Woods ready for return to routine at site of past dominance

SAN DIEGO — Tiger Woods is more confident than ever that his return to the PGA Tour will be different this time.

It’s not so much how he plays, but rather for how long.

“I have no more pain in my back,” Woods said Wednesday.

That wasn’t the case a year ago. Woods was coming off the longest break of his career following two back surgeries when he played the Hero World Challenge and showed promise by making 24 birdies against an 18-man field with no cut. But then he missed the 36-hole cut at Torrey Pines and lasted one round in Dubai before withdrawing with back spasms.

Fusion surgery on his lower back followed two months later, and now Woods is on the same track as he was last year — with one exception.

“I was trying to manage the disk and the vertebrae,” Woods said after his pro-am round in the Farmers Insurance Open. “But it’s all finished now. It’s fused, and the quality of life is infinitely better than it was last year at this point.”

He looked just as strong, just as healthy, as he did in the Bahamas last month. Woods began and ended the pro-am with an approach to a few feet for easy birdies.

The real test begins Thursday at a tournament he has won seven times.

“I just want to start playing on the tour, and getting into a rhythm of playing a schedule again,” Woods said. “I haven’t done that in such a long time, so I don’t know what to expect. Just go out there and just play. I’m going to grind.”

Woods begins on the South Course on Thursday. The South is the stronger of the two courses, having hosted the U.S. Open, and it’s where Woods has taken control the seven times he won the PGA Tour event here.

He was so predictably good that in late January 2008 — the year the U.S. Open was coming to Torrey Pines — caddie John Wood lingered behind the 18th green on the South course and watched as Woods finished off an opening-round 67.

“He just won two tournaments with one round,” the caddie said, and he was right. Woods won the Buick Invitational by eight shots and the U.S. Open for his 14th major.

Now, no one is sure what to expect.

Woods said he has a schedule in mind for the next few months, though he’s not ready to reveal that publicly.

At No. 647 in the world, he is not eligible for a pair of World Golf Championships in March. The likely choices would be the Honda Classic and the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where he has won eight times.

“I’m just trying to build toward April,” he said. “I’m looking forward to playing a full schedule and getting ready for the Masters, and I haven’t done that in a very long time. That’s usually been my schedule and my outlook ... to try to get ready for Augusta. And there’s no reason to change that.”