Tiger Woods made a spectacular birdie-laden start to the Australian Masters and only marred his opening round with a final hole bogey at Kingston Heath here on Thursday.
The American world number one blasted his way to a six-under 66 as he took apart the revered sandbelt layout in his first Australian tournament appearance in 11 years.
The 14-time major winner claimed seven birdies, offset by just one bogey, to be one stroke off the early lead in the Australian Masters in his quest for a 93rd tournament title.
”I felt good today, I hit the ball pretty decent,” Woods said. ”I didn’t make a lot of putts but I had great speed and a couple of iron shots which were 30 to 40 feet away.
”The crowd was great today. People were obviously excited about our pairing and the people were extremely respectful, they were actually policing themselves, which was great.”
Woods justified his favourite tag as he reeled off five birdies on his homeward nine holes, including three in a row.
Watched by thousands of fans who ringed the fairways, Woods came within one shot of the course record of 65, held by Australians Robert Allenby and Anthony Painter before he gave up a shot at the last hole when he hooked his tee shot into trees and scrambled to make a bogey.
Woods, starting off at the 10th hole, claimed his first birdie at the 525 metre par five 12th where he came out of a greenside bunker to within three metres of the pin and holed the putt.
He missed an eagle putt at the 14th and tapped in for a birdie four to reach the turn at two under.
Woods began his homeward journey by slamming a 200 metre-long iron to the front of the 1st green and missed an eagle putt by centimetres to pick up his third shot in 10 holes.
He then went on a run of four birdies in five holes before his final hole hiccup. — AFP
