Cantlay shares lead at Riviera

LOS ANGELES — The guy who grew up 40 miles away, first played Riviera as a teenager and was out of golf with a bad back returned Thursday and shared the lead at the Genesis Open.

That would be Patrick Cantlay, not Tiger Woods.

The biggest difference was hardly anyone saw it.

Cantlay, the world’s

No. 1 amateur when he was at UCLA, birdied all the par 5s and kept it smart the rest of the way around a firm Riviera course for a 5-under-par 66 to share the lead with Tony Finau.

Woods, who grew up in Cypress and made his PGA Tour debut at Riviera when he was 16, played this event for the first time in 12 years. He lost a tee shot in a eucalyptus tree and made double bogey as part of a rugged start and then settled in with a series of key putts for a 72.

An unusually large crowd for Thursday at Riviera was out early to watch Woods, with fans standing six-deep around some greens. There still were not enough people to help locate his tee shot on the par-5 11th hole, presumably swallowed by a tree.

At Adelaide, Australia,

Jin Young Ko made six birdies on the back nine in her tour debut to take a two-stroke lead in the opening round of the Women’s Australian Open. Ko carded a 7-under 65 to move past second-place Jiyai Shin, a fellow South Korean.

At Muscat, Oman, cancer survivor Matthew Southgate made his second hole-inone in a month and joined English compatriot Paul Waring atop the Oman Open leaderboard at 7-under 65.

LPGA: European PGA: