Tiger Back To Dodging Softballs And Battling Presser Insomnia

My invitation to the Tiger Woods media day and conference call for his tournament at Sherwood was once again lost in cyberspace, but who needs pesky bloggers when you can get intelligent questions like this?

Q. First, how are you going to keep the guys from brawling out there after such a tough Ryder Cup? It's a great field from that particular field, too, right?

Oh good one. Bang fist on table!

Q. I was wondering, we talked a little bit about this at St. Andrews, how you're able to separate the personal stuff from the business, and that you've learned to adjust. Is that getting better all the time where you can just play your game and take some of the other junk out of your mind?

Junk?

Q. With Chevron sponsoring this event, talk about the opening of the new learning center in Washington, D.C.?

Ahhh...give that seat filler an extra nine holes of golf!

Q. You're a four-time winner of this tournament. How would you evaluate your chances of winning for the fifth time, given the state of your game and now that you know what the field is?

Good one!

Q. A lot of Koreans want to see you do good, and wondering how many events do you plan to play in next year? What is your prediction, do you think, given the state of your play at the current moment?

I guess that's the Seoul Light And Shopper's correspondent?

Finally, a decent golf question (I'm betting this is when they opened it up to the phone lines...but I wouldn't know).

Q. One of the things, just going back to the Ryder Cup for a minute I never really got to ask you about that over there is, you know, I know Steve's been caddying since he was 12 years old. He's pretty good at keeping clubs dry, but he was unable to keep your clubs dry for most of that week. The other issue was the rain suits which leaked and guys were walking around with very heavy suits. I know these are all little things, but when you look at it, it was only half a point that separated victory from defeat. Do you look back on that and say, you know, maybe we should have figured these things out a little bit better beforehand with the equipment?

TIGER WOODS: Well, there's no doubt.

Oh boy.

I think that those are issues that should be resolved before we get there so they're not an issue while playing. Come tournament time there are always going to be things that pop up, and you just have to deal with them. It happens in every team event I've ever been a part of.

But little things like that, I think could have been taken care of so they weren't an issue. Or at least have been tested prior to game time so that any kind of corrections that could have been made, would have been made.

Someone's not going to be getting a holiday card from the Captainess!

Q. So I remember in April at Augusta I asked you what kind of golfer you wanted to be now, and you said that you wanted to be like you were when you were younger, and you said, at peace. Do you feel now this many months removed from the Masters and in the midst of that storm, that you are more at peace? Another related question, what have you learned about yourself over the last year?

Who let Tony Robbins in the room?

TIGER WOODS: Certainly I'm a lot more at peace now. Everyone's getting used to the new living conditions. The kids are adjusting. I think everyone's certainly more at peace, and so am I, too. I learned a lot about myself, and I learned how things went wrong, why they went wrong, and had to take a pretty deep and introspective look at myself, and there weren't a lot of things I liked about it. But I had to do it, and I did it and grateful that I did. I think that I come from a much better place, much more grounded place now than I ever have before.

And I really pity you media heathens more than ever.

Now, this was interesting, perhaps because it was an actual golf question:

Q. In Wales you seemed on Saturday and Sunday to be delofting quite a bit. You were sailing greens and hitting iron shots quite far, and you looked very frustrated by that. What was going on, and how did you turn that around, because obviously you started hitting it pin-high again in the singles?

TIGER WOODS: What happened was as I've gotten into this system working with Sean, when I get it going well, I'm really starting to swing well and I'm hitting the ball farther. Hitting the ball farther than I ever thought I would. Especially with the conditions not being good, I thought the conditions would take yards off my shot, and it didn't. I was hitting it right through the wind.

That's a good sign. I just had to make the adjustment, and I was able to make the adjustment. Once I made the adjustments, the numbers got right back to where they should be.

But before, the conditions were affecting my golf ball a little bit more than they are now. My shot pattern is a little bit more tight, and with that I'm able to hit the ball through the conditions a little bit better.

Steve and I were both confounded by it, because it was something we haven't experienced together as a team before. Something that was good to see, good to have happen, and it was nice to be able to make that adjustment.

And one more about playing at Riviera next year. Always worth a try even though it never yields an answer.

Q. A follow-up, the importance of you being in your own tournament after a couple of years, also, how that is giving back to Southern California? Then leading into Riviera, is there a chance that you might play there this year, and has Jerry West been in contact with you?

TIGER WOODS: As far as coming back, I'm always excited to come back to So Cal. This is where I grew up and where I lived most of my life. So for me to come back is always fun. Fun to see friends and go out to dinner with people that I haven't seen in a long time, so I always enjoy that about coming back home. Then playing in front of the hometown fans, it's always fun.

As far as Jerry West contacting me, he hasn't of yet, but there is still some time (laughing).