Tiger Woods returned to competition in style, shooting his best score in more than a year to take the lead with a spectacular six-under-par 64 in the opening round at the Zozo Championship on Thursday.
Two months after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, the 15 -time major champion made an “ugly start”, hitting his opening tee shot with a five wood into a pond at Narashino Country Club.
Three straight bogeys augured for a long day but for the next 15 holes he could do nothing wrong, running up nine birdies in his first career appearance in the Tokyo area.
Followed by a huge sellout gallery of 17,000, nearly all of whom had eyes for one player only, Woods did not let them down with a performance that conjured up images of the halcyon days when he strutted the fairways with an aura of invincibility.
“It was a crazy day,” he said after earning a share of the lead with fellow American Gary Woodland, one shot in front of home favourite Hideki Matsuyama.
“I hit bad shot after bad shot after bad shot … and next thing you know, things aren’t looking very good,” Woods said.
“I certainly was not expecting to shoot six under par after that start. That was a very ugly start. It flipped and I got hot and made a bunch of putts.”
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He was also aided by a lucky bounce at his final hole, the par-four ninth, where he slammed his driver into the ground in frustration after carving his tee shot way right. (Reuters/NAN)