PGA Championship 2024 – Tiger Woods: “You Can’t Win a Tournament Unless You Make the Cut”

Tiger Woods’ first round of the PGA Championship 2024 didn’t come easy to the 15-time major champion. After two finishing bogeys he signed a round of one over par, putting him for now in the middle of the field.

His round started with an early bogey on 11, after he missed the green on the par-3. A 17 ft 11 in putt got him that shot back in 13, but a journey into the rough of the 15th hole cost Woods one more shot on his first nine. While he couldn’t take advantage of the par-5 18, he evened out his score with a birdie on 3 after a perfect tee shot. Tiger Woods got a glimpse of one under par despite landing in the green bunker on 7, but two bogeys caused by three-putts dragged his score back to a one over par 72.

Tiger Woods on his first round at the PGA Championship 2024

Q. Tiger, it looked like you were moving pretty well physically. Do you feel like — I know every day is different for you, but do you feel like zooming out you’re getting stronger?

TIGER WOODS: I am getting stronger for sure. It’s just that I just don’t play a whole lot of competitive rounds. I haven’t played since the Masters. So it’s a little bit different than being at home and playing a flat Florida course.

Q. You spoke about what happened Saturday at Augusta. Is that a thing you know how your body — can you tell the night before? Do you not know until the morning of or when you start swinging the club?

TIGER WOODS: Each day is a little bit different. Some days, it’s better than others. It’s just the way it is. My body is just that way. Some days, it feels great, and other days, a bit of a struggle.

Q. Do you have a target ball speed in mind or a number where you can say, I’m fast or slow today?

TIGER WOODS: No, I don’t even know what my ball speed is. I couldn’t tell you. I do at home on the range, but when I’m out here at a tournament, I don’t look at any of that. I’m just trying to hit shots and hit the ball on my numbers more than anything else.

Q. How much of the first green could you see for your second shot on the first?

TIGER WOODS: I could see the whole green. I could see it underneath the trees. I just had to go around a few trees. Hit a nice little draw 8-iron in there. I was expecting to hit it just left of the green and chip back up, but it dug in and landed soft and dug in and had a 25-footer.

Q. How would you rate that shot in terms of difficulty?

TIGER WOODS: (Laughing). You’ve seen me play. I’ve hit a few shots out of the trees.

Q. You said the other day you wish you were a little sharper. In which areas did you think you were better than you thought you might be or maybe were you not — were you sort of where you thought you were today?

TIGER WOODS: It’s just the competitive flow. It took me probably three holes to get back into competitive flow again and get a feel for hitting the ball out there in competition, adrenaline, temperatures, green speeds. These are all things that normally I adjust to very quickly, and it just took me a few holes to get into it.

Made that putt on 12 and got me going and made another putt on 13.

Q. In the past few years, even if you’ve had to withdraw from majors, you’ve still made the cut. You’ve still succeeded in doing so. I’m wondering if you think there’s an art to playing a certain way and grinding out a made cut that you seem to understand better than others?

TIGER WOODS: Well, you can’t win a tournament unless you make the cut. That’s the whole idea is get to the weekend so that you can participate and have a chance to win.

I’ve been on the cut number and have won tournaments, or I’ve been ahead and leading tournaments and I’ve won tournaments. But you have to get to the weekend in order to win a golf tournament.

Q. I thought the rough was more difficult than what I was expecting after watching practice rounds. Could you talk about that? And I know the three-putt on 9 was frustrating, but I thought you —

TIGER WOODS: And 8.

Q. You had more than 90 feet in putts today. Could you address those two.

TIGER WOODS: Well, I three-whipped the last two holes. Wasn’t very good. Bad speed on 8; whipped it past the hole.

And 9, hit it short. Hit it off the heel of the putt and blocked the second one. So wasn’t very good on the last two holes.

But what was the first part of the question?

Q. The rough.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the rough is dense. It’s just very dense. With the rain we got and just the moisture on it, I know they’ve topped it off, but it’s just really lush.

You can get lies where it sits up. You can get a 3-wood on it. And there are other lies — a couple times I had to pitch out sideways. I laid up at 13 and 14 — sorry, 15.

Depends on the lie, and you don’t have to worry about that if you drive it in the fairway, and I just need to do a better job of that.

Q. Obviously most of you guys, you don’t win most weeks. You have to be very resilient. What’s the moment in your career or the stretch of golf that you’ve had in your career where you’re proudest of the resilience that you showed?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think that I’ve made a few cuts in a row, what was it, 140-some odd.

So you have to just grind it out. It’s a marathon. Major championships are a long grind. It’s just plotting along. It’s not a sprint. It’s just a grind.

I had a few years where I was able to participate for a very long time.