Monday 29 January 2018 09:03, UK
Tiger Woods was forced to dig deep and scramble hard for the third day running as he closed out his latest comeback with a battling level-par 72 at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Woods again hit only three of 14 fairways on the South Course at Torrey Pines, but his short-game remained in good order as he mixed four birdies with as many bogeys to close on three-under par, good enough for an encouraging top-30 finish.
Despite his woeful driving accuracy, hitting only nine fairways over the final three rounds, Woods was flying high in the scrambling and putting stats as he completed 72 holes in a full-field PGA Tour event for the first time since August 2015.
Woods was proud of his fighting spirit throughout the week, and declared himself "very pleased" with his overall performance as he looks to put together a positive build-up towards the Masters in April.
"Today I played a lot better," said Woods, whose driving statistics were his lowest for accuracy since the 2005 Nissan Open at Riviera, where he will make his next appearance in mid-February.
"It was tough conditions out there, and it was tough scoring. I wanted to shoot something around 65 and get to 10 under, I thought that would be a play-off number. It would have been nice to post a score and wait around for a couple of hours to see what happened, but I'll take a 72.
"I'm very pleased. After not playing for a couple of years to come out here on the Tour and really play a solid four days, I fought hard for these scores and I'm excited to get this one under my belt."
Woods underwent spinal fusion surgery last year, his fourth major operation on his back, and he was delighted with how his body held up over the tournament.
"Overall I thought I did pretty well this week," he added. "Some of the shots I had to hit out of the rough, out of the trees, a few times I had to jack up the speed and had no issues at all.
"The big concern was playing out of the rough. I hadn't played out of rye grass since last year, but I hit some really good ones out of there. Unfortunately I put myself in there a lot!
"These are some of the narrowest fairways on tour and when I don't have my best stuff, and when it's so windy, it compounded it. It made it very difficult for me."
Woods has not yet committed to any another tournaments after the Genesis Open, but said: "I haven't built out my schedule. We want to see how I was swinging after one tournament and reassess where I'm at."
