Tiger Woods' return to action after back surgery did not go to plan as the world No.5 scored a three-over-par 74 in the opening round of the Quicken Loans National at Bethesda.
The 14-time major winner, playing his first event since undergoing a microdiscectomy in late March, struggled from the off and only a late flourish pulled things back, although he was still seven shots off the early lead set by Ricky Barnes.
Beginning on the back nine, Woods found the back bunker at the par-three tee and missed a 15-foot putt for bogey. His first drive of the day, which pre-tournament he admitted had been the biggest issue in his recovery, found the middle of the fairway but it was his putting which let him down as a 40-foot birdie attempt travelled only half that distance and he bogeyed again.
Woods' first birdie came at the 467-yard 14th, where he nailed a three-wood to within 10 feet, but he gave that shot back at the next with a poor drive into the left rough.
A five-foot birdie putt at the next lipped out and he three-putted the 17th for another bogey and dropped another at the 18th as he turned four over.
After back-to-back bogeys at the second and third to leave him six over, Woods hit his 198-yard approach to four feet for birdie at the fourth and holed putts from similar distances at seven and eight to get back to three over.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article