Finally, Tiger Woods found the perfect playing partner.
Tiger Woods.
Woods teed off first Friday at the Hero World Challenge and went solo after Justin Rose withdrew due to ongoing back problems.
Woods got it going immediately, hitting the center of the fairway then stuff a wedge in tight for an opening birdie. He would play well on the par fives, a different theme from his opening round. Woods played the fives four-under par and found three more birdies on the way to a seven-under par 65 that got him into the middle of the pack after 36 holes.
“It felt good, today was different. I was able to play the middle of the round well and I moved myself up the leaderboard.”
Woods credited big par saving putts and he made several, keeping his scorecard bogey-free. “At eight I hit it in a bush and got it up and down and at nine and 11 I didn’t play both over par, I birdied them and that’s a four shot difference right there,” said Woods, who stands at six-under par and is six behind co-leaders Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama.
His best shot of the day came at the par three 12th, where his tee shot stopped eight inches short of an ace. “A perfect full six (iron), couldn’t have hit it any better,” Woods recalled.
Woods also avoided trouble over the last three holes. On Thursday, he suffered two double-bogeys, Friday he went par-par-par.
