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One the eve of the Farmers Insurance Open Tiger Woods was uncharacteristically non-combatant. Whereas during his prime he would declare \u2013 stony-phased at pre-tournament press conferences \u2013 that his only objective was to win, these days he is much more circumspect. <\/p>\n
After playing six days per week to prepare for his 2018 U.S. PGA Tour debut, unencumbered by the quotas that have limited his practice time over the past few years, he said, \u201cNow it\u2019s just, hey, want to go play 18, want to go play 36? Sure. That to me is fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fun? As the Tour explained in its report of his return to competition, \u201cAfter years of struggling with back pain, Woods has enjoyed the camaraderie of playing with his friends at his home club. Fellowship has never been Woods\u2019 first priority on the golf course, though. A thirst for competition has driven him to 79 PGA Tour titles and 14 majors. All the casual golf in the world can\u2019t replace the emotions that tournament golf elicits.\u201d <\/p>\n
As Tiger himself noted, \u201cI want to start feeling what it feels like to be out here and hit shots (and) grind out scores.\u201d He had that opportunity in the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open and, according to the Tour, \u201cHe played Thursday\u2019s first 13 holes exactly how a reasonable witness to last month\u2019s play in the Bahamas would expect. His clubhead speed was high, and his iron shots sailed higher. But for every impressive shot that harkened back to Woods\u2019 better days, there was a miscue that reminded us that Woods has played just one official PGA Tour event since 2015. <\/p>\n
\u201cTap-in birdies on numbers 6 and 10 were offset by three bogeys and several pars that were saved only by deft short-game work. He seemed headed in the wrong direction toward the middle of his back nine, dropping his driver in disgust at the par-4 12th hole and making a sloppy bogey at the next hole after dumping a short wedge shot into a greenside bunker on the par-5. \u2018I was probably a little bit rusty,\u2019 he said. The slide stopped there, though, as Woods fought to salvage an even-par 72 that kept his hopes of spending the weekend in San Diego alive. He hit his final five greens in regulation, including an impressive tee shot on the par-3 16th that was the defining highlight from his first round. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe admitted Wednesday that he is still searching for a swing that works best with his physical limitations following back-fusion surgery. \u2018I\u2019m still learning it,\u2019 he said. For all the gushing over the numbers he\u2019s producing on Trackman, great golf is a product of consistency over weeks, months and years. Woods exhibited the unsteady play characteristic of a man who\u2019s still trying to learn his swing and has played just 12 competitive rounds since 2015. He will start his second round on the North Course in a tie for 84th place.\u201d<\/p>\n
After completing his round, Tiger said, \u201cIt was fun to feel that competitive rush again and have a scorecard in my hand and try and post a number.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, it might be hard to guess this all the Tiger-mania coverage, but there are 155 other players competing at Torrey Pines, including defending champion, new world number two and winner last week Jon Rahm. The Spaniard opened with a four-under 68 on the South Course to be well-placed just three shots behind the leader Tony Finau (North Course). If he wins on Sunday he will rise to top spot in the world rankings. ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.holaincompany.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/images_Actualidad2016_Torrey-Pines-1-437.png\")
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One the eve of the Farmers Insurance Open Tiger Woods was uncharacteristically non-combatant. Whereas during his prime he would declare \u2013 stony-phased at pre-tournament press conferences \u2013 that his only objective was to win, these days he is much more circumspect. After playing six days per week to prepare for his 2018 U.S. PGA Tour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}