TIGER GETS HIS SECOND WYND
Woods shoots lowest score since 2013
Tiger Woods wasted no time getting comfortable at the Wyndham Championship.
Woods had his best round in more than two years Thursday, shooting a six-under 64 in his first competitive round at Sedgefield Country Club.
It was his lowest score on the PGA Tour since his 61 in the second round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in 2013.
Two-time heart transplant recipient Erik Compton, William McGirt and Tom Hoge shared the first-round lead at 62.
Morgan Hoffman, Jim Herman and Derek Ernst followed at 63, and Martin Kaymer, Davis Love III and Carl Pettersson joined Woods at 64.
Woods took advantage of a lowscoring day at what he called a “tricky” Donald Ross-designed course that gave up bunches of birdies after morning showers softened up the fairways and greens.
“When it’s like this,” Woods said, “you’ve got to throw darts and go low.”
He set the tone by holing a 54foot chip shot on his first hole, the par-4 10th, for the first of his seven birdies.
Woods arrived insisting he was playing better than his recent results might indicate.
He had missed the cut in three straight majors and had not finished better than a tie for 17th at The Masters. He’s at No. 187 on the FedEx Cup points list and probably needs a win to earn a playoff spot.
Yet he said after last week’s early exit from the PGA Championship that those results belied the improvement he was making in his game.
“I know it’s crazy to say, but I wasn’t playing that poorly at PGA,” Woods said.
“Any borderline shot (at Whistling Straits) I never got away with it, and that’s the way it goes. I felt like I was hitting the ball good enough and just kept progressing, and today was just a continuation of it.” Especially on that first hole. His shot from the left side of the green landed inside of 10 feet from the cup and rolled in.
“I went for the shot, and instead of playing something more conservative, the greens were hard and fast, and I wanted to play something long,” Woods said. “I got aggressive with it, and I went for it, and I pulled it off ... I could see it going in.”
Adam Hadwin, of Abbotsford, B.C., was the top Canadian at twounder and tied for 66th. Calgary’s Ted Brown was tied for 87th at oneunder while Roger Sloan of Calgary and Nick Taylor, of Abbotsford, B.C., were both tied for 116th at one-over.