Two weeks after Tiger Woods’ fifth Masters victory, we’re learning more about the ripple effects from the greatest comeback in golf history. Woods himself hasn’t done much since, but one former PGA Tour player has used what he saw as motivation to quit his job and return to competitive golf.
“We figured we needed to get something going, so we had Skittles for birdies, so every birdie we made, [Jon Rahm’s caddie Adam Hayes] pulled out [the bag] and fed each one of us one Skittle.” -Ryan Palmer on him and Rahm’s sweet-tooth motivation at the Zurich Classic
“I saw his tweet this morning when he came off the course, ‘We need to play faster, blah, blah, blah.’ I get it. I hear where Edoardo [Molinari] is coming from, but he is, what shall we say, flogging a dead horse? ... It’s not a dead horse, but it’s pretty dead. What do you want to do? We can’t get around there much quicker. Is 20 minutes going to change his life? Listen, I like Edoardo, nice kid, but I think he’s just frustrated.” -Graeme McDowell on Molinari’s tweets about slow play at the European Tour’s Trophee Hassan II
“We’re not surprised. Those two suit each other. People in America may not know them that well, but these guys are good. … Look, we have the potential to do well. Obviously, the mountain is huge. The American team is stacked – household names, major winners, they’ll probably have Tiger Woods on the team – so we’ve got our work cut out for us no doubt.” -European Presidents Cup assistant captain Trevor Immelman on fellow South African’s Branden Grace and Justin Harding and the upcoming Presidents Cup
“We played golf like the Japanese, play nine, take a break, come back, play another nine. It was kind of an odd day.” -Scott Stallings on the multiple weather delays during Thursday’s first round of the Zurich Classic
“I’ve just been home and letting everything thaw out and just trying to understand what I [have] accomplished. But I haven’t – I don’t think – come to grips with it yet. ... It’s very similar to what it was in 1997, and that took me years to understand what I had accomplished, and I don’t think this one will settle in for quite some time.” -Tiger Woods on his fifth Masters win and 15th major championship
“To be able to get the guys together into a team environment can be very difficult at times, especially when some guys are not quite there mentally because it is the end of the season, and I’m the first one to put my hand up in regards to that because unfortunately, it has to start at the top, and I’ve made mistakes with regards to not mentally being there. You can obviously see my results in Korea, and I wasn’t mentally there unfortunately with regards to being there for the team when I needed, performing for the team.” -Jason Day on mentally checking out of Presidents Cups
“I was in an office for seven months, and it was fine when I started, I was paying the bills. Then the Masters came along, and I’m watching this kid Patrick Cantlay, who in 2011 finished second to me in the national championship when he was at UCLA, and he’s finishing ninth in the Masters. It’s on TV, and I beat him, and I beat him a lot, and I’m just like, ‘Man, that could be me.’ And then Tiger wins, with his story, it was just so inspiring, honestly. And I quit my job, seriously, the next day after the Masters.” -John Peterson on Tiger Woods inspiring him to quit his job and return to competitive golf
“I’ve sat through a lot of Presidents Cup beatdowns over the years, and I’ve kind of had enough of it, so I’m prepared to do whatever it takes – whatever Ernie thinks it takes – to kind of change the culture in our team. But it’s not just about coming here at Zurich this week and seeing some pairings and getting the team to spend a little bit of extra [time together]. I think it’s about starting to grow a culture amongst the international players and showing everyone who’s coming up the importance of this tournament … and how much we can all care about this.” -Adam Scott on the International Presidents Cup potential team members
“It’s demoralizing at times. Everyone is going out and firing at pins and you’re constantly trying to go as low as you can. … You do feel rewarded when you make it through [Monday qualifiers], but I haven’t, so I’ve just had to keep the mindset that if you played well, you played well, and move on.” -Chase Koepka on working his way back to the European Tour after losing his card
“It’s nice to see, and it’s impressive to see someone – even being Tiger, as we know how good he is – to come back from four back surgeries, and to be totally honest, probably about three years ago we all didn’t know how long he was going to play for because he was struggling to play five tournaments a year. So to be able to do that, it’s very impressive, and we’ll see where he goes from there.” -Sergio Garcia on watching Tiger Woods win the Masters
