NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Tiger Woods’s comeback season has gone better than he could have dared hope 17 months ago, when he had his fourth operation to repair a debilitated back. There have been brilliant late charges up the leader board, five top-six finishes and a riveting last day of the P.G.A. Championship, when Woods shot his lowest final round ever in a major, sending the galleries into a frenzy as he finished second behind Brooks Koepka.
But victory has eluded him for several reasons: accuracy off the tee, sluggish first rounds and, perhaps most vexing, wayward putting.
So before this week’s BMW Championship, Woods found an old friend in the back of his car, the Scotty Cameron putter that he had used for 13 of his 14 major championships.
With the 19-year-old putter in his hands, he turned into the Woods of old on Thursday in the sweltering first round of the BMW, the third of four FedEx Cup playoff events. He made several long putts and covered his first nine holes at Aronimink Golf Club in 29 strokes, his lowest nine-hole total in a PGA Tour event in 11 years, and finished tied with Rory McIlroy for the lead with an eight-under-par 62.
It was Woods’s lowest round relative to par this year, and the first time he has held a share of the lead after a round since the second day of the 2015 Wyndham Championship.
“I’m a little tired,” Woods, 42, said. “It will be nice to hop in a little ice bath or some kind of cooling thing.”
In the other 45 PGA Tour events this year, players holding at least a share of the first-round lead have gone on to win nine times.
“It’s a great start,” Woods’s caddie, Joe LaCava said, “but there’s a long way to go.”
Before Thursday, Woods had shot under par just once in his last 11 opening rounds. He was two over after his first four holes at the Dell Technologies Championship last week and three over after two holes at the P.G.A. Championship last month. In Woods’s first 16 starts, his first-round scoring average of 71.13 was one to three strokes higher than that of his other rounds.
So when he rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt at his first hole, the 10th, LaCava said it was a big boost. “That certainly helped,” he said.
McIlroy, who held off a final-day charge by Woods to win the Arnold Palmer Championship this year, teed off seven groups behind him on Thursday and was well aware that Woods was seven under after 10 holes. “He had it going as well, obviously,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy, 29, took up where he had left off in the Wednesday pro-am, where he made seven consecutive birdies on his second nine.
Woods credited his fast start to skipping the pro-am. Instead of enduring a long round with amateur partners in scorching heat, Woods put in time at the gym, received some physical therapy and spent hours off his feet watching United States Open tennis coverage.
“I needed a day off to recover and make sure I was fresh for today,” Woods said, adding, “Disappointed I didn’t play in the pro-am but, then again, it was the best thing for me.”
Woods sweated through four shirts in the muggy conditions, but his swing was crisp. He hit his first 13 greens in regulation, and after he finally missed one, he nearly chipped in on his next shot. He was driving the ball so well that after some of his swings, he did not try to see where it landed. He simply dropped his driver near his bag as if it were a microphone.
“My speed, my rotation, so many different things that have evolved throughout the year and have gotten better,” Woods said.
Aronimink is a new playoff site, but it is familiar to Woods, who held his tournament here in 2010 and 2011. He played the event in 2010 and finished tied for fourth.
Thursday’s first round of the BMW coincided with the first game of the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense of their Super Bowl championship, and so the crowds following Woods were smaller than they are expected to be the rest of the tournament. As Woods made the turn, Golf Channel began tracking in earnest his progress toward a possible sub-60 score, and his gallery added two Eagles fans.
Michael Smyth, who had on a replica of the jersey for Eagles defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, and his co-worker Jason Oprishko, who was wearing a replica jersey of quarterback Carson Wentz, followed Woods in before heading to Lincoln Financial Field for the opener against the Atlanta Falcons.
“Best Thursday ever,” Oprishko said.
Source : NYtimes
