Tiger is ready for the PGA Championship at Harding Park!

Tiger Woods has had overwhelming success when he has played Harding Park in San Francisco as a professional golfer.

In 2005, he captured the American Express WGC championship with a playoff win over John Daly. Four years later he went 5-0 as the United States won the Presidents Cup over the International team.

Given that past success it was easy to understand the answer Woods gave at the end of his Tuesday press conference when asked if he felt like he could win this week at the PGA Championship.

“Of course,” said Woods with a big smile, prompting laughter right before he walked off the stage.

The press conference Tuesday was a new one for me, as only a select group of media are being allowed on site at Harding Park this week, the rest of us are left in a virtual press conference.

Instead of sitting in the front row at Harding Park, I was seated at my desk in my home office, taking part online. Woods took questions both from those on site, as well as from those of us online.

Woods enters Thursdays’ first round – he is paired with Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas for the first two rounds – sitting on some historical accomplishments.

• With four PGA Championship titles to his credit, he could become only the second player to win two majors five times. Jack Nicklaus is the only one so far.
• Woods has won a Major in the 1990’s, 2000’s, 2010’s, and if wins here he would be the first player in history to win a Major in four different decades.
• Woods is also the lone player in the field to have won multiple Majors in California, having won the U.S. Open in 2000 at Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines in 2008.

Over the years, Woods’ press conferences have always been enjoyable as he is intelligent and articulate with his answers. Tuesday was no exception.

One thing I have been thinking about will be with no spectators there will be no noise or the famous “Tiger roar” that is prevalent whenever Tiger plays. He feeds off the energy and it has been intimidating to other players.

In both of his previous appearances at Harding Park, the atmosphere was electric. Having been on the course both times, when Woods gets going, the crowd goes nuts.

Woods fondly remembers both times.

“One was a team event, where it was very bipartisan. It’s us against the Internationals,” said Woods of the Presidents Cup first. “(In the AmEx) you couldn’t have put two of the more, I guess, crowd-drawing people together in a playoff, myself and John Daly. So, it was loud. The people were into it. It was a lot of fun. I still look back on it.”

Woods played at the Memorial this year with no spectators, but that’s only event he has played in that way, so it’s still basically a new experience. When asked about how some players, including McIlroy have talked about it’s hard at times to keep your focus with no one watching, Woods said the following:

“Well, Rory has more experience than I do in that regard because he’s played more often in this part of the season. I’ve only played one time and those four days at Muirfield was a bit different,” said Woods. “It reminded me of sometimes on the weekend, you’d tee off Saturday morning and you’d just barely make the cut and you’re first off and there’s no one out there, but generally by the time you make the back nine, there’s thousands of people out there on the golf course waiting for the leaders to tee off. But that never happened. So that’s the new world we live in. We just have to get used to it.”

In terms of focus and/or energy level, if you have ever been around Woods during a tournament, there might not be a player more dialed in.

“As far as the focus part of it, I haven’t had a problem with that. Those four rounds, I was pretty into it. It’s different than most of the times when you go from green-to-tee, people yelling or trying to touch you. That part is different,” said Woods. “As far as energy while I’m competing and playing, no, that’s the same. I’m pretty intense when I play and pretty into what I’m doing.”

Woods also touched on how the Bay Area will always be a special place as he spent two years at Stanford.

“I lived up here for two years. It’s the first time I ever lived away from home. And coming up here to Palo Alto and being in that environment, being around so many intellectually curious people and unbelievable athletes, and we’re all in the same bubble together trying to figure this all out for the first time, it was a very unique experience and one that I thoroughly miss,” said Woods. “And then coming up here, all the qualifiers that we had to play up here, whether it’s here at Harding or it’s Lake Merced or SF or Olympic, those were some great qualifying rounds. Coach would make us play in all different types of weather; if it was raining or not, go qualify and we had to qualify in our sport. Those were great memories and great times, and ones that I thoroughly miss.”

By Dennis Miller