Tiger Woods finally gets something out of his game, a 64
Tiger Woods kept saying his game was getting better, even though his results didn't show it.
On his first day at the Wyndham Championship, his score finally did. Woods had his best round in more than two years Thursday, shooting a 6-under 64.
Two-time heart transplant recipient Erik Compton, William McGirt and Tom Hoge shared the first-round lead at 62.
Morgan Hoffman, Jim Herman and Derek Ernst followed at 63, and Martin Kaymer, Davis Love III and Carl Pettersson joined Woods at 64.
It was Woods' lowest score on the PGA Tour since a 61 in the second round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in 2013.
He and the others took advantage of a low-scoring day at what he called a "tricky" Donald Ross-designed course at Sedgefield Country Club that gave up bunches of birdies after morning showers softened the fairways and greens.
"When it's like this," Woods said, "you've got to throw darts and go low."
His low score couldn't have come at a better time for the biggest name in the sport.
He set the tone by holing a 54-foot chip shot on his first hole, the par-4 10th, for the first of his seven birdies. "Finally," he said, "I got something out of my round."
Woods arrived insisting he was playing better than his recent results might indicate. He had missed the cut in three straight majors and had not finished better than a tie for 17th at the Masters. He's at No. 187 on the FedEx Cup points list and probably needs a win to move into the top 125 and earn a playoff spot.
Yet he said after failing to make the cut at the PGA Championship that those results belied the improvement he was making in his game.
"I know it's crazy to say, but I wasn't playing that poorly at PGA," Woods said. "Any borderline shot [at Whistling Straits] I never got away with it, and that's the way it goes. I felt like I was hitting the ball good enough and just kept progressing, and today was just a continuation of it."
Especially on that first hole. His shot from the left side of the green landed about 8 feet from the cup and rolled in.
"I went for the shot, and instead of playing something more conservative," Woods said. "I got aggressive with it, and I went for it, and I pulled it off . . . I could see it going in."
