Tiger Woods took the positives out of a disappointing return to the PGA Tour after the former world number one struggled to a four-over 76 in the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open.
And the 14-time major winner admitted that he had to “fight his tail off” to limit the damage of a wayward 18 holes, where Woods struggled to keep the ball on the fairway.
Woods, who has won this PGA Tour event seven times along with a U.S. Open title at the same spectacular venue in 2008 finished his opening round 11 shots behind tournament leader Justin Rose and will need to produce something spectacular to get into contention for the weekend in San Diego.
For Woods, who has long bracketed Torrey Pines alongside Bay Hill, Augusta National and Firestone as his favourite courses, Thursday's opening round was an exercise in frustration.
"It was tough out there, period," he said after getting to one under early on his back nine before dropping six shots in six holes. "I was in the rough most of the day and it was tough. It was wet.
"I fought my tail off out there, I fought hard. It was nice to put together a round when I wasn't hitting it that great early.
"I was in a good spot to shoot a good round today, and I didn't really have my best stuff early but I got through there... that's one of the positives I'm going to take out of it."
Front 9: 8 pars
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 27, 2017
Back 9: 1 par
Tiger Woods finished with a smile, though. #QuickHits pic.twitter.com/QDFhv9bNbL
