Tiger Woods starts strong in comeback but doesn’t finish that way

We nearly needed that to cool down after those first eight holes. He couldn’t, could he?

Iron game strong for Tiger Woods.

And at noon local time, Woods removed the famous Tiger headcover from his driver and unleashed one of the most significant tee shots of his career. A pair of double bogeys over the final three holes ruined an otherwise impressive return, and Woods shot 40 on the back nine at Albany Golf Club and had to settle for a 1-over 73.

This was a textbook round for someone who hadn’t played in a while: Make a few nervy pars just to ease away the tension; ride the wave of adrenaline up the leaderboard; get overtaken by fatigue down the stretch.

“All in all, I felt pretty good”. “Basically I’m setting up phase two of my life”, Woods said. “If you’re driving great you can tear this place apart”.

He said on Sky Sports: “If you think about it I hit the ball in three bushes and a water ball today, so it could have been something really good. I look forward to this season and hopefully a win or two”.

“By the time I hit my second tee shot, I found the flow of the round”.

“That was nice because it was a number that we thought that it was questionable whether or not I could get it to the front edge and that was the play”, he said. To have that nervous energy and channel it, into aggression, into focus, into concentration, that’s good stuff. But Woods said he’d clean up those “silly mistakes” he made in the first round, and his playing partner, Patrick Reed, agreed.

But never once during his round did he look pained – either physically, or, as was increasingly common before his hiatus, mentally.

Woods was tied with Holmes, Louis Oosthuizen and Matt Kuchar after making his third successive birdie.

Chamblee was also not impressed with Woods’ chipping and pitching technique.

At the 14th there was a classic Woods moment.

The only blemish at the midway mark came on the par-five ninth where Woods sent his tee shot deep into the scrub. He duly rolled it in before pumping the air; such moments were once standard for Woods. He had taken bogey sixes at the 9th and 11th. Woods will rue two bogeys on par 5s (the ninth and 11th) and a double-bogey at the 16th after a ideal drive.

Par – After struggling on the ninth, Woods got back to form on the back nine, regaining his cool with a simple, no-nonsense par on the tenth. Another green in regulation set up Woods for a birdie putt he converted to get to two-under par. While Tiger was right there with J.B. Holmes at the start of the Hero World Challenge 2016 event, he’s now near the bottom of the field.

JB Holmes, who shot an eight-under 64, now controls the Hero World Challenge 2016. The Open champion, Henrik Stenson, signed for a 67, with Jordan Spieth’s 68 notable for two chip-ins.

Woods shot a 1-over-par 73 during the first round of the Hero World Challenge, an small-field, invitation-only event in The Bahamas that benefits his foundation.