Tiger Shoots An Opening Round 73 At The Hero World Challenge

What a weird round of golf. It’s amazing how quickly expectations can change. If you had asked me this morning what I would consider a “success” for Tiger Woods in his first round back in 16 months I wouldn’t said 18 holes of injury-free golf. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t even really care what his score was gonna be (as long as it was in the 70s). Shoot anything under 80, make some good shots, bury some putts, don’t reach for the back at any point and control his chipping. Well that’s exactly what Tiger did and I’m disappointed. He ended up shooting a 73 and it could’ve been SO MUCH BETTER. He was 4 under through 8 holes and lighting the world on fire. I’ve never shot heroin but those first 8 holes have to be what shooting heroin is like. That was a fucking rush. He looked unstoppable. He was putting great. He was chipping great. He was hitting his irons solid. The driver was litttttttttle wavy but not terrible. I was penciling him in as the favorite of every 2017 major. He looked that good.

Then all that magic went away for the final 10 holes. His driver was absolutely WONKY the rest of his round. Especially on 18 when he unnecessarily pulled driver and put it in the drink. He’ll need to learn from that. He drained some grinder putts to save par or bogey on a few holes that could’ve been full-on disasters. That was promising but he’s just not at the point where he can put a full round together with everything clicking. Again, that’s not a fair exception for a guy playing for the first time in 16 months but those first 8 holes were majestic.

All in all though, I’m happy with what happened today. Injuries are the biggest thing and he avoided those. If Tiger can stay healthy and get a bunch of rounds of PGA golf under his belt there’s no telling how good he can be. Health health health should be our main concern these opening rounds. God damn it those first 8 holes were such a cock tease though. He looked so good that it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. Oh well. We get to watch Tiger play three more rounds this week. Should be fun.