Leg OK as long as he doesn’t play golf

TULSA, OKLA. » Tiger Woods has a good sense of humor, though it is rare for him to use it in a public setting. But at 46, he is evolving. What was once unthinkable for him — playfully mocking his poor play on the golf course — is one of his new, winsome tools.

On Thursday, six weeks after his stirring comeback at the Masters Tournament, Woods returned to competitive golf in the first round of the PGA Championship. After a blazing start with two early birdies, Woods was limping a little on his right leg, which was surgically reconstructed after multiple serious fractures sustained in his horrific car crash early last year. A couple of holes later, Woods was limping a lot, even sometimes using a golf club like a cane to ascend or descend hills.

Not surprisingly, his score soon reflected his infirmity as he shot a 4-over-par 74 with seven bogeys in his final 13 holes. After he had hobbled to a rostrum for a news conference, he was asked about his rebuilt leg.

“Yeah, not feeling as good as I would like it to be,” he said with a smile. Woods added that he could not put weight on his right leg in his backswing — known as loading — and he also struggled to push off his leg on the downswing, too.

“Loading hurts, pressing off it hurts, and walking hurts and twisting hurts,” he said.

Woods then deadpanned: “It’s just golf. If I don’t play that, if I don’t do that, then I’m all right.”

“We’ll start the recovery process and get after it tomorrow,” he added, predicting that his evening would include ice baths and myriad efforts to reduce inflammation in his right leg.

And so, Woods’ ongoing return to elite golf is following the bumpy, irregular progression that even he forecast before the Masters when he said he expected a series of good days and bad days.

“It’s a process,” Woods said. Part of that process, as Woods acknowledged Tuesday, was that his right leg and his ailing back, which has been operated on five times, no longer allowed him to practice for long periods of time, which had been routine for him since he was a kindergartner. While watching Woods play Thursday, it was easy to wonder if some of his troubles on the golf course were related to a lack of preparation off it.