Tiger Woods Talks Some Roger Federer at Doral

Roger Federer accompanied Tiger Woods during a practice round Wednesday at the World Golf Championships at Doral, Fla., Wednesday. Here's what Tiger had to say afterward about having Federer over for practice:

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, Roger (Federer) came out and watched the back nine. We had dinner last night on the boat. He's obviously playing this week -- actually, he starts on Saturday. But it's great to have him out here. I think he's a wonderful supporter of golf, and I think it's pretty neat when you have probably the most dominant athlete on the planet out there in your gallery.
LAURA NEAL: Plan to return the favor this weekend?
TIGER WOODS: I'll be there. I'll definitely be there.

Q. Does he play golf?
TIGER WOODS: He plays, yeah. He played for a number of years and then got a rib injury for a while and he thought it was caused by golf, so he quit playing golf for a little bit and that's when his tennis took off. But he's playing a little bit more now, starting to get into it again and absolutely loves it. His mom is a hell of a player, she shoots in the 70s all the time so it's in the family.

Q. You said he's probably the most dominant athlete on the planet, are you saying that because of the back nine at Bay Hill on Sunday?
TIGER WOODS: Even if I won that tournament, doesn't matter. What he's done over the last three years -- last week he lost, but other than that, he's lost five or six matches for three years; that's pretty good.

Q. One more Federer question. The argument people make about whether it's tougher to win a golf tournament versus a tennis tournament, it sounds like you don't -- that tennis is harder to you?
TIGER WOODS: Well, tennis is in the sense that if you're physically dominant, you can dominate somebody. In our sport, you can't physically dictate what somebody else is going to do. You can't all of a sudden hit a drive out there past him and say, okay, I win the hole. That doesn't happen.
So a person who actually is more physically gifted and physically dominant can actually just overpower somebody, and that just does not happen in our sport. So it's a little bit more difficult in that sense, golf-wise. But what he's done, you know, over the last three years, no one's ever done.

Q. When you were with Roger, do you guys have discussions about your individual sports and dominance, the aspect of dominance?
TIGER WOODS: No. It's more -- if we do talk about our sports, it's more in the sense, how we prepare, what he does, all of his training that he does off the court, you know, and what I do off the course to get ready. Just a number of wind sprints and miles we both log and our lifting schedules, how long and what type of lifting do we do. It's obviously very sport-driven, but also very similar at the same time.

Q. From the fan/paparazzi side of things, who has it worse?
TIGER WOODS: I might have a slight -- I don't know if you would call it an advantage or disadvantage. (Laughter)

Q. How so? What do you see in the limited times you've seen him play?
TIGER WOODS: Well, I think it's just more of walking down the street. I think -- in this country, certainly. But globally, I don't know, but I know certainly in this country that I'm probably a little bit more recognized than he is.

Q. (Roger had to walk outside the ropes today --)
TIGER WOODS: It's the TOUR policy. They are trying to clean up the TOUR and I totally understand that. They don't want to have people inside the ropes, but I just thought -- I'm sure I'll get fined for it. (Laughter) I don't mind paying, because, you know, he was starting to get hassled pretty good and I didn't think -- that's not why he came out here. He came out here to enjoy himself and watch me slap it around a little bit.

Q. Your preparation for tournaments, was there anything that you found surprisingly similar or surprisingly different between you and Roger?
TIGER WOODS: I think surprisingly different is how early he gets to a tournament site. He gets to a tournament site, he only plays 19, 20 events a year, but he gets there a half a week to a week early. I just keep giving him a bunch of grief that he's not able to get over the jet-lag I guess. (laughter)

Q. A year or two Michael Schumacher was dominating in his sport -- inaudible -- has Roger gone beyond that?
TIGER WOODS: Only difference is Roger has not done it for as many years as Michael did. That's the only difference. Michael did it for over ten years, and Roger is just basically in the last three years, has just taken his sport to another level. But there's no reason why he can't continue to do it for another eight, nine, ten years as well.

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