Tiger Woods aiming for third victory at The Players Championship
Wednesday 9 May 2018 07:52, UK
Tiger Woods will draw on memories of his previous successes as he bids to become only the second man after Jack Nicklaus to win a hat-trick of Players Championship titles.
But Woods is fully aware that his two wins at TPC Sawgrass came either side of a 12-year barren run during which he often struggled to get to grips with the complexities of tackling the Stadium Course.
The 42-year-old is playing in golf's 'fifth major' for the first time since the course was overhauled and has yet to see the changes to the layout, but he is relishing the challenge ahead as he prepares to partner long-time rival Phil Mickelson and 2015 champion Rickie Fowler over the first two days of competition.
Woods knows what it takes to lift the famous crystal trophy and is one of only six players to have won multiple times at Sawgrass, the first coming in 2001 when he was in a class of his own at the top of the world rankings.
"I certainly go back and take a look at those moments, that was a pretty good run back then," he said at his pre-tournament press conference. "I had all four major championships, I had The Players, I had two World Golf Championships, and all the biggest events I had won at the same time.
"To hold all those events concurrently was special. I mean, I played well, I thought well, I putted well. I did everything well for, I guess, a few years there. My level of play then was something that in hindsight looking back on it was pretty high, and not only pretty high, but I held it for a long period of time. It wasn't just for one week."
But, asked to evaluate his record at Sawgrass, he added: "It was 12 years between wins here, and just looking at my record, I didn't play this place well. I struggled with it.
"You have to play well here, and there's no way of faking it around this golf course. You have to hit the golf ball well here and, if you're in the correct spots, you can make birdies, and I didn't do that.
"This golf course negates a lot of different things. We're all playing from basically the same spots off the tees with our approach shots, and in 2013, Joey (LaCava - Woods' caddie) kept hounding me in my ear about the fact that this golf course suits me and you're going to win here.
"I mean, he's been on Fred's bag twice when he won here, and so he kept saying, kept holding it over my head that Fred has got two wins here and you don't. I fixed it that week."
Woods was disappointed with his putting as he finished outside the top 50 at last week's Wells Fargo Championship, and he will be looking to put that right on his return to Ponte Vedra Beach.
"I haven't played here in a little bit now, and I'm excited to come back and play, take a look at the golf course, see how it's playing," he said. "I haven't seen the new changes yet, so looking forward to seeing a few of those little tweaks, and just looking forward to playing in The Players Championship again.
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"I need to get the pace of these greens here. Last week, I just didn't make anything. One of the days, I hit a bunch of greens, like 15 greens, and still I turned a 63 or 64 into 68. I just didn't have a feel for the golf course, and I just didn't make the adjustments."
