Thursday was Tiger Woods’s first time back on the course since April, and it was clear that he had been out of shape.
The 15-time major winner had a rough first 18 holes at the 2023 Hero World Challenge. He had a score of 3 over 75 at Albany in the Bahamas. Woods is in 18th place out of 20 players at the unofficial event that supports his TGR Foundation. He has won the Hero five times and come in second five times.
Woods stumbled backwards after every step he took forward. After making birdies on holes 3, 5, and 11, bogeys were made on holes 4, 6, and 12. It got worse for Woods after he made a birdie on No. 14. He made two more mistakes on No. 15, and then he made more mistakes on Nos. 16 and 17. He was able to play again because he made a tap-in par on the 18th hole.
“I hit a lot of shots,” Woods said with a laugh afterwards. “I was out of practise, I didn’t have my feelings, and things were tough at the start.” “I kind of stuck it out there and didn’t finish my round the way I needed to, so it went off track at the end.”
The day of the event, Woods hit six out of ten fairways and made 30 putts on 10 of his 18 greens.
As of Thursday morning, both Tony Finau and Brian Harman had rounds of 5-under 67, putting them tied for first place.
Jordan Spieth is in third place by himself with a score of 68. He has two eagles and five pars on his card.
“Some rusty putting, a couple of toe balls, and then a lot of really, really good stuff,” the winner of the 2014 Hero World Challenge said. “So all in all, I think I would have signed for 4 under today when I was warming up. I just didn’t figure it out this way.”
Winner Viktor Hovland shot a 73, which is one over, and is currently in 16th place by himself.
