Tiger Woods returned to a major championship on Thursday and got off to a reasonable start. After all he has been through in recent years, that was a win.
Playing in a star-studded group with Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, Woods was at even-par through nine holes of the P.G.A. Championship. McIlroy was the early leader at 4-under.
Playing at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., where he won the 2007 P.G.A. Championship, Woods at first showed few obvious signs of the severe leg injuries he sustained in a car accident in February 2021. Toward the end of his first nine holes he did appear to start to limp a little more.
Woods returned to the majors at the Masters last month after missing more than 500 days of top-flight golf following the accident. His one-under opening-round raised the echoes of the past, but he struggled the rest of the way, making the cut but finishing 47th.
At that tournament he was seen limping and seemed to struggle to crouch fully to line up putts.
Woods started on the 10th hole on Wednesday and birdied it with a three-foot putt after a flawless chip.
He birdied the 14th as well with a 15-footer. But he found the rough and a bunker on 15 and could not get up and down, falling back to 1-under.
On the 18th, a difficult hole, he found a greenside bunker with a poor iron shot and missed a 20-foot putt to fall back to even.
Of course, as the Masters showed, tournaments aren’t won in the first round. As if to illustrate this, John Daly was two strokes ahead of Woods at 2-under through 13.