Tiger Woods shows he can still summon a bit of Masters magic

Tiger Woods off to a solid start in defending his Masters title with a four-under 68

The roars of the galleries weren’t there, the color of the foliage was slightly different, the course a little softer than it usually is, but Augusta National is still Tiger Woods’ playground, and he showed why on Thursday.

Woods opened his Masters title defense with a first-round four-under 68 that included plenty of club twirls and fist pumps. It’s been 578 days since his momentous fifth Green Jacket a year ago, and he had to wait a little bit longer to get started on Thursday as play was halted by rain that drenched the course in the morning. But when he finally got started, he picked up right where he left off.

Beginning his round on the 10th hole, Woods opened with three straight pars before making his first birdie on the par-five 13th. He got up-and-down from over the green on the 15th for his second birdie. Then, on the par-three 16th, the same hole where his Sunday birdie 19 months ago put him ahead for good, he spun back his tee shot to two feet for his third birdie in four holes.

Making the turn at three-under, Woods rolled in a 20-footer for birdie at the first that, for the moment, got him to within a shot of the lead. The round could’ve been even better: he failed to birdie either of the par-fives on the closing nine and finished with eight straight pars. His round of 68 left him three shots back of leader Paul Casey and in a tie for fourth place.

“I pulled a lot of it together today. It was good, it was good all around,” Woods told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi in Butler Cabin after his round. “I drove it well, hit my irons well, and putted well. So there’s really nothing that, looking back on it, that I could’ve done a bit better.”

Woods hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation, a superb display of ball-striking on a course he knows so well. It was the first time in 21 Masters appearances as a professional Woods opened the tournament with a bogey-free round, and his first time without a bogey at Augusta National since 2008. He hadn’t had a bogey-free round in any major in more than a decade, since the first round of the 2009 PGA Championship.

His victory here in 2019 was not only his fifth Masters title, it snapped an 11-year major-less drought and capped off a miraculous comeback from four back surgeries that had him questioning his future in the game. The crowds were massive last April, the roars when he tapped in on the 18th on Sunday deafening. While he didn’t get to experience any of that on Thursday, there is still something about being on these hallowed grounds that brings out the best in the 15-time major champion.

“It’s just experience. It’s understanding how to play this golf course. And that’s just years of playing practice rounds with guys who know how to play it, and I’ve played with a lot of past champions,” he told Rinaldi. “Over the years I’ve developed my own game plans and learned my own little nuances throughout the years. There is a sense of ease when I come here because I know how to prepare for this golf course.”

Perhaps no one better knows every inch of this course better than Woods, and though he’s struggled at times in 2020, there is nothing like coming back to a familiar place for him to find a touch of magic yet again.