Tiger gets the big bucks. His actual one word answer: "Western."]

Q. You win the British, you win here, what does that do for your confidence level coming into the PGA?

A. It's tough, you know. I'm battling a lot of demons right now. Since I three putted the 18th at Hoylake and almost three putted 17 today. I'm only 42-under in my last two events, so I'm searching. But I'll regain the confidence soon. I'm sure of it.

Q. We watched you cross drivers and have good approaches and putts and also get in and out of trouble, and one fan in the gallery said you were only in trouble if you were in the water. Looking back, are they both as enjoyable when you look back at a tournament and seeing how you scrambled for par on 2 or had a spectacular hole? How does the enjoyment compare for you?

A. Great question. Lucid, succinct, really on point. But uh, just for clarification, when you say cross drivers, is that like on Entourage when Drama and Turtle crossed swords?

As for the rest of the question, it just doesn't make any sense and wow, look at the time! I really need to get to the airport as Citation X's aren't allowed by Federal Law to sit idling on Michigan runways for more than 30 minutes. Hey, it's been great.

Peter and Tiger XOXOXOXO...Next Up, Middle East Peace?

With a major at Medinah looming, I'm under doctor's orders to limit this month's viewing of pro golf on back-and-forth, soulless designs. So I did skip most of Tiger's 50th (!) win at the Buick, though I did listen to portions of the telecast at the beach, and by golly, Bobby Clampett's bored tone did help induce my afternoon nap.

But more importantly, I understand from those who insisted on watching that Tiger Woods allowed himself to be interviewed by his favorite on-course reporter and swing commentator, Peter Kostis.

Whoever engineered this short-but-sweet reunion really should be included in any upcoming Middle East peace negotiations. If these two egos adversaries can patch things up for an exchange of inane post round comments, surely this middleman could help Condi and Koffi out too?

Huggan: "unfair to portray Woods as the poster boy for the relative mindlessness of top-level golf"

In December we had way too many Tiger at 30 columns. Now it's Tiger 10 years later, with John Huggan joining the chorus.

Which brings us to the thorny subject of distance. Although he is obviously well aware of the benefits that long driving brings in today's game, it is a fact that Woods had to be dragged screaming into the 21st century: his unwillingness to embrace modern technology was legendary.

Yes, because of the fact that he swings faster than almost anyone, he is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the supercharged clubs and balls that have so transformed the game at the highest level over the past decade or so. But the world's best golfer is also well aware that the yawning gap between him and the rest would be even larger if most tournaments did not reduce the game to a simple equation: blast away off the tee boys, then hit wedges on to almost every green.

So it is grossly unfair to portray Woods as the poster boy for the relative mindlessness of top-level golf in the early part of the 21st century. As he demonstrated when given the chance at Hoylake, the world's No.1 is the best shot-maker in the game by an enormous distance, if you will pardon the pun. No-one else is even close when it comes to imagination, flair and creativity, attributes that used to mean something when golf was inspired by the golfers rather than by the manufacturers of equipment.

The Tiger Effect

Golfweek's Gene Yasuda kicks off a "Special Report" on Tiger's impact 10 years after turning pro, with other contributions posted here. Meanwhile the Washington Times' Tim Lemke focuses on television ratings.

Over the years, tournaments with Woods in contention have 10 percent to 20 percent higher television ratings than those without. And the exposure for sponsors, particularly Nike, can be worth $10 million for a big tournament, according to one report.

But this year, Woods has played in only 10 events and just three since the Masters in April. Woods went nine weeks without entering a tournament as he dealt with his father's death. During his absence, several key tournaments Woods normally enters saw major ratings drops. Sunday ratings for the Wachovia Championship in May were down 32 percent, while the Memorial saw a 39 percent dip in viewers.

Overall, ratings for golf on CBS and ABC are down more than 10 percent from this point last year, and ratings on NBC are down 3 percent.

It hasn't helped that the non-Tiger events have been won by a host of relative newcomers with little following, including J.B. Holmes, Chris Couch, John Senden and Brett Wetterich. And in six of those nine events, the winner prevailed by five strokes or more.

But this year's ratings dip clearly has not scared broadcasters away from the sport. CBS will expand its coverage from 16 events to 19, and NBC will broadcast 10 events instead of five. Meanwhile, the Golf Network is locked in to a 15-year contract as the PGA Tour's exclusive cable provider, and ABC will show the British Open through 2009.

Golf Channel, Golf Network. Eh, what's the difference.

"There's no question that having Tiger on the leader board has an effect on the ratings," said Brian Walker, Sports spokesman for NBC Sports. "That being said, NBC is bullish on golf in general as evidenced by our recent extension agreements with the PGA Tour, USGA and PGA of America, which will more than double our golf coverage beginning next year."

"Right In Front Of You"

Reader Sam wanted to know why I don't like it when Tiger Woods praises a course for being "right in front of you," (as he did again today with Warwick Hills and will inevitably do when he answers dumb questions lobbed his way by the inkslingers.) Oh, and check out the doozies he was asked today. No wonder he can't stand the media.

Anyway, the "right in front of you" thing is simple.

Woods, like Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus before him, thrives on strategic courses that reward local knowledge. These courses nearly always tend to contain mysterious design features. Even the ones that seem straightforward (Pebble Beach, Riviera), are loaded with subtlety and elusive qualities.

The elite players have always embraced this mystery and recognized that it separates them from the merely great player.

So for someone who adores the Old Course like Tiger does, it's hard to fathom why he also loves courses that are "right in front of you," when they have little to reveal after one or two rounds, and therefore, lack an intelligent purpose.

Then again, if Woods told the media that thoughts of Warwick Hills make for an ideal sleep aid, he'd be tarred and feathered as a negative, spoiled Tour pro. So he's probably wise to keep on repeating the same line.
 

Flogging: It Works For Tiger

On Mike Vitti's PGATour.com ShotLink blog (scroll down to find the post), he breaks down an interesting new "percentage-of-distance-covered-by" stat that validates the flogging approach, at least for Tiger Woods.

So, for example, if a player hits a 300-yard drive on a hole measuring 450 yards the percentage of drive covered is 300 yards/450 yards or 66.7 percent. The 2006 TOUR average for this statistic is 61.7 percent for all driving holes. On par 4s the percentage rises to 65.6 percent, while on par 5s it drops to 52.1 percent.

He brings the stat up to look at Tiger possibly using driver less often: 

Judging by his results at Royal Liverpool, it appears that Woods should do whatever he can to find the fairway, and not worry about distance. However using the distance covered percentage on par 4s as the counter to this argument, accuracy in lieu of distance may not be Woods' best option. Consider the following from par-4 statistics by Tiger Woods:

^{2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covers at least 67% of Hole Yardage   Drive Less than 67% of Yardage
Total Drives                 465                                                 341
Under Par                    130 (28.0%)                                     47 (13.8%)
Over Par                      45 (9.7%)                                        62 (18.2%)}

In 2005-2006, Woods had 465 drives on par 4s where he covered at least 67 percent of the distance of the hole from off the tee. In these instances, he was able to make birdie or better 28 percent of the time. On the drives where Woods did not reach this mark, he only made birdie or better 18.2 percent of the time, and he also had a higher rate of over-par scores in these situations.

Then he looks at drives landing in fairway v. rough.

<sup>2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covering at least 67%, Out of the Fairway  Drive Less than 67%, In Fairway
Total Drives                         211                                               193
Under Par                            41(19.4%)                                      36(18.7%)
Over Par                             30 (14.2%)                                     16 (8.3%)

2005-2006 Tiger Woods Par-4 Scoring
Drive Covering at least 67%, In the Fairway   Drive Less than 67%, Out of Fairway
Total Drives                           254                                               148
Under Par                              89 (35.0%)                                     11 (7.4%)
Over Par                                15 (5.9%)                                       46 (31.1%)</sup>

The conclusion:

Out of the rough on longer drives Woods has about as good a chance of making birdie as he does from the fairway on shorter ones, and more importantly, if he misses the fairway on a shorter drive he has a much greater chance of making bogey. If you are thinking that his accuracy with the shorter club should be greater than with the longer one, look at the numbers again. Woods' accuracy on drives that travel at least 67 percent of the fairway is around 55 percent while the accuracy rate for drives less than 67 percent is only around 43 percent. So why bring a greater risk of bogey into play if you can avoid it?

So Vitti concludes:

Back to the original argument, on whether Woods should change his strategy, I would say yes - every time he plays Royal Liverpool or a course that dictates that would be the best way to win. Otherwise, I think with 49 career victories, including 11 majors, Woods already knows what approach is best for him. 

"We're trying not to do perfect anymore"

Thanks to reader Nick for this Seth Soffian story in the News Press, where Jack Nicklaus is teetering on the edge of Phil status:

"I watch Tiger a lot, obviously," Nicklaus said. "His golf swing that week was right on the plane it should have been. He gets himself off of plane very easily, particularly when his swing gets longer. Then he can hit it anywhere.

"He's such a great iron player because he's so much under control," said Nicklaus, beginning the demonstration of various club positions on the backswing.

"His swing is not very long with his irons. He keeps it pretty much in here. Once he gets the driver back in here, that's when he gets off plane, and then he can bring it under this way or around this way."

And...

"He was on plane the whole time with the driver," said Nicklaus, throwing one last variable into the mix to consider for the year's final major championship.

"Obviously, (Hank) Haney is doing something with him that (Tiger) feels confidence with, because he's getting great confidence with his other clubs," Nicklaus said of Woods' swing coach.

"It could be he's got a bad driver, too. I don't know. If you're hitting everything else good and you're hitting your driver bad, it may be your driver, not him. I don't know."

He also had this to say about his design work, which Nick was possibly a reflection on his collaboration with Tom Doak:

Q: We heard you said the course was "too perfect."

A: Sometimes, yeah. We're trying not to do perfect anymore. We used to work really hard to get everything absolutely dead perfect. I don't think nature's too perfect. We try to bust up a few things to make them look a little irregular at times. Perfect is a description I drove my guys crazy with for about 20 years.

Tiger Wishes They Played Courses Like Medinah All The Time

Ed Sherman shares the nitty gritty on Tiger's test drive around Medinah. His caddie:

 "He said about six or seven times, `I wish we played courses like this all the time,'" Conklin said.

How far into his PGA press conference before we get the dreaded "it's all right in front of you" line? 

Tiger's Post Final Round Q&A

After the round, a few good questions and answers:

Q. Can you talk about the genesis of your strategy to not hit driver this week? You had said that you didn't know much about this course. Did you read about it on the flight over?

TIGER WOODS: Nope.

Q. It was just when you first got here. Was there a moment when it happened?

TIGER WOODS: No. As I was playing the golf course, I would hit a couple of drives, and the driver would go 350, 370 yards. How can you control that out here? You can't control that. The fairways become they're hard enough to hit as it is, and you add driver and they go that far, now how hard is it to hit? So I just felt in the end if you stayed out of the bunkers this entire week and had just a decent week on the greens, I felt that I would be in contention on the back nine.

And I hit the ball well the entire week and I felt like I had wonderful touch on the greens, except for the last nine holes yesterday. Other than that, I felt that my strategy was sound. It was going to keep me out of trouble.

Guys who were trying to hit the ball over the bunkers, they're going to have shorter clubs on the greens, no doubt about that, but a lot of these flags you can't attack with wedges. On 4, I had I'm aiming 30 feet left of the hole, and I couldn't keep it on the greens. That's the nature of the golf course and the way it was playing this week.

I felt the conservative approach was the way to go. And it lent itself to that this week, especially with four par 5s. And you figure if you just handle the par 5s, that's 16 under par right there. You sprinkle in a few more here and there around the golf course and you're looking pretty good.

Q. Has Hoylake stood the test of time and should The Open come back here, and if so, why?

TIGER WOODS: I think it's a fantastic test. With the golf course being this fast, it lent itself to just amazing creativity. Granted, if you would have had easier pins I'm sure it would have gone lower. These are the most difficult pins I've ever seen at an Open Championship. And a couple of times you feel like if you hit a putt too hard you'll actually putt it right off the green, and you never have that feeling at an Open. But this week it certainly was the case.

And I think because the yardage played short, in some cases, because it was so fast, you hit 3 wood, driver, hitting it 380 yards down there, you're going to have a lot of short irons in there. The only defense they had was pin locations and hard, dry conditions. And we couldn't really go all that low.

Q. Should it come back here?

TIGER WOODS: Yes.

And here he talks about controlling spin into the greens:

Q. Your strategy off the tee and having to hit all the long irons sort of takes for granted the fact that you have to be hitting your long irons really well. How well were you hitting them? How tough might it have been if you weren't, especially your approaches?

TIGER WOODS: As far as my control, probably one of the best ball striking weeks I've ever had, as far as control. That's shaping the ball, moving my traj and different heights and really controlling my spin going into the greens. It wasn't getting away from me. Yeah, probably one of the best ball striking weeks I've ever had.

If I wasn't hitting it well, as you alluded to, it would have been pretty difficult around here. This golf course you had to really control your ball in order to have a chance. And I was able to do that the entire week.

Also you have to remember that if you're with the flags the way we they were, you're going to have a bunch of 40 and 50 footers, and my pace was good all week. A bunch of tap ins, my pace was really, I felt, sound all week, especially today when I really needed it. I had a lot of kick ins and putts that I thought I made just kind of skirt off on the edge.

Tiger's Post 3rd Round Q&A

Bold question here from a scribbler considering he has a one shot lead and was 3 made short putts from having another "flawless" round:

Q. How risky is this approach with no drivers in terms of having to hit so many long irons? If somebody should start to push ahead in front of you, would you have to abandon that and start trying to whack it over those bunkers?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I don't see any reason why, unless I absolutely had to. The problem is if you hit the ball over the top and you put the ball in that wispy stuff, you can't stop the ball near the flag. You're better off you can control your spin with 7 irons and 8 irons better than you can a sand wedge out of that stuff, because you just can't control your spin. And with these pins you've got to be precise.

It's gotten me to the lead so far. Hopefully tomorrow I can putt better. If I putted normally and took away my three putts, I shot 4 under par today.

And someone's working on a great-courses-bring-out-great-leaderboards story:

Q. There's a terrific leaderboard, a lot of different styles, and I'm just wondering why? Why here? Why now? Your thoughts on the golf course and on your competitors.

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's a very fair golf course. It's extremely fast. You can play it so many different ways and it lends itself to a bunch of different styles, but ultimately it's fair. It's not tricked up at all. Quality golf shots hit around this golf course, you're going to give yourself plenty of opportunities. And when you've got four par 5s where you can hit normal drives in play you're going to have irons to, I think generally when that happens you're going to see the leaderboard bunch up.