The masses swarmed to see Tiger Woods shank his approach to the final hole in California but they missed out seeing a birdie blitz from Aussie gun Cam Davis who finished in a tie for second after the opening round of the $30m Genesis Invitation.
Woods, 48, playing his first PGA Tour event since having surgery to fuse his ankle in 2023, mixed six bogeys, including one after an his back “locked up” as he played his hacker-like approach to the final hole, with five birdies in one-over par start as Davis forecast a continued upward trend following his six-under 65.
Jason Day then joined the party late in the first round moving to five-under.
Woods, a 15-time major champ said he had been battling back issues for the final three holes before his shanked approach to the 18th green
“My back spasmed … it locked up on my, didn’t move, didn’t rotate,” Woods said of his 18th hole shocker.
“It had been spasming for the final three holes.
“We’ve got some treatment ahead of us, that’s part of the deal.
“My round was good and a little bit indifferent. “I didn’t feel like I hit a lot of greens. I was stressing out on the short game.
“ I had five pars today or something stupid, it was either birdies or bogeys.
Playing in the elite 70-player “elevated” event at Riviera Country Club, Davis, coming off a top-20 finish at Pebble Beach last week, nailed five back-nine birdies to be just a shot behind leader Patrick Cantlay, who finished at 7-under.
“The start to the year’s been a little slow, but I haven’t really had a lot of poor rounds, it’s just been a lot of kind of milling around in the background on the leaderboard while everyone else is tearing it up,” Davis said.
“So I’m hoping my little trend upwards up the leaderboard can continue. I did play a lot of nice golf at Pebble.
“Obviously would just love to keep this going and keep playing the golf that I’m playing right now because I think that could lead to some better things.”
