Tiger Woods plays strong golf ... in a pro-am, yes, but still

NASSAU, Bahamas — As one of his playing partners chopped a low liner across the 18th fairway, another shanked a shot wide left into greenside water, and a third just gave up entirely and dropped his ball where he felt like he had a better lie, Tiger Woods remained serene and drained a 15-foot-long putt for par. Well, after taking a practice putt to get the roll of the green.

Welcome to Tiger’s Return, Day -1: The pro-am. Woods, playing with four amateurs in advance of this week’s Hero World Challenge, carded a (very) unofficial 70 with two eagles, two birdies and a rather loose approach to golf etiquette. Don’t read much — or, indeed, anything — into this performance, but Woods looked comfortable and at ease.

At 8:30 a.m. local time, a course announcer uttered words not heard for well over a year: “Now on the tee, please welcome … Tiger Woods.” A smattering of applause, and then Woods stepped up and laid into his first shot with his always-suspect driver. The result? A 300-plus-yard drive piped right down the fairway.

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Pro-ams feature a professional golfer with several amateurs who can range from merely competent to duck-and-cover, and it’s always a dice roll to see if the pro will actually indulge the amateurs in some pithy between-shots conversation. You could forgive Woods for being focused on Thursday, his most important round in many years, but Kevin Adams, an executive with CGB Enterprises and one of Woods’ Wednesday playing partners, said Woods couldn’t have been more pleasant.

“He was amicable, he was conversational, he was joking,” Adams said. “He was just another guy out there with us.” Well, Adams later added, except for the half-dozen cameras following his every move.

Woods carded eagles on the third and ninth holes of the tight, windswept Albany course, but two bogeys brought him back up to 2-under 70. Wind kicked up hard on the back nine, but Woods’ approaches were crisp and his putts decisive, if not necessarily astonishing. He finished the round all smiles, posing with his playing partners and their companions for a dozen or so pictures that will surely plaster office walls, Facebook pages and Christmas cards in the coming weeks.

Woods himself was as pleased as one could realistically be with what was, essentially, a glorified practice round. “I felt good with pretty much everything,” he said. “I was able to hit the shots I needed to hit.” One lesson learned though: “I probably did a dumb move in not playing in sunglasses … Live and learn. [Thursday] I’ll have them on.”

[Related: How the 2016 Ryder Cup lit a fire under Tiger Woods]

While Woods and caddie Joe LaCava walked the entire course to get their golf legs strengthened, there was none of the tension or pressure attached to even a routine tournament round. For most of the back nine, the players and caddies outnumbered the gallery. But at least Woods was by far the best player of his fivesome. He’s got that headed into Thursday.

The next phase of Woods’ career begins Thursday at noon Eastern. “I’ll be focused,” Woods said after the round. “I’ll be ready.”
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.