Tiger Returns Ready to Play, Round 1 World Hero Challenge Recap by Jake Martino

After 16 months of wait Tiger Woods is back playing golf at the professional level. Throughout his career he has delt with back injury and this return he had to make some changes to his swing to prevent the injury from returning. One thing I noticed watching Tiger hit his driver was that everything was going left. Recently Nike shutdown all production of golf clubs who Tiger Woods had a deal with. This meant he could no longer use Nike. He recently changed his bag, his ball, and his metals. His bag is with his all new sponsor Monster Energy, his ball has changed to Bridgestone and his metals changed to Taylormade. Using Taylormade is different than what Tiger is used to. The M series by Taylormade offers an adjustable shaft which can change the way a player swings. It has been 16 months since Tiger has played professional golf and a lot has changed since then. He is usually used to a glued on shaft not an adjustable.

Hopefully he can catch up after shooting a Round 1 73, 9 back of leader JB Holmes. With only 18 players in the tournament, Tiger can easily make his way up the leaderboard. Currently he sits in 17th place. Tiger will play alone today as Justin Rose has WD from the tournament. Here is the Round 1 leaderboard .

World Hero Challenge Day 1 Leaderboard