The best of Tiger Woods was on display early on during his first competitive round in nearly 16 months but then the wheels started to come off his game. Woods was four-under through eight holes of the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, even having a share of the lead, but two double bogeys in his last three holes sent him plummeting down the leaderboard.
At the conclusion of the first day’s play he was 17th of 18 players in the invitational field (only ahead of Justin Rose) and nine shots off the lead held by J.B. Holmes.
The 79-time PGA TOUR winner refused to blame lack of conditioning for his slide to a one-over 73. “I wouldn't say that. I just made some mistakes. I tried to hug that left side on nine, tried to get it down that corner and it just stayed up in the bush there, made a mistake. Tugged it up the left side on 11. Tried to hit one really hard and made a mistake there, put it in another bush on my layup. I just made some really, if you look at it, some really silly mistakes, mistakes I don't normally make, but I haven't played in a while. Unfortunately, I made those mistakes, I can clean that up. We've got three more days. Wind's supposed to pump on the weekend and I'll be playing a little bit better.”
