Tiger Woods made an impressive two under par opening round of 68 in the first round of the World Golf Championship (WGC) Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio.
It was the first appearance of the former world no. 1 since his recent leg injury disabled him to play the game and participate in some major tournaments for 3 months.
Woods parred the first nine holes and dropped only one stroke.
Woods, has already won seven times at the Firestone Country Club, in his previous outings.
Australian Adam Scott carded a superb 62, for a one-shot lead over Jason Day while Wood’s partner Darren Clarke struggled to a 77, but Lee Westwood shot 67 and world number one Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy 68’s.
Woods won 16 of the first 38 World Golf Championship events. “The hardest part was controlling the distances, I was hitting it so flush,” Woods said. “I’ve got so much more speed and compression through impact. The ball’s taking off and I was hitting numbers I’ve never hit before. It was fun,” he added.
First round leaderboard of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational:
-8: A Scott (Aus)
-7: J Day (Aus)
-5: N Watney (US)
-4: R Sabbatini (SA), DA Points (US), S Cink (US), T Bjorn (Den), R Moore (US), Kyung-tae Kim (S Kor), P Larrazabal (Sp), R Moore (US),
Selected others -3: L Westwood (Eng), P Mickelson (US), R Ishikawa (Jpn)
-2: L Donald (Eng), R McIlroy (NI), S Garcia (Sp), T Woods (US)
+1: G McDowell (NI), E Els (SA)
