Tiger Woods shoots a two-under 69 in first competitive tournament since Open Championship in July; 47-year-old birdies last three holes at Genesis Invitational and is five shots behind leaders after day one - watch round two live on Sky Sports Golf from 2.30pm on Friday
Friday 17 February 2023 10:10, UK
Tiger Woods birdied his last three holes as he carded a two-under 69 at the Genesis Invitational in his return to competitive action after seven months out.
Woods, 47, is playing in a professional tournament for the first time since last July's Open Championship at St Andrews.
The 15-time major champion, who also birdied his first and eighth holes, is tied for 27th in California, five shots off the lead held jointly by fellow Americans Max Homa and Kevin Mitchell, while world No 3 Jon Rahm is a shot back in third.
Woods' playing partner Rory McIlroy is in a share of seventh after shooting a four-under 67 with the third member of that playing group, Justin Thomas, tied for 14th on three-under.
Woods, who mixed five birdies with three bogeys, said afterwards: "I was able to fight back and get it going. It was a nice finish."
Victory for McIlroy at Riviera would see him replace Scottie Scheffler as world No 1 but outright third place would be enough for McIlroy unless Scheffler, who ended his opening round one-under, finishes in the top 25 or Rahm wins the tournament or comes outright second.
The tournament host, Woods badly injured his right leg and foot in a single-car accident in Los Angeles two days after the 2021 edition of the competition. He has played sparingly since, competing only in majors and exhibition events, and is this week making his first official PGA Tour start outside the majors since he won the Zozo Championship in October 2019.
He told reporters earlier in the week that whenever he plays, he's intending to win, and reaffirmed that self-belief after his round.
"That's the only reason why I tee it up," Woods said. "There will come a point in time when I can't do this anymore, but right now I feel like I still can, given the right golf course."
He said while he could "simulate" nerves when practicing at home, it couldn't match being at a PGA Tour event and hearing his name constantly shouted.
"There's nothing like come game time, just the feeling of the butterflies and trying to calm all that stuff down," he said. "The adrenaline, the ball goes further. Even though it's cold out here, it was going even further than we expected. I had to dial all that back in."
As expected, Woods said his right ankle was sore after 18 holes. How his stamina and pain tolerance hold up as the week wears on again will be a major factor in his game.
"Last year you saw it, I didn't finish off the rounds right," Woods said.
"Those are things that I hadn't done and I hadn't played a whole lot, so I was chastising myself pretty hard coming off of 12 saying, hey, we've got to really get this thing going. Let's just somehow figure it out and figure out how to piece together something around even par, 1 under par and just happened to get three (birdies) in a row coming in."
Woods birdied the par-5 first hole before a wayward tee shot at the par-3 fourth led to his first bogey. He stuck his approach at the par-4 eighth 3 feet from the pin to set up a birdie.
Poor drives at the par-4 10th and 12th holes led to bogeys, leaving him at 1 over. But his irons came through on the finishing stretch at Riviera, starting with a tee shot at the par-3 16th that left him 5 feet for birdie.
He made his longest putt of the day at the par-5 17th, a birdie try from 23 feet that was uphill and bent dramatically right to left.
Then came the 18th, which features an uphill finish and an iconic view of the course's sienna-roofed clubhouse. Woods placed his drive on the right side of the fairway to set him up with a 150-yard approach shot, thrilling the scores of fans around the green as his ball bounced just past the hole.
Woods played with two of his closest friends on tour in McIlroy and Thomas.
"JT hoops one in there and Rory's been beating us all day," Woods said. "He's nervous as can be because he didn't want to be the one to miss on 18. I didn't want to be the idiot host to miss it right in front of everybody after I just went birdie-birdie.
"It was a great round. The ebb and flow of needling each other, encouraging each other and telling stories."
The threesome is scheduled to tee off in the early wave of golfers Friday morning (6:24pm GMT) for the second round, with Woods in position to make the cut as of Thursday evening.
Watch round two of the Genesis Invitational live on Sky Sports Golf from 2.30pm on Friday.
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