Woods briefly atop leaderboard in Bahamas

NASSAU, Bahamas — One of the biggest cheers at the Hero World Challenge came from seeing the name Tiger Woods moved to the top of the leaderboard. It just wasn’t there for long. In another impressive showing in his latest comeback from back surgeries, Woods built on a solid start with a 31 on the front nine at Albany Golf Club that briefly gave him the lead Friday. He stalled on the back nine with a pair of bogeys and not enough birdie chances, and he settled for a 4-under 68.

“Successful,” Woods said, when asked to describe his round in one word.

When the second round ended, Woods was five shots behind Charley Hoffman, who had a 63 that might have sent fans into a frenzy if they had been watching.

Hoffman made 12 birdies, closing with five in a row . He was at 12-under 132 and had a threeshot lead over Jordan Spieth (67) and Tommy Fleetwood (69). Hoffman made only one par over his final 12 holes to go along with eight birdies and three bogeys.

But this week, a holiday exhibition with an 18-man field and no cut, is all about Woods. That much was obvious after the round.

Hoffman spoke to no more than five reporters about his round, while a dozen others were about 30 feet away surrounding Joe LaCava, Woods’ caddie, looking for any additional morsel about his round.

Woods delivered plenty on his own. He opened with three birdies in four holes. He made three good pars, one of them having to chip up the slope from a thin lie on No. 8, and then really raised hopes with his eagle on the par-5 ninth, set up by a 3-wood into the wind from 265 yards.

“Hit up in the air and took something off of it and cut it back into the wind,” he said.

He made the 20-foot putt to reach 8-under. Behind him, Hoffman made bogey on the par-3 eighth. Woods was alone in the lead, and the workers at the white scoreboard to the left of the green quickly moved his name to the top as about 100 people — that constitutes a large gallery this week — began cheering. There was a smattering of “He’s back!” and even a few mentions about the Masters.

Woods missed it. He was on his way to the 10th tee. By the time he saw a leaderboard, it was getting crowded at the top with Hoffman making his run, Spieth chipping in for birdie and setting up another with a tough chip, and Fleetwood overcoming a double bogey-bogey start to his back nine with three straight birdies.

“I saw somewhere on the back nine, I think there was like five guys at 8 under or something like that, something weird like that,” Woods said.

A case could be made that his name among them was weird.

His past is enough to merit legend status in this field. Woods has 79 victories on the PGA Tour, compared with 81 for the rest of the field. But he hasn’t won in more than four years, and this is only his 20th start since the first of four back surgeries in the spring of 2014. He had played only seven rounds dating to August 2015, and this was his first competition in 10 months. He had fusion surgery on his lower back in April.