Woods Returns With Mixed Bag in Hero World Challenge

Tiger Woods wipes his face as he prepares to putt on the 10th hole during the first round at the Hero World Challenge golf tournament, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Nassau, Bahamas.

Olympic champion Justin Rose, back in action after a seven-week break, was last after shooting two over.

J.B. Holmes now leads the way on eight under and Woods believes there will be plenty more low scores to come.

“Let a good round slip away at the end”, Woods said. Another green in regulation set up Woods for a birdie putt he converted to get to two-under par. That seems about four phases short of reality, but it’s safe to say nobody expects anything remotely like his unparalleled “Phase I”. “I made some really silly mistakes”.

Bogey – After his tee shot ended up in the dunes, Woods struggled to reach the green and closed out the back nine with a bogey to drop to three-under par. Woods’s iron play on this, his first time with a competition card in his hand for 466 days, was controlled.

“It could’ve been something really good today”, Woods lamented after finishing the course. “The guy looked like he had complete control of his golf ball and he was playing really well”. “He was able to go at the shots he needed to get some extra horsepower on, so that’s good to see”. He hit some terrific chips, but also had a couple loose ones – a chunk on No. 9 reminiscent of his chip-yips from past year being one of them. Because there is very little that compares with Tiger Woods in competitive mode. Tried to hit one really hard and made a mistake there, put it in another bush on my layup.

Bogeys on Nos. 9 and 11 and double bogeys on Nos.

Another par-5, another excellent third shot to set-up a straight-forward birdie chance, which he took. He doubled 16 from the middle of the fairway when he hit his approach into another bush and had to hit the ball backward.

The general consensus after the most anticipated round in recent memory, though, was that Woods hit his iron shots extremely well for well for most of the day though missed a lot of drives left.

His pitch cannoned into the base of the flagstick and finished a good 12-15 feet from the cup from where he could only two putt for his six.

Woods’ chief concern appears to be his new TaylorMade driver, as he found just six of 13 fairways and had several misses left of the intended target. I may need to confess to a modest fist pump after he stuffed his tee shot to a couple feet on the 201-yard par-3 8th. If you are driving it well, you can tear this course apart. “I felt the feel of the round by the second hole, the tee shot”.

Though he hit the ball into the bushes and pulled his tee shot into the water, Woods looked upbeat as he assembled later for a chat with the global media. “To not play for 15 months and get that on the second hole was nice”. “It felt good to have that adrenaline surging through the system again – it’s been a long time”. “It’s been a long time”. I want him to play well not only for the game of golf, I want him to play well for him. “I hope he has the time to fall into a rhythm and just get enough tournaments where he can build up that”.