State Of Golf Index Rises On Reports Of Tiger Opening With A 69

Steve Elling was among the majority who saw improvement in Tiger's game after an opening 3-under 69 at Torrey Pines North.

Even so, he looked more like the Woods who ended last year with a playoff loss at the Chevron World Challenge, not the guy who played so poorly for so much of the year that he didn't win on the PGA Tour for the first time in his career.

It felt like a typical season-opener for Woods, including his position on the leaderboard. In his last four trips to this PGA Tour event, he has trailed by seven, six, five and two shots after the opening round and went on to win them all.

69 is impressive considering that he essentially bogied the four par-5s by not parring one, as Sean Martin highlights in his five observations from the Farmers.

1.) Woods hit just 5 of 14 fairways on Thursday. Obviously, not a good performance off the tee. However, there’s a couple reasons that number is not as bad as it first seems.

The fairways on the North course are extremely narrow. We’re talking U.S. Open width. Also, Woods wasn’t hesitant to use driver on the narrow fairways. He pulled it out on Nos. 15 and 16 consecutive par-4s under 400 yards. He also nearly drove the par-4 second hole. His ball ended up in the rough, but it was in a good position, setting up an easy birdie.

Robert Lusetich was the round's lone dissenter, suggesting that if Tiger's goal "was to bury ghosts and quickly set a fresh tone for the new year," he "failed." Especially from 100 yards and in.

Although his long game has improved greatly under the tutelage of new coach Sean Foley, it’s noticeable just how uncertain and tentative Woods is from inside 100 yards.

Maybe that’s the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place — and maybe it’ll only come once Woods has real confidence in what he’s doing — but the harsh reality is that it’s hard to score on a course like the North without hitting wedges close to the hole.

Even though Woods missed only three greens — and made no bogeys — the truth is that he had very few realistic chances at birdies.

“I kept leaving himself above the hole,” he later bemoaned.