Tiger On Lytham: "There has to be some shape to shots."

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Tiger Woods talked to a packed 2012 Open Championship media center audience and in between the questions from the local tourism board or the unanswerable, he offered some great stuff on Royal Lytham and St. Annes.

The transcripts are not going up online sadly but there will be video highlights at some point here.

The highlights:

Q.  I know the conditions aren't the same as they were at Hoylake, it baked out and everything then.  But does the course present itself in a similar way and is your game plan similar to what it was that year?

    TIGER WOODS:  Not ‑‑ it's not exactly the same game plan, no.  Got to hit probably a few more 3‑woods and drivers here than I did then.  At Hoylake the downwind holes I was hitting 3‑ and 4‑irons almost 300 yards at times, just because it's so fast and it was blowing.

    But this is different.  The bunkers are staggered differently here.  There's some forced carries to where you have to force it and then stop it or try and skirt past them.  You can't just either lay it up or bomb over the top.  There has to be some shape to shots.

    I think that's one of the reasons why you've seen, I think, the list of champions here have all been just wonderful ball strikers, because you have to be able to shape the golf ball both ways here, you can't just hit it one way.

My contribution to the proceedings opened up some interesting comments from Tiger about seeing pitchmarks in the approaches, speaking to just how much water this links has taken on.

Q.  With the wet summer they've had, has that made the greens slower?  And if they are slower than normal, what do you do to prepare for that?  Is there anything you have to be careful of with the mechanics and so on?

    TIGER WOODS:  They are slower.  I think they're running probably just a touch under 10.5, but closer I think to ten, which is probably slow towards our standards nowadays.

    As far as changing my mechanics, no, I haven't changed anything.  I normally add lead tape to my putter when the greens are slow, but I feel I have a good feel for the greens and the pace, so I haven't done that this week.

    As I said, the biggest difference is we're making ball marks, that's something we don't normally make.  And especially if you land the ball short of the green.  Today every ball I landed ‑‑ we were one of the first ones out, and every ball I landed short of the green had a ball mark, and that's very different.