Tiger pukes then cleans up in Grand Slam opening round

Some of my favorite highlights from the post-round press conference after the first day at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Poipu Beach, Hawaii:

ON THE TOPIC OF TIGER’S AILING TUMMY:

Q. Are you surprised how well Tiger did today?

VIJAY SINGH: Tiger just won in Japan. (Laughing). So it’s no surprise
he’s going to play well. You know, maybe if he wasn’t throwing up, he probably would have drove everything out there.

PGA PR GUY JULIUS MASON: And on the throw up note, we will thank Mr. Singh for joining us, and we will say hello to Mr. Woods. Tiger, I think you have some explaining to do. How in the world you’re able to come off the course at 5 under?

TIGER WOODS: I have no idea, either. I have no idea. It was very interesting starting out. Didn’t feel all that good starting out, and bogeyed the first hole and by the time I teed off on the second hole, by the time I hit my second shot, I was a little bit lighter and a little more streamlined and lost weight. My abs got a good workout there in the bushes, and from there, I just tried to get it through and not try to put myself out of the tournament. By the sixth or seventh hole, my nausea went away and I just had some cramps, and that’s something you just deal with. So I started letting it go and I started hitting the ball a lot better.

Q. Was there any doubt on the range warming up that you would be able to go? You looked kind of weak and pale.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I asked Julius to give me at least the holes where all of the bathrooms were, so if I had to go. (Laughter). Because at the time, to be honest with you guys, I didn’t know what was going to go out, the top or the bottom, so I had to know where the bathrooms were so I could somehow plan it out. (Laughing). Jules helped out a lot.

JULIUS MASON: This will be our first R Rated news conference.

TIGER WOODS: But I got through it all right, so I was all right. Once I threw up on the back of the first green, I felt a lot better.

ON U.S. OPEN CHAMP MICHAEL CAMPBELL’S TIES TO HAWAII:

Q. A little on the lighter side, I know you had the welcome dance yesterday and with your Polynesian background, do you feel at home here and welcome and can you feel the mana of Kauai?

MICHAEL CAMPBELL: It’s incredible. The support I’ve had today has just been unbelievable. I think as you said before, it’s the Polynesian connection. 400 years ago my ancestors came down in a little canoe, or waca, from around these areas, around Fiji and landed in New Zealand in the 12th or 13th century, back in 1325, I think it was. Apparently that Maori people landed in New Zealand, so there is a connection here. When I see the Hawaiians, I can see there’s a very similar look in the way we look and that sort of stuff. It’s like home away from home, really, home away from home. It’s nice to have this sort of feeling, or mana, from the people here.

LASTLY, HERE’S A BLOGGER’S GRAND SLAM PREDICTION FOR YOU:
Look for this year-ender to leave Hawaii and, at some point, end up at the PGA of America’s new property near Las Vegas.