Tiger Woods – Masters Press Conference
Qn: This is our first time speaking to you since the PGA TOUR rolled out its new designated events schedule, and you said in the past the record you’re most proud of is the consecutive cuts made streak; that you took a lot of pride in that. What’s your thought about the direction of the PGA TOUR and, namely, getting rid of the cuts in some of these events?
Woods …. “Well, I have always been an advocate of rolling the — if you do anything to the equipment, I don’t think that you can change the size of the heads anymore, just because there’s so many out there. But I still think that it’s very much like baseball with aluminum bats and wooden bats. You can have a difference in the golf ball, and tennis has the same thing, you go to different events. They have different balls; the public doesn’t really know that but the players do.
“I’ve been of the position if you play in a pro event or you have a P next to your name, you should be playing a pro ball. Now, that was my opinion on it. If you have an A next to your name and you’re playing an amateur event, you should use an amateur ball. But you’re an amateur playing a pro event, now that’s where the transition can be had, where you can start, I wouldn’t say rolling the game back, but you can start slowing it down because we’re just not able to create enough property out there.
“The guys are going to become more athletic. Everyone is going to get bigger, stronger, faster as the generations go on. With technology, you’re going to find — even if you roll the ball back and get a spinnier golf ball, guys will find you may go to a 4-degree driver and you may find a different shaft and you may have that one match up.
“But I just think that the — yes, I think this should have happened a long time ago. That’s what Jack was saying, the 384 was going too far. This is back in the ’80s. But still, that was my take on it; that the amateurs should be able to have fun and still hit the golf ball far but we can be regulated about how far we hit it.
“Now, I understand the marketing is going to be different for how you’re going to market your equipment to the public. But yeah, I understand that, but on a competitive level, there’s only so much we can do at the amateur level or the Tour level on how much property we can do, and the guys are going to find ways to hit it further.
“The average number used to be, what, 280 off the tee, 279 when I first came out on TOUR. Now the guys are carrying it 320, okay. So not every golf course can be like Augusta National and move property and moving holes back. There’s only so many golf courses you can do that on, and we still want to be able to play the old traditional great golf courses.
“But again, here is the difficulty of the question. Then the joining of the game. We’ve had a big boom in this game with COVID and more will play in the game and it’s more exciting. Okay, well, on TOUR, it’s exciting to see Rory McIlroy hit it 340 yards on every hole. But does it challenge us and separate the guys who can really hit the ball in the middle of the face and control their shots? I think if you roll the ball back a little bit, you’ll see that the better ball-strikers will have more of an advantage over the guys who miss it a little bit.
