Tiger Woods: If I’m playing, I’m going to try and beat you

This is a question Tiger Woods has faced repeatedly over the years. Would you enjoy playing, win or not regardless, and the answer is always the same. “If I’m playing, I play to win.”

At the prelude to the $20 million Genesis Invitational which Tiger Woods hosts, the 82-time PGA Tour winner was candid as always in answering a range of questions on his past, present and future.

And many of those questions centred around his mentality, preparedness, and golf philosophy. I’ve heard this reply personally a few times and it still resonates. As a competitor, Tiger Woods does not look at himself as an ambassador He is always trying to win.

Different mindsets make different people but what sets a select few apart is a relentlessness, an ability to keep going when others cannot see a way forward.

So when Tiger Woods was asked at his Pacific Palisades press conference – yet again – if he would be happy just to compete at the top, his answer was as always telling. “I’m there to get a W, OK?”

Excerpts

If you’re 60 and you don’t wake up with the irrational belief, I could win this tournament, could you still enjoy any of it?

TIGER WOODS: I don’t — I have not come around to the idea of being — if I’m playing, I play to win. I know that players have played and they are ambassadors of the game and try to grow the game.

I can’t have my mind, I can’t wrap my mind around that as a competitor. If I’m playing in the event I’m going to try and beat you. I’m there to get a W, OK?

So I don’t understand that making the cut’s a great thing. If I entered the event, it’s always to get a W.

There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it’s probably sooner rather than later, but wrapping my ahead around that transition and being the ambassador role and just trying to be out here with the guys, no, that’s not in my DNA.

Ambassador role in hosting events like this, in hosting the Genesis Invitational or the Hero, doing those type of things, I totally get it. But as a player, I flip the hat around and become a player, and from a player standpoint, I’m here to get that W

We’re all curious as to kind of what other aspects went into your decision to actually competing here this week.

TIGER WOODS: Well, the plan was to play. Whether or not this body would listen to me or not was the main question.

As I told some of you guys that were down at the Hero, and the Father-Son, I could do the Ranger Rick thing, hit golf balls and do all that stuff, it’s a matter of whether I have endurance in my leg.

And we’ve been pushing it pretty good and able to recover each and every day, which is great.

So I’m excited about being able to compete and play and play here at Riviera where basically it all started. I’m excited to get out there and play and get ready for Thursday.

Tiger, two things. Could you just, a little more specificity on what it is physically that you needed to kind of overcome to be able to play?

TIGER WOODS: Okay. As far as the recovery, it’s more my ankle, whether I can recover from day to day. The leg is better than it was last year, but it’s my ankle.

So being able to have it recover from day to day and meanwhile still stress it but have the recovery and also have the strength development at the same time, it’s been an intricate little balance that we’ve had to dance.

But it’s gotten so much better the last couple months. I’m excited to go out there and compete and play with these guys. And I would not have put myself out here if I didn’t think I could beat these guys and win the event.

That’s my mentality. If I wasn’t ready to win at this level, I am very rusty, but I’ve come off a rusty situation before and I’ve done well and I’ve had to utilise a lot of those tactics in practice in build-up.

Plus, also I know this golf course. I know I haven’t had a lot of success on this golf course, but I knew what to practice for, shots to hit at home getting ready.

What did the PNC (Championship) tell you about the state of your game and how to impact your prep for playing in another event?

TIGER WOODS: As you watched that PNC I was able to play out of the cart and hit shots and do whatever I wanted, but I just didn’t have the endurance in my ankle.

So we’ve been working on that and getting it to where I can still hit shots, but it’s the walking endurance that’s hard.

That’s something that we’ve had to work on, walking distances on the beach, just basically stress it out but also be able to recover by the next day and see how it is inflammation-wise and then keep practicing. I may have overdone it a couple times here or there, but here I am.

You’ve always had that thirst for knowledge, whether it is about golf or just the game of life. What have you learned about yourself over the last year since your accident that maybe you didn’t know before?

Well, I think that I’ve had an incredible support staff and people that have, really have helped me get to this point.

It’s been hard physically as we all know, but I’ve had great people around me. My training staff has allowed me to get to this point.

I’ve gotten stronger, more pliable, more endurance. Just great friendships I’ve had. Even on the Tour, these guys texting me and egging me on, the banter back and forth, just incredible support and I would never have gotten to this point or made it back to this point without their support.

Do you see a scenario when it’s not so touch and go, when you might be able to depend on the leg, or do you think it will be kind of this day-by-day thing forever?

TIGER WOODS: As I’ve been saying to you guys, I’m not going to be playing a full schedule so I’ve got to be able to pick and choose my events and how many events I’m going to play.

I alluded to last year it’s going to be probably the majors and maybe a couple more. Would I like to play more? Yes. Will it allow me to? I don’t know. I have to be realistic about that. Being realistic about the recovery and the training and — sorry. My bad.

It’s just about I know I’m not going to be playing a full schedule and I’ve got to pick and choose what I’m going to be playing in and it will be very limited. So I’ll put all my energy into those events.

Do you feel grateful to be here?

TIGER WOODS: Yes, yes.

At what point in your career did you start to feel grateful to be out here? I’m not suggesting you ever took it for granted, but you know what I mean, injury-wise?

TIGER WOODS: I had some knee surgeries early on in my career but nothing like what I experienced with my back. When my back went, man, those were tough surgeries and tough rehabs.

I could power through my knee and the meniscus and no ACL, I could power through that, but I could never power through my back.

That’s when I started realizing the mortality of this game and just sports in general. I didn’t think I was — I was immortal, just what we all think as athletes, but there comes a point in time where a couple of my friends in the NFL, when you become afraid to get hit, you take that one little flinch of I don’t want to get hit.

Well, when I had my back I didn’t want to hit certain shots because I may end up on the ground, so that was tough.

Tiger, we’re a couple designated events into the new look PGA Tour, I’m just curious how you think it’s going and how different you think it will feel throughout the year?

TIGER WOODS: We’ve had three already, and I think it’s been received — there’s obviously mixed emotions about it, but from a marketing side of it and from the Tour side of it and the future of our sport, it’s been very positive.

We need to keep going with it and need to stay aligned and keep progressing and making it better. We need to produce the best product we possibly can to sell to all the viewers.

There’s so many different distractions out there now, so many different options so it’s about us creating the best products so we have more eyes on it, more stars, people want to come out and either watch the game of golf, participate, either on social media or the different streaming platforms.

Just the fact that they’re able to watch our sport, so in order to do that we have to create the best product, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

Mixed emotions, have you gotten a chance to talk to guys that have different types of –

TIGER WOODS: Absolutely. It runs the gamut. From top players to players who obviously have injuries or the fact that you have guys that are journeymen, back and forth, yes, I’ve talked to the whole gamut.

As I’ve said, there’s mixed emotions, but at the end of the day we’re trying to create the best product, and how do we do that. That’s what we’re trying to do and we’re still figuring it out.

We have a lot of top players that are aligned since the Delaware meeting, and we’re trying to create that atmosphere of across the board and understand that players need to be able to have access and ability to play at these elevated events and how do we do that.

We want to create the next stars. I was lucky enough to get a sponsor’s exemption here at 16 years old. So is that possible in that new model? We need to create opportunities like that.

I look back, I got lucky and I was able to play in this event, Byron Nelson asked me to play in his event, Arnold asked me to play in his event, so I got those opportunities very early in my career. We don’t want the next stars to not have those opportunities.

Going back to your first tournament here as an amateur, what are you thinking? Are you thinking, hey, I got in, I have to prove myself that I’m deserving from this, or are you just going out and playing golf normally?

TIGER WOODS: Well, there’s a couple things I realised. One, number one, I had never seen as many fresh range balls that were nonstriped, being able to hit those brand new Balata balls I would normally find in creeks and stuff and use in tournaments.

And then come out here and what did I shoot, 72, 75-ish if I can remember here or there, I was like 17 back of Davis. I realized yes, there is a disparity and there’s a gap.

Could I have played a little bit better? Yes, I could have probably played four or five shots better, but I was not that good.

Realized I needed to go back to high school golf, get better there, better at the junior golf, hopefully play in a couple more events that I was alluding to, and I was getting opportunities to kind of figure it out where I need to go.

It allowed me to get better in the junior events, in the amateur events. I was able to have more success because I got a chance to experience what I needed to do out here, pick their brains and how they went about their business. (excerpts courtesy PGA Tour)

Also read: I’m in for Masters, says Tiger Woods; world goes a little bonkers