JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Tiger Woods to our interview area for the Target World Challenge presented by Countrywide. Earlier today the PGA TOUR announced, Tiger, that you were voted the 2007 PGA TOUR Player of the Year, the ninth time in 11 years. And with that some of the highlights include seven PGA TOUR wins this year, your 13th major victory coming at the PGA Championship; winner of the inaugural FedExCup with wins in two of the three starts in the PGA TOUR playoffs; tied your own record for adjusted scoring average, 67.79 in a single season; 61 career victories on the PGA TOUR, which is fifth all time.
Again, congratulations on being voted Player of the Year by your peers. I know it's always an honor, especially when it comes from the guys you play with.

TIGER WOODS: Thanks. It's been a great year. Overall, I mean, to get obviously the wins and get the respect of your peers, that's always what you want to have happen. This year was just a fantastic year on the golf course and even better off the golf course.

This year we're excited to host the Target World Challenge here again at Sherwood. Everyone is just as fired up as can be. The golf course is in fantastic shape. Our learning center has been doing fantastic things. We've had about 16,000 kids that have gone through the learning center now since it's been opened, which is forecasted probably twice as much as what we thought. Actually we've exceeded our forecast by twice as much, which has been incredible. Overall we couldn't have had better things happen to the foundation and looking forward to another great week.

JOE CHEMYCZ: This is the ninth year for the Target World Challenge, the eighth year at Sherwood Country Club, and again, the proceeds benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation, and I know that makes you very proud.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, we couldn't have had things happen as good as we've had it over the last ten years. It's been absolutely incredible to have 10 million kids in our Start Something program, and obviously the inception of our learning center and then all the kids who have benefited from that.

We've been able to reach so many kids it's been absolutely incredible.

JOE CHEMYCZ: And the one thing here, over the years, three wins, three seconds, nearly $5.6 million, and in this day and age it's hard to imagine, but you continue to donate your winnings and all of the proceeds that you get here back to your foundation, and that's something to be congratulated, and I know everyone appreciates that.

TIGER WOODS: Thanks.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Having been off competitively for so long, what's your biggest concern? And also, what's the coolest thing you've found out about the young one?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think being off for this long, any time you take time off, just getting back into the competitive flow, just the rhythm of playing a round of golf, it's totally different when you play at home. You can have all the money games you want, you can play with everything on the line, but it's just a little bit different when you get out here and play a tournament.

Hopefully I'll find it fairly soon. Hopefully it doesn't take five, six, seven, eight holes to find it. Hopefully I'll find it in the first two holes and get rolling from there.

But as far as having time off and being at home with Elin and Sam, it's been incredible to see how fast they change, how fast they grow, just the little things. You appreciate the little things, and I think that's the most important thing.

JOE CHEMYCZ: If you look at just your performance on the course, you have one fewer win this year, one less major, and yet it looked like it was a pretty good year if not better than the year before. I wonder if you could just square with that, why the numbers would show last year
 
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I think it was a better year this year, even though I didn't quite I had a chance probably a great chance to win three of the four majors this year. I finished second in two of them. I was just a few shots away from basically doing what I did in 2000, the number of seconds I had, it wasn't that far away. What did I finish, second to Phil, and then the two major championships. If I get those done, get those squared away, people would probably be comparing it to 2000 if not better.

JOE CHEMYCZ: When you do come close like you did at Oakmont and other situations like that, I think you said that you'll go back and reassess what you did that week. What was that process like and what did you find out from it?

TIGER WOODS: Frustrating because I thought I played well enough to win the championship, and that's one of the most frustrating things. I didn't capitalize on my opportunities, like at Augusta I did not finish the last two holes well. What did I play them, like 3 over or 5 over par in three days no, 4 over par in two days. I bogeyed 17 and 18 both Friday and Saturday. You can't do that and expect to win a major championship.

And then what I did on Saturday at the Open, not capitalizing on the best ball striking round I had in any of the four majors, and I wind up with what did I shoot, even par or 1 under, something like that? That was a day I could have taken the lead and separated myself a little bit, and I didn't do that.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You talked about fatherhood and the changes, and they come so quickly. What have you noticed? What's been the most fun? Is she talking at all or 

TIGER WOODS: No, not yet. She's only five and a half months.

JOE CHEMYCZ: The recognition factor I would assume, and what do you do at home? Just goofing around or what?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I think the greatest thing is no matter how rough a night it is, sleep wise, just seeing her smile in the morning, you forget everything. You hear that from a lot of parents, but until you actually get to experience it yourself and actually feel it, then you truly do appreciate it.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I was just wondering, given your business interests in Dubai, whether you could ever envision maybe a couple Tour stops and maybe picking up your European Tour card for '09 since they're adding that big tournament on the back end.

TIGER WOODS: That's a good question. I've contemplated that since basically '99 and since I started going over to Europe and playing over there in Europe. I started playing in Germany, I believe, in '99. I've always been one or two short of keeping my status over there, and there's really no way I can keep up the commitment level that I have by playing that much golf on both sides of the continent and all the things that I have to deal with at a venue. It tends to wear you out a little bit.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Switching gears a little bit to talk about the foundation and the learning center and stuff. Now that you're more involved in that with the passing of your father and looking at a new learning center in D.C. and other areas like that, how much does golf actually take part for you? I mean, how much of a factor does that define you by with all the other things that are going on? Is golf just a venue for other things?

TIGER WOODS: Well, golf has always been a vehicle so I could touch others and help kids and make sure that they get to feel and experience the things that the lucky opportunities that I've had in my life. I've had mentors in my life, I've had people take an interest in me when I could have easily gone down the wrong path, but they've made sure I've stayed on the straight and narrow. Not everyone has that type of support. We're here to do that.

What golf allows me to do is to do that more on a global scale, there's no doubt, because obviously the recognizability that I've had now, we're able to get more sponsors, more people contributing more dollars, hence we can do more things to help more people.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Some of the programs you have at the learning center, does that sort of help bring out the inner geek in you?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I've always been a little bit nerdy, I guess. That's one of the reasons I guess I went to Stanford. I enjoy the challenge of academics, always have. I enjoy that side of it, and I enjoy analyzing and thinking through the process of trying to figure things out. If you look at the subjects that we offer at the learning center, actually it's not necessarily me, it's actually the kids, they create the curriculum, and it's our responsibility to go ahead and make sure that they are able to be exposed to everything within that subject matter. That's been a task for us but also a fun task, and the people at our learning center, the staff, has been absolutely incredible. From Kathy on down, they've done just a fantastic job of seeing to that.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Welcome back home. I have a question for you two of them. First was all, your schedule in early '08, do you plan on playing at Riviera this year?

TIGER WOODS: I haven't looked at my schedule yet for next year. As soon as this tournament is over, within the next week after this tournament, I'll figure out what my schedule will be for my run up to Augusta and making sure I get all the tournaments in that I need to get ready and prepare and make sure everything is on schedule for that.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I just wanted to ask you, your season last year, I was looking at the stats, I think you three putted 1.9 percent of your greens, which was fifth on TOUR. The previous year you were 116th on TOUR. How in the world do you do that against these kind of players?

TIGER WOODS: Just practice.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Anything specific you focus on?

TIGER WOODS: You know, I had to make so many changes over the past few years with Hank, and multiple changes were all swing changes. I just didn't devote as much time as I needed to to putting, like I normally do. There weren't enough hours in the day really. Once those fundamentals started to become more solidified, I was then able to work on my short game and my putting and that started coming around.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Heading into the season, what are some of the tweaks and changes you've made swing wise, approach wise, getting ready to go to LA?

TIGER WOODS: You know, I haven't really done much. I worked a little bit on my short game on some of the things that I found a little bit lacking last year and just tried to basically as I started back practicing for this event, try and capture the things that I was feeling towards the end of last season and making sure those feelings were still there.

After this event as I start getting ready for next year, then I'll start to probably work on a couple more things that I need to work on.

JOE CHEMYCZ: The list of players who chase you in the rankings is long. Do you feel like you've been able to increase that gap or do you think the gap is getting a little bit closer?

TIGER WOODS: Well, that's a good question. I think that over the years that if you watch the World Rankings, it's basically who goes on such and such a run, and the way the World Rankings is set up right now, wins certainly accrue a lot of World Ranking points, especially when they are the right events. This year I won a couple World Golf Championships and a major championship, and that adds to World Ranking points. If no one is able to keep pace, I'm going to obviously increase the gap.

Winning takes care of everything, basically. The more wins you have, you don't have to really worry about the World Rankings.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You've probably heard that Golf Digest and the USGA is kind of following up on something you said at the U.S. Open last year when you were asked how a 10 handicapper would do on a U.S. Open course, and they're going to have three celebrity amateurs and another amateur play just a week or so before you guys tee it up there. What do you think of the idea?

TIGER WOODS: I think it's an interesting idea. I think they should play the Monday after the tournament. That's when it's the hardest. A week or two before is not so bad. It's just amazing how the grass seems to grow in the last couple weeks for USGA events.

No, I mean, they'll finally get an understanding of how difficult it is and how narrow the fairways are and generally how fast it is, the overall golf course. The USGA loves to have it quick and demanding.

I think what separates what amateurs don't really probably truly understand is the pin locations, how difficult they can be. At Oakmont I've played Augusta all these years. I've never seen pins that difficult, and they were actually being nice to us. I think that's the difference is that at say Pinehurst and at Oakmont, you felt you could easily putt the ball off greens. You don't find that feeling very often in tournaments.

JOE CHEMYCZ: People often talk about how fatherhood changes them as a person. I just wonder if you could tell us how you think becoming a father may have changed you as a person and possibly long term as a player?

TIGER WOODS: Well, me as a person, individually, it's very simple. You start appreciating the little things in life. I've said this before, after my father passed away, I think probably every kid feels the same way, that you feel like you didn't spend enough time with him. I felt that way about my dad. I'd call him all the time and I was there as much as I could be, but you always feel this sense of you didn't really capture each and every day with him.

I wanted to feel that with my daughter. I wanted to feel and appreciate that even sleepless nights and the difficulties sometimes when she gets sick. You still appreciate those days because you don't know when it's ever going to end. I always thought my dad would live forever. I thought he'd be immortal, you know? Obviously we all know that's not the case. I wanted to be sure that I truly appreciate those days with my daughter.

JOE CHEMYCZ: (Inaudible)

TIGER WOODS: I think end of the year probably demonstrated that pretty good.

JOE CHEMYCZ:  A couple questions regarding THE PLAYERS Championship. How did switching the dates help, and how has the course changed over the years?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I can understand the date change. The date change was to make it so that it wasn't just the run up to Augusta, it had its own place, which I think was good.

As far as the golf course changing, it changed quite a bit. I remember when it used to be hard and fast and it became deep rough, and now they've gone away from that and gone to Bermuda rough, Bermuda greens actually. It's changed quite a bit.

The year that I keep looking back at is my Amateur there in '94. It was hard and fast, everything was baked out, and they didn't have the palmetto bushes between now they don't have them, but they used to have palmetto bushes between 1 and 2, 10 and 11. You couldn't see through each hole, it was so thick. The guys who have actually played there in the past, comments they have made about how much more playable they've made the golf course, how much more spectator friendly. There's no doubt about it, it's a better golfing experience for all the spectators. You see more, experience more, feel more, see other holes, which they never could before.

JOE CHEMYCZ:  A lot of child stars come to LA and those of us who have been around a long time have seen them, and almost all of them end up burning out; very rare for a child star in this environment who has succeeded. If you were eight years old today would it be a lot harder for you given today's harder for you to keep grounded as you seem to have been grounded?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's all do you love what you do. If you love what you do, then you're not going to experience burnout. I can understand if you're forced to do something you really don't want to do and you don't really have you may be good at it but you just don't like doing it, it may be a means to an end.

But for all the people out there who have been extremely successful, they've always loved what they do, from athletes to whatever their job description is. I think if you really do have a passion for it, then you don't ever get burned out.

JOE CHEMYCZ: (Inaudible)

TIGER WOODS: It's no doubt, it has changed and it has become microbial, the focus. I think that's the biggest difference. I've talked to people in my sport, from Jack to Arnold and even to Byron, about how it was in their day, and each one of them says the same thing. We don't know how you do it in your day and age. Well, 20 years from now I couldn't imagine how it would be for some other kid to do it in his day and age. It's just the focus has been absolutely incredible with the advent of 24 hour news and everyone needs to have some kind of angle to stand out. That wasn't always the case.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Playing by and large with a field of opponents that you're friendly with, does that make it more difficult for you to be competitive 

TIGER WOODS: No.

JOE CHEMYCZ: In the new Golf Digest you were quoted as saying if you ruled the game you guys would be playing persimmon and balata. Can you talk about that, and can you speak to whether you think there would be any interest in a tournament once a year where you guys actually use that kind of equipment?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think that any time a player likes to shape a golf ball, understands how to shape a golf ball or bend who can consistently hit the ball flush, you're going to want the ball to move more and the equipment to be less forgiving. It puts a premium on quality. There's a lot of guys that just go out there and just hit it, they mis hit it, but the golf balls and the club heads, they're so forgiving that the ball goes the same distance.

Like my old persimmon driver that I grew up with, it's only maybe 15 yards behind my driver now. If I mis hit it, it was like hitting a 3 iron out there. It goes nowhere. That's the biggest difference. You have to hit the ball flush, perfectly struck shots. It goes just about the same distance.

You know, if you this is a good story. I actually played the 9th hole at St. Andrews in 2000 with a gutta percha ball and with my old golf ball, which was the first Nike ball I put out there, and I drove the green with my ball. And then with the gutta percha ball I hit a driver and a 5 iron and just barely rolled it to the middle of the green. Big difference in technology. But that's basically the difference in it wouldn't be that big a difference, but there would be certainly a distinct difference. It would be fun to play a tournament that way, there's no doubt.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Your season form going into the PGA Championship through the FedExCup playoffs, culminating in the TOUR Championship, your control of the ball, where does that run rank compared to others in your career?

TIGER WOODS: There's no doubt, right up there. I hit the ball very well, and made the putts, which was nice. I really felt like I had control of the golf ball. I could hit any shot I felt like I wanted to hit. Granted, I did have some bad days in there, but I managed to shoot 70 or 69 on those bad days through course management or proper misses.

You know, I think if you look at my career as a whole, when I go on these runs where I won some tournaments in a row, it's those bad rounds that I've turned from 73 or 74 into 70 or 69 or 71. I don't shoot myself out of the event. This year at the end of the year I didn't shoot myself out of any event.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Last week I think you said that after the long break you were looking forward to getting back and competing again. Is that the biggest benefit to taking so much time off is getting sort of the fire back a little bit? And also, what about any physical benefits of taking so much time off?

TIGER WOODS: Well, the mental benefits are the fact that you do feel fresh, you do feel energized, you feel ready to go. We played a lot of golf at the end of last season. Even the week off, you take a week off and people think that you don't do anything. You're at home grinding. You're at home working on your game and making sure it's ready for the next event.

It was nice to actually shut down and not have to work, like today's practice schedule is going to be I have to work on this, this, this, this, and if this goes wrong I've got to worry about this, this and this. Those weeks off, that's usually how it goes.

But here I've been away from the game, got away from it. As soon as I got back into it I felt I was on a clean slate. It felt great.

Physically you can work on things that you never get a chance to work on because in our sport we really don't have an off season so you're really in I guess it would be a constant maintenance phase. You really don't have a chance to make big gains. You play two, three weeks in a row, you've got a week off, you can't really dedicate a whole off season to getting your fitness to where you want to have it. Most sports have that off season where they build up and then they try and maintain that for the season. Well, we try and maintain that for a decade. We don't really have a chance to have the gains that the other athletes do.

After our season is done, generally guys go play in Europe, go to Asia, go to South Africa, go to Australia and support their tours. They're always constantly playing.

JOE CHEMYCZ: A two parter, but I noticed when you were talking earlier about the season, you spent much more time talking about Augusta and Oakmont, briefly Deutsche Bank, than you did any of the things that you've won. I'd be curious if that's generally your nature when you look back on a year is to figure things out by thinking what you could have done instead of what you did.

TIGER WOODS: The way I answered that question is the comparison, and I wanted to make sure that everyone understood how good a year this was and how close it was to being better than 2000. It wasn't that far away. I mean, just probably, what, four shots.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Following that, though, we spent years here at this tournament asking about your seasons and wondering if 2000 has always been the benchmark. In your eyes is it still the benchmark? And if it's not, when did that go away?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think this year was very close to doing that. That's why I was just four shots away.

A couple years ago I think I was, what, four shots, maybe five shots away from winning all four? I've been pretty close the last few years of eclipsing what I did in 2000 as far as consistency. I won nine times, 12 around the world and three majors that year.

JOE CHEMYCZ: What was the benchmark, just the three majors?

TIGER WOODS: The three majors and the fact that I was also able to win 12 times around the world. That's not too bad.

But this year I won well, over 50 percent of my tournaments, so that's not bad, either.

JOE CHEMYCZ: How familiar are you with a website that's been around for a few years, TigerWoodsisGod.com, which claims to be the First Church of Tiger Woods? What's your reaction to the basic premise?

TIGER WOODS: I've heard of it, there's no doubt, I've heard of it. I've never been on line to take a look at it. I think just the name itself, I really don't want to take a look at it.

JOE CHEMYCZ: So are you denying your divinity? Are you officially denying your divinity?

TIGER WOODS: I am so far away from that (laughter).

JOE CHEMYCZ: Mastery of the swing, in terms of being able to correct things during rounds and not having to have as much of a hands on thing with Hank day after day as you did a couple years ago?

TIGER WOODS: Well, I think I still need to have an extra pair of eyes there, but as far as understanding what you need to do trust is the biggest thing. I was telling Henry that I can always fix it on the golf course, but to know that was a 100 percent fix, and I knew that was going to work, that's a different deal.

Now I do have an understanding that what I do feel, what the shot shape tells me, what the automatic fix is, and I know it's the right fix. I don't have to worry about it. That's huge because you're not always going to have your best stuff and no one is going to help you inside the ropes to figure it out. You just have to figure it out yourself on the fly. That's what makes our game so interesting. It's fluid, it's dynamic, it's always changing and it's always evolving, and you always have to make adjustments on the fly.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I know in the past on vacation and in the off season you've gone skiing and done some other things. I don't know if you were able to get out and pick up another hobby or do anything this off season, or what was the most fun thing away from golf you were able to do? Second part, I know you went to the Mayweather fight. Can you talk about the sport of boxing and how much you know about it?

TIGER WOODS: Well, basically I haven't done anything this off season. I really haven't skied yet. My wife has been, I haven't been. As far as fighting, I've always enjoyed it. I went to Mayweather/de la Hoya, and this one here was absolutely incredible. The atmosphere, I've never seen anything like it, all the singing.

We went to one of the other cards right before that, right before the main event, and everyone was still singing. And when what's obviously happening in the ring, it was over. They were all into it, and just the people who were there to watch from a celebrity standpoint are famous athletes. It was pretty amazing to see that this many people came out to watch this fight. Some are pretty big fight fans. I know that Denzel and Bruce Willis are huge fight fans, obviously Barkley behind me, he goes to every fight.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You've always talked about the tremendous amount of knowledge you have acquired from your father. Is there one thing that stands out that's helping you to become a better parent that you learned from him?

TIGER WOODS: Probably not yet because I haven't really been able to teach. My father was instinctively a teacher. He got the most joy out of helping others. He always felt that he always appreciated how good life could be, actually to teach and help others, and that's actually how he lived his life. He loved it. He always tried to help somebody each and every day he lived. He pretty much did that.

That's something I've done but I haven't been able to do that with Sam yet. She's not quite old enough for me to talk to and to teach her these life lessons, and I think that's going to be the fun part is actually being able to my dad turned the simplest little things into lifelong lessons that I will never forget. I can't wait to experience that with Sam.

JOE CHEMYCZ: That was your first official sip of your new drink. I wanted to ask you how has your endorsement philosophy changed from the time you turned pro to now? Did you just sign up with everyone early on? Did you get more involved now, less involved in?

TIGER WOODS: There's no doubt, more involved now. I have a better understanding. Before I had basically no clue, just wanted to make sure that I was involved with the right companies and the right people around me, but still, a lot of it was trusting others instead of understanding and trusting myself. I didn't really have the wherewithal.

Now having been involved here for 12 years, 11 years, a lot of experience, a lot of people I've met not even having to do with sponsors but people who have made just a bunch of money from nothing and the things that they've taught me and shared with me, the process that they went through. It's been very enlightening. I think that's one of the reasons why you see the shift in some of the things I've done lately.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Concerning Dubai and the golf course, the project you're doing there, when is that going to come on line? And are you going to link that in with the expansion that the European Tour is creating an international headquarters there?

TIGER WOODS: It's going to be my course will be fall of '09, and as far as linking with the European Tour, I don't know. I know they're going to have an event there in Dubai besides the Emirates course. I think they have another event there. But they're not going to be playing at I think it's next year, I believe.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Well, they're moving the international headquarters 

TIGER WOODS: I'm just saying there's another event going to Dubai.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Yeah, another event is coming in, but that's not going to be on your course then?

TIGER WOODS: No. Maybe in the future.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I just wanted to talk a little bit about because of how well you played this year, your sense of anticipation going into next year, especially with the U.S. Open being at Torrey. Do you look at next year and go, yeah, this sets up 

TIGER WOODS: You know, I really am excited. I missed because of my age, I missed one at Riviera, and I was lucky enough to be able to play the one at Pebble. These are places that I've played frequently. Torrey since junior golf, Rivy since junior college and Pebble since my college days. For me to come back to So Cal and play a major championship here, that's as good as it gets for me. Being at home and playing in a major championship, it's probably very similar to some of the other players who grew up and fights like Charles Howell does every year at Augusta, or Vaughn Taylor, they grew up there.

So for me to have one at So Cal at Torrey where I've played there, I've watched old what was it, the Andy Williams event there? Yeah, when I was a little kid my dad drove me down there and we watched. Yeah, I just remember how far Andy Bean used to hit the ball (laughter). Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Thank you. Tiger, again, congratulations on Player of the Year.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You were voted the 2007 Comeback Player of the Year for the second straight year. Highlights of the 2007 season include a second place finish in the FedExCup, including a win at the Barclays, your first win since 2001, nine Top 10 finishes, the second most of your career, and currently No. 4 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Congratulations. I know it's always an honor when you're voted awards, especially by your peers.

STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, thanks. It is an honor, and to win this for the second straight year, I don't know how I did it, but it is an honor to be voted by your peers. Like Joe and I were talking about, we don't know if the award has the correct name or not. I mean, I won this last year, and I don't know what I did to deserve it again this year. But it is, it's a nice award, and I am honored.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Do you think you can win this a third year in a row?

STEVE STRICKER: I don't know, I was thinking about what I would have to do to win this three years in a row, and usually you have to have a better year than last year. I don't know if I'd be out of this ballot and maybe be on the Player of the Year ballot, which would be nice.

JOE CHEMYCZ: 2005, No. 162 on the Money List; 2006, No. 34 on the Money List; and of course in 2007, No. 4 in the world.

JOE CHEMYCZ: At Carnoustie and then again in Oklahoma, 100 questions on where you were, how you've come back. You seemed a little tired of them. Are you at all? Do you mind explaining the comeback at all, or does it get to your nerves?

STEVE STRICKER: It's getting to my nerves, to tell you the truth (laughter). I try to be as polite as possible, and I do answer the questions, but it's been three years and I've had two really solid years. I feel like that's way on the back burner now, and I've been looking forward and looking to what I want to continue to do and not look so much in the past anymore. So when people do bring it up, it does tend to bother me a little bit. It's a nice story but it's an old story is the way I feel about it. It's two or three years ago.

I still answer them, but I'd rather talk about what I've done just recently or what I'm going to do moving forward.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Talk about the byproduct of your success. An event like this, Mercedes, something like that that you haven't been to in a while.

STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, it's great. I did it back in '96 and after the start of the '97 season after I had a good year then and then a good year in 2001. I think in '98 I made the TOUR Championship. So it's not like I've never done any of these events. But it is definitely nice to get back into them.

It's a bonus. You know, when you can come here and play for the kind of money that we're playing for and to be Tiger's event, a special event as it is, it's all bonus. It's all icing on top of the cake. It's a privilege to be here and looking forward to getting my 2008 season going and coming off of an eight week layoff. I feel like this is the start of next year, really.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Do you think that the gap is closing on Tiger? Are people getting closer, or is he just kind of moving away again?

STEVE STRICKER: I don't think it's getting closer, no. You know, just playing with him toward the end of the season and watching what he does and what he's capable of doing kind of just blows me away at times. I realized that back in '97 when I first played with him. His rookie year on TOUR basically I played with him at AT&T, and I was coming off a good year in '96, and I kind of looked at him to see how I could stack up.

I didn't stack up very well then, and I don't stack up very well against him now, either. But there's ways that you have to try to beat him, and that's just play your own game and do things you can't compete with him with length or his strength out of the rough or any of that stuff, so you can't kind of I've learned you can't compare yourself to him; no one can. You just have to go about your own business and try to shoot the lowest score possible but doing it your own way and not getting caught up into how he does it.

I think that's the impressive thing is if you start to watch him and start to watch what he does, to me that's a no no, just because you need to be paying attention to your own game and trying to do it your own way.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Not to dwell on the trailer, but that was '05 that you first went into the trailer. Did you at all last winter, and what do you do now in your off seasons to get ready?

STEVE STRICKER: Still do the same stuff. I did at the end of the '06 season, I spent some time in the trailer again hitting balls, and I was in there again I went down to Jacksonville for about four days prior to coming here. That's my warmup, though, staying at home for as long as possible, hitting balls out of the trailer, hanging onto the clubs. I've got a putting green in my house where I can putt, and then doing those two things, at least I'm able to hang onto a club. And then I usually go somewhere to try to play, try to get some rounds under my belt, and that's what we did the last four days down in Jacksonville.

JOE CHEMYCZ: The double header obviously with the Illini, you at Sherwood, they're playing football in the Rose Bowl on New Year's day. Talk about the gallery here being Illini fans.

STEVE STRICKER: Yes, is there a question?

JOE CHEMYCZ: Is it going to be nice that this is a tournament where you can come out 

STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, I get a lot of I L Ls wherever I go, and I don't know if there will be any Illinois fans already out here for the football game, but usually at tournament stops I'll get a lot of Illinois fans. I take it you're from Champaign maybe?

JOE CHEMYCZ: No, out here, but I just noticed that the game is coming up. Just talk about having an interest in that.

STEVE STRICKER: An interest in the Rose Bowl? Yeah, I've got an interest in the Rose Bowl. Going to the University of Illinois and being a part of that program for the four or five years that I was there, it definitely was fun to see Ron Zook turn that program around this year. You always knew he could get the players in there, and it looked like he finally put it together on the field and it was fun to watch. I'll be rooting for them for the Rose Bowl.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You talked about Tiger's physical strength, and I think we recognize that, but also the mental side of the game. People discuss how tough he is mentally. I'm just wondering what is that when you're competing against that, and do you notice that as much as the physical side?

STEVE STRICKER: You know it's there. I guess you get caught up, or at least I do, watching some of the physical stuff. You know he's very strong mentally, too. You've just seen it so many other times, and it's documented. I watch a lot of the Golf Channel or watch a lot of golf on TV. It's just well documented how strong he is mentally. He's impressive. I don't know any other way to put it. He's just impressive, and I get to watch him for a couple more days starting this week, too, or at least one, I guess, so I'm looking forward to it.

JOE CHEMYCZ: At the end of the year it got to be pretty tiring for a lot of the guys playing in all those events, and of course winning a tournament now of course that opened up a lot of doors to you. Do you find it difficult to say no to tournaments? It seems like there's so many good ones now. Do you have any difficulty looking ahead to your schedule and figuring out what you're going to do and where you're going to play?

STEVE STRICKER: Not really. I mean, obviously there's been a couple opportunities this fall to play, which I've taken advantage of this one here this week. But no, I still feel like my job is to play on the TOUR and to focus my attention on the TOUR, not so much the fall stuff or maybe overseas during the course of the year. I tend to shy away from kind of that stuff just because I feel like my obligation is to the TOUR here, and I want to perform well on the PGA TOUR and I want to be rested and ready to play when I'm going to play.

I've got usually my favorite courses that I like to go and favorite cities and stuff like that, so I just kind of tend to do the same ones year after year. But obviously there's World Golf Championships events that are thrown into it, and I'll be playing those like I did last year. It'll be basically pretty much the same schedule, but I try to focus mainly right here on the TOUR.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Do you find that it's kind of caught up with you when you go out to grocery stores or coffee houses? Do you feel you're getting recognized by people more when you go out or are you still able to fly under the radar?

STEVE STRICKER: I get recognized a little bit more, but it's pretty much under the radar, I guess. Every once in a while people will come up to me and say something about the year that I had last year and that, which is nice. You know, it's just when you talk about Tiger, again, and I can't even imagine some of the stuff that he goes through dealing with that kind of stuff. It's kind of a nice position I feel like I'm in. I get a little recognition but yet I can still slide under the radar, like you said, and go about my normal business.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I'd be curious, having seen the likes of Philadelphia resident Sean O'Hair and Minneapolis resident Tim Herron this week and yourself, what's it like for you at home? How important is it to not be able to play golf? And can you imagine what it would be like to live in Florida as an example?

STEVE STRICKER: I enjoy my time away. You know, as you probably know, I need to get away. I don't know if it's just because I grew up in Wisconsin and I've always had that time away from the game. I'm not sure, but I've tried to like at the end of the '96 season I played a lot in the off season and then started playing right away from January. I could tell that I didn't have the time away, and my attitude was not good; I was short tempered. I just wasn't ready to play. I found out that I need that time away.

We tried to live down in Florida for a period of time, and it just didn't work. Our family and friends are in Wisconsin, and I need that time to be there and to do the things that I like to do in the fall time. That's why we're there.

JOE CHEMYCZ: When did you try living in Florida?

STEVE STRICKER: It was early in my career. We actually had a house in Tampa and we were residents of Florida, actually, until the Wisconsin IRS just decided to pull us right back (laughter). That was after the end of the '96 season where they decided, how are you a Florida resident? I said, well, I have been for three years, and I made that money in '96, and they said, well, no, you're a Wisconsin resident now. So we've been back ever since.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You were really there for three years in Tampa, you had a house and that was your off season?

STEVE STRICKER: Yeah, that was it down there. We'd go down there in November, December, January. All through the Florida Swing we'd drive out of there. Once we had our first child in '98 my wife wanted to be back home with family. Since she wasn't caddying, she needed to be back home with the family. That's kind of when it all happened, when we went back home.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Were you playing a lot when you were in Tampa during the wintertime?

STEVE STRICKER: Oh, yeah, I played all the time. You'd go outside and it's 75 degrees and nice, and it kind of forced you to play almost. You felt guilty if you didn't go out there to play. That's what I like about Wisconsin, because you can't get out there to play at the end of October and November, and it forces you to get away. But you can still hit balls, like I said. If you feel the urge you can still go out and hit balls in that trailer.

JOE CHEMYCZ: What was the highest high last year, the peak experience looking back in retrospect?

STEVE STRICKER: Definitely winning the Barclays. It was such a long time in between wins. 2001 was a win at the Match Play, but you've got to go all the way back to '96 before I won a stroke play event. That definitely was the highlight of my career. And I still, my wife and I talk about it, that did it really happen type of thing. We still can't believe it yet.

It meant a lot. You know, it just proved to me that the work that I've been doing had paid off and that I'm heading in the right direction.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Can I ask you about your thoughts on the British Open with the passage of time and where that fits into your memories of the year, whether it was an opportunity lost or a good experience?

STEVE STRICKER: It was both. It was both an opportunity lost and an experience that I think led to me winning later in the year. All the things that led up to that I felt like were a positive experience, a learning experience, one that I think helped me win at the Barclays. And I definitely thought that even the British Open but even more so the U.S. Open, I'm leading after nine holes I mean, with nine to play, and have a chance to win.

You know, you could have looked at them as a negative, but I decided to try to keep it as a positive. I was moving in the right direction, and my goal was to win. It would have been nice to win one of those majors, but to win was my goal. And to finally do it, I think all that clumped together, all those experiences helped me do that.

JOE CHEMYCZ: How do you think your year might have gone had you won either of The Opens or Wachovia? And kind of as a follow to that, how do you guard against satisfaction having finally gotten back to where you thought you should have been?

STEVE STRICKER: No doubt. I don't know how the rest of the year would have gone. I think because I was close for a lot of events during the middle of the year, it kept providing me some sort of hope and some sort of fire that I was going to try to win again, and that just motivated me even more to continue to work towards that goal. You know, I don't know how that would have worked.

Looking at this year, I feel like this is another year for me to try to come out and prove again what I did this last year. I need to be prepared. I'm not resting on anything. I'm not resting on my laurels at all, and I've been working at it, and this whole month now I look forward to working towards the Mercedes and the start in Hawaii.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Is there anything you're really working towards?

STEVE STRICKER: Ryder Cup. I look at that as something that I have not done. Obviously the majors, you're going to have to play well in those to make that team, to be a part of that team. You know, I look at the end there and trying to be a part of that Ryder Cup team because I had a blast being a part of that Presidents Cup team, and it's been a long time since '96 was the last Presidents Cup team, but to be together again with all those guys was a pretty special event. I've never been on a Ryder Cup team, and that would be awesome.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Talk about your experiences here and how you like playing in Los Angeles.

STEVE STRICKER: You know, the weather is great. It beats being in Wisconsin this time of year. We have a foot of snow on the ground. I don't play a whole lot in LA. I like coming here. I play the LA Open every once in a while, but I'm excited about this week. I'm excited to be part of the field. I'm excited to get I keep saying the '08 season, but even though this is the '07 season still, I feel like I'm working towards next year and this is kind of the start of it all.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You're basically paying attention to Badger basketball and hockey right now?

STEVE STRICKER: Badger basketball, and I've been going to a few of those games and spending time at home and helping out with the kids and everything, so it's been a nice eight week break and I'm ready to get going again.

JOE CHEMYCZ: How shocked are you that Tiger Woods was named the Player of the Year?

STEVE STRICKER: I'm not shocked at all. We kind of seem to expect that as the years keep going on and on that that's going to be one constant at the end of the year.

JOE CHEMYCZ: How significant is your driving, the improvement in your driving?

STEVE STRICKER: I think it's been pretty significant. It's not great yet. I still could improve on that. But I think just my overall game has been a lot more consistent. I'm driving it a little bit better. I looked at my stats comparing this year to other years, and it was a little bit better. It wasn't as good as the '06 season but it's definitely gotten better. I feel like I'm a little more in control of my game now. My iron game is better and my chipping and my putting has always been decent. I'm just everything, the overall game has gotten a little bit better.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Monty once said that the reason the majors are so hard to win is that Tiger wins two of them, Ernie, Phil, Vijay will win another one, and that only leaves one for everybody else. Do you agree with that or no?

STEVE STRICKER: You know, Tiger usually gets one a year it seems like. How many has he won, 13? How many years has he been on TOUR, 11? So that's basically one a year. Sometimes he throws in two. So he's right, you know, it leaves two for everybody else to try to fight over, and there's a lot of good players fighting for them. It makes it difficult.

I guess when you look back when I look back anyways at the Open this year and the British Open and Winged Foot last year, Tiger wasn't there at Winged Foot, and I'm like, well, this would be a great opportunity because he misses the cut. I didn't get it done, so I look at those as missed opportunities. But you're right, there's a lot of other players vying for those two or three during the year, and it's tough, a lot of good players.

JOE CHEMYCZ: I just wonder, you're No. 4 in the world, or in the earnings, and all of a sudden you're back. Do you consider yourself one of the elite players? And I guess we always think of Phil and Vijay and Ernie, that group, and Retief. Do you say, "I'm in that group"?

STEVE STRICKER: No, I don't.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Why?

STEVE STRICKER: Because we've always looked at them that way, I guess, the Big Four or the Big Five, whatever you want to say. I've had two good years, and I've snuck in there. I don't see myself as that, no, I don't.

You know, maybe that's just my way of trying to provide me with some sort of motivation to try to get better, too, to try to work hard at it to keep moving my way up.

JOE CHEMYCZ: This week obviously Tiger is the host. When you look at when you and other players look at him, he has this, the Deutsche Bank, AT&T National, the Learning Center, a foundation, everything else that goes on. Are you as players surprised at how he handles all those things on his plate, and would you or anybody else be able to welcome all those things onto your plate and be able to handle them the way he does?

STEVE STRICKER: That's what I was getting too earlier, too, about the flying under the radar. It's nice to have some success but not really get noticed. Here's a guy that has it all the time and probably has a hard time going out anywhere without running into somebody that wants a piece of his time. You know, obviously he's got a lot of great people working with him and for him that can handle a lot of this, and he can come in there and provide his time and energy when he needs to.

I don't wish it on myself, no. He does obviously a great job in handling his time and efforts and the things that he his interests, or the things that he decides on putting his time into. So like I said, no, I don't welcome that. He obviously does a great job with that, and the people that he's probably built around built around him have done a great job with that, too.

JOE CHEMYCZ: My host wanted me to ask about the Packers and your take on the Packers and what a typical Packer Cheesehead party would be like now that they're playing really well. Is it just over the roof?

STEVE STRICKER: I get dressed up in a Bears outfit to tell you the truth. I'm a Bears fan (laughter). I don't get a lot of sympathy when I'm at home when my Bears are playing the way they've been playing. But last year the Bears did well. I was kind of letting them know that the Bears are playing well, but it's vice versa this year. But I'm a Bears fan at first but a Brett Favre fan big time. I love to watch him play, and I root for the Packers when they're not playing the Bears.

You know, we have a good time with it, and it's fun to watch him play this year. He's having probably one of the better years of his career, which is good for Packer fans, too, because he'll probably be back again for next year, too. It's been fun to watch.

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