The Tiger report
I arrived the Saturday before the tournament because we had never been to Royal Liverpool before and there was no information on the course. Stevie (Williams) caddied on the course in the early 80’s but he couldn’t remember a thing. We just had to get there early and formulate a strategy. As far as strategy formulating, it probably didn’t happen until Monday, and then Tuesday I tried it out and I didn’t play on Wednesday. Out of the four days that I did play – from Saturday through Tuesday – we had three different wind conditions. So I got to play the course so many different ways, and each time I kept coming back to one or two drivers, if I felt comfortable doing it. As it turned out, I only used it once, on the 16th hole Thursday.
For some reason, I had just a wonderful inner-peace the entire week. I didn’t know what was going on. It was a great feeling and I wish you could have it all the time, but it doesn’t work out that way. When I was playing, I never really got that aggravated and I never got that excited. It was just a nice, level feeling the entire week. Come Sunday afternoon when I really needed it, I was able to birdie 14, 15 and 16, but I felt at ease. I wasn’t pressing all day and I felt a nice, even feeling and it worked out. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. This time, it did. Pop must have been looking down on me.
Another thing that happened was before the last round, when I went to warm up at the practice range, I hit several yardage signs on the fly. I also did that last year before the final round at St. Andrews, when I hit the 100-yard marker four-straight times and went on to win. This year was similar. My distance control felt great and I was able to carry it over to the course.
I also sent a short text message to Annika Sorenstam that read: 11. When she recently won her 10th major on the LPGA Tour, she couldn’t wait to text me. Guess I’m 1-up now.
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