The
Wire offers a special Monday "In Their Own Words" feature
with Tiger Woods, winner of the 2003 Bay Hill Invitational. Woods
earned his fourth consecutive Bay Hill title despite suffering
from food poisoning and playing in heavy rain. Woods became just
the third golfer to win an event four years in a row, besting the
field by 11 shots.
TIGER WOODS: Well,
the night was long and the day was probably even longer.
It was just a tough
day. We had rain. I wasn't feeling my best. It just made for a very
difficult and long round of golf. So all that being said, very, very
happy the way I played today and managed my game. I didn't miss a
whole lot of fairways and I hit a bunch of greens which I needed
to do.
Q.: What
did you have for dinner last night?
TIGER WOODS: Pasta.
Had it, and about a half hour later I started feeling pretty bad
after that.
Q.: Who
cooked?
TIGER WOODS: Elin.
Q.: You
often talk about how difficult the game is and you use the metaphor
of being a fighter. What is the biggest obstacle you've had to overcome
to get to this point and having fought through an illness today,
what's the biggest obstacle you've had to overcome to date?
TIGER WOODS: I
think it's just trying to learn how to become better. I think that's
the biggest obstacle we all face; how can we get that a little bit
better.
You know, I've
always wanted to become a better player at the end of the year than
I was at the beginning of the year. If I keep doing that for the
rest of my life, I'll have a pretty good career. So far to date,
I've been able to do that.
Q.: Was
not playing ever an option?
TIGER WOODS: If
I wasn't in contention, I wouldn't have gone, there's no way. I thought
about going to the hospital last night but, like I told Elin last
night, the problem is, it's so easy to check in to a hospital, but
getting out is the hard part, you know.
So I didn't want
to get to a point whereÝ -- I wanted to get on IV drip, get my fluid
levels up in case today was hot and humid. But the problem was I
didn't know if they were going to let me go, so I decided not do
that. I got very lucky it rained today, instead of being hot and
humid, as dehydrated as I was from throwing up and the other thing
that was going on, too, add both of those together and I lost a lot
of fluid.
Q.: Did
Casey say you had a similar thing in college once? What happened
there?
TIGER WOODS: It
was just we had ribs then. It was the death march, who was actually
going to play the next day. Casey could not go, he had to go to the
hospital and not play. At the time we were in the western regionals
and it was 4-4 now. If I pull out we would have been disqualified
and we were the No. 1 ranked team in the country so I decided to
go. I kept throwing up, I would blackout. Coach would come over here
and slap my face, "Wake up, Boy. Wake up, Boy, it's okay." So I got
through that day and we went on to get to Nationals.
Q.: People
look in the books years from now and see that you won by 11 strokes,
how much harder was this than it looked, given all of the circumstances?
TIGER WOODS: It
was a joke. I mean, just every single tee shot hurt because my abs
were obviously sore from last night and I continued on while I was
playing today. And nothing came up. I was just dry-heaving today.
Got everything out last night. So from that standpoint, every time
you squeezed your abs on any kind of tee shot, especially on driver,
I wasn't looking forward to hitting drivers. So, that's why when
I warmed up, I didn't really warm up a whole lot.
Q.: Were
you surprised that the whole round got in and was there any point
you were hoping it would get called off and you could come back tomorrow?
TIGER WOODS: I
was hoping it would get called off about we started. I heard the
thunder this morning and I said, "Oh, perfect."
They called up
and said, "Oh, you guys are on time"; great. So I decided to come
on over. We went off, only eight minutes late on the first tee.
Q.: You
talked yesterday about how much better you feel since the knee surgery
and you have won three of your first four this year, do you think
that your game might be good enough this year to approach doing what
you did in 2000?
TIGER WOODS: Well,
I feel just as good as I did in 2000, excluding today. But from a
golf standpoint, my swing feelsÝ -- like I'm able to make the same
type of move that I did in 2000 without having to alter my golf swing.
Each and every day last year I had to alter it somehow to get around
the day. Now I'm able to step up there and make the proper swing,
get the proper arc and not be able to worry about the consequences
of it.
Click here for
the complete transcript with Tiger Woods.
