DUBLIN, Ohio -- Tiger Woods turned what appeared to be a disastrous round into something respectable Thursday during the opening round of the Memorial Tournament.
The final number shows a rather ordinary 1-over-par 73; how he got there was anything but routine.
Woods played his first nine holes in 40, hitting a tee shot out of bounds on the 18th that led to a double-bogey 6. But from there he played the remaining holes in 3 under par.
"I didn't play very good at all," Woods said. "I just didn't have it today."
But he managed to salvage the 73, something that he used to do with regularity during his winning days. Woods hit just 4 of 14 fairways and only 9 of 18 greens. He took 3 penalty strokes but needed just 27 putts.
Even over his closing nine -- the front nine at Muirfield Village Golf Club -- Woods hit just two fairways but managed to avoid bogeys. He hit poor tee shots at the first and fifth holes but was still able to salvage pars.
It was his highest opening round at the Memorial since he shot a 74 in 2002 at Muirfield Village, where he has won five times.
In his past 29 official rounds on the PGA Tour dating to last year's Honda Classic, Woods has shot just seven rounds in the 60s.
But Woods is playing for just the fifth time in 2015, and this is just his third tournament since returning from a nine-week break to work on issues in his game. Woods tied for 17th at the Masters and tied for 69th at the Players Championship; he is playing again for just the third time in three months.
"I just grinded. I just grinded, that's all I did," he said. "I didn't really have much. I was just trying to stay committed to what we're working on, to what we're doing. I hit it awful, yeah. So what? I was going to go through this phase and stick with it, keep sticking with it. And some of the shots I hit were really, really good, but then I also had some really bad shots, too. And we need to work on that, too, and omit the bad ones."
Woods was referring to the swing changes he has made since leaving Sean Foley last September and going to work with Chris Como, who is at Muirfield Village this week.
Taking it to the course appears to be a big part of the issue at the moment, as Woods appeared solid during Wednesday's pro-am. But on Thursday he immediately missed the first fairway (the 10th hole), leading to a bogey, then came up well short of the green at the par-5 second, his ball bouncing into a creek, leading to another bogey.
Woods hit his ball so far right off the tee at the 18th that many were unaware that out-of-bounds existed. He made 4 on the provisional ball, but the two penalty strokes added up to a 6 and a first-nine 40.
And then "I roped it off 1," he said, referring to a bad hook. "And I shoot 3-under, and that was hard."
Woods was six strokes behind the leaders following his morning round. He headed to the range for some more work.
This is the first of six tournaments in 11 weeks for Woods through the PGA Championship in August.
