Open Press Conference Bits, Round 1

Boy, sure glad Phil put that 9-iron in the bag. What would he have done from 175 yards out? Seriously, it was fun to see that an 8 iron will get you 180 yards these days, 7 iron from Luke Donald. You gotta love all the drives reaching crosswalks. Here's a suggestion to the USGA: try moving the crosswalks closer to the tee, not closer to the greens.

Man that rough was brutal. A reader in the media center wanted to point out that a drive landing in the rough cost a whopping .385 strokes. Better narrow the fairways to 15 yards!

Here's Tiger's way of saying the first round was boring (and he didn't have to listen to Chris Berman all day): "I tell you what, Steve and I were talking about this today. I'm glad you mentioned it, because there's no roars out here. Think about it, who is going to hole-in-one off the sides of these greens. At Augusta you hear eagle roars, you hear the big putts being made. Out here guys are just trying to make pars. That's the nature of this golf course. We heard one roar today and that was Chris holed out on 2. Other than that you didn't hear anything."

And you believe there's no such thing as a dumb question?

Q. Did you [Tiger] and Chris talk about your Masters?

TIGER WOODS: We didn't say one word, not about that. We talked about how well he was putting. He had 23 putts out there. I mean, come on, that's impressive out here. And I felt good. I felt very much in control of my ball flight. I hit a good amount of fairways, a good amount of greens.

And today was a very satisfactory day. I felt if I could have three more days like this, I'm going to be close to where I need to be on Sunday.

And here's Phil on the course that the USGA's VP says is set up the same as it was in 1999:

PHIL MICKELSON: It's totally different than '99. '99 we had six or eight yard wider fairways and we had rain, so the ball was stopping. Now, our fairways, we've taken 30 percent away, and they're brick hard, so the ball is just running right on through. The greens are a lot harder than they were in '99. '99 we were able to fly shots and get it close and shoot at pins. I think we're in for a tough three more days.

Here's the link to the first round stats. Driving distances were pretty long for a set up that is designed to force players to throttle back. Doesn't look like it's working. But the scoring is high, and really, what else is there?