Woods ready for return to Riviera
Site of golfer’s fifirst PGA Tour event will now host his revival.
LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods is roaring into the new year, preparing to play four times in fifive weeks in his return to the PGA Tour after a 15-month absence. One of his stops includes a return to his hometown tournament in Los Angeles, where he made his fifirst start on the pro tour as a skinny 16-year-old.
Woods has stayed away from Riviera, which hosts the newly renamed Genesis Open next month, since 2006. He loves the venerable course nestled in a posh residential neighborhood overlooking the Pacifific Ocean, but has never won there. And that led him to avoid it. “I’ve just never played it well,” he said Monday as occasional rain pelted the already soggy course. “That’s the only reason.”
Woods debuted at Riviera in 1992 on a sponsor’s exemption. The teenager from nearby Orange County shot 72-75 to miss the cut.
“I felt fifine on that fifirst tee but as I took the club back, I never felt nerves like that,” he recalled. “I was skinny. I looked like a 1-iron. I didn’t weigh a lot. I had a lot of speed.”
Woods birdied his fifirst hole and