Tiger Woods put himself among the leaders at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a 3-under par 69 in the opening round of his first USPGA tournament since an injury scare.
The 14-time major winner, chasing the all-time record of 18 major wins by Jack Nicklaus, pulled out of the World Golf Championships event at Doral two weeks ago in the final round with a tightness in his left Achilles tendon.
After a week of treatment with what was diagnosed as a strain, Woods played the two-day Tavistock Cup exhibition, a practice round on Wednesday and his first tournament round on Thursday at Bay Hill with no injury problems.
That's a good sign for Woods in his final tune-up event before the Masters, the year's first major championship, tees off in two weeks.
"I'm feeling good," Woods said.
"Everything is good. No swelling. If I can just keep it that way, everything will be great."
South Korean Charlie Wi and American Jason Dufner were the clubhouse leaders on 66, two strokes ahead of American Nick Watney with Woods among a host of players three adrift at the $6 million event.
Woods, who began off the 10th tee, birdied the par-5 12th and had back-to-back birdies at the par-4 15th and par-5 16th before taking his lone bogey at the day at 16. He answered with a final birdie at the par-5 sixth.
"I didn't really do anything great. I was just solid all day," Woods said.
"I drove the ball well, hit my irons decent and putted all right.
"I took something off most of my drives. I didn't really feel great with my tee shots but I was getting the ball in play. Ball is flying forever. Normal drives go about 310 (yards). It was kind of nice."
Woods can feel the difference in his tee shots after spending much of last year nursing injuries.
"I'm in a position where I can hit it again. That's something that has been missing for a while," Woods said.
"I feel that I can go ahead and hit that shot if called for and it's a nice little safety shot to have."
AFP
Tags: golf, sport, united-states First posted March 23, 2012 10:33:31
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