"Now he's going to have to find the game to get his revenge."
/Tiger's press conference was the centerpiece of an otherwise uneventful Ryder Cup Tuesday.
Lawrence Donegan notes that the chances of a singles matchup against Rory McIlroy are slim, but that doesn't mean the war of words between the two won't make a possible four-ball or foursomes match-up any less fun.
McIlroy said recently he would love to play Woods this week given the world No1's recent run of poor form and a slighted Woods is equally keen on a meeting. "Me too," he said when asked if he had any reaction to the Ulsterman's comments. Did he care to elaborate? "No."
Steve Elling says Tiger was in rare form Tuesday.
Of all the mind-numbing, drool-inducing press sessions Tiger Woods has authored over his 15-year career, this might have been the pinnacle of achievement with regard to being verbally vanilla.
He was vague, evasive, deflective. Tedious, boring, ambiguous.
Gene Wojciechowski says Tiger might want to take it up a notch.
But for once, Woods needs the Ryder Cup more than the Ryder Cup needs him. He needs teammates. He needs friends. And, to be honest, he needs to win.
"It would be great," said Woods, mostly on verbal cruise control after his Tuesday practice round. "It would be great to get a win. I'm looking forward to getting out there and contributing and hope I can get some points and hopefully we can get this thing done."
Perhaps the attitude was to give writers something to cow about instead of a putter change.
Robert Lusetich argues that the mini-word-war with Rory and the Ryder Cup is just what Tiger needs to find the old and far more emotional player we knew pre-November 27.
The last time he spoke about another player in that tone, it was Stephen Ames, whose criticisms of Woods were met with a 9 and 8 defeat at the Match Play tournament. Rory Sabbatini and Sergio Garcia can share war stories along these lines, too.
But that was then, when he was the great Tiger Woods.
Now he's going to have to find the game to get his revenge.
He's going to have to shut up the naysayers, like the British tabloid journalist who called Woods "an ordinary golfer" during Tuesday's news conference.