Tiger Woods has one round in the books at Kiawah Island as he looks to end his major championship drought, one that dates back to 2008 when he gutted out a victory over Rocco Mediate on a bum leg.
After a three-under performance to open his PGA Championship, Tiger is in prime position to jump to the top of the field at a tournament that's largely flying under the radar because of the hype machine that is the London Olympics.
Tiger trails Carl Pettersson—the early leader at six-under— by three shots and finds himself behind Rory McIlroy and a few other notable names, but he shouldn't be worried yet.
During his first round in the 60s in three years at the PGA, he only needed to use the putter 22 times over the course of 18 holes, breaking a year-long slump with the flatstick. If Tiger can continue to drain putts from anywhere and everywhere on the paspalum grass, he'll continue to move up the leaderboard as the tournament progresses.
As a result of his putting stroke, Tiger was satisfied with his first round performance, according to an interview with the USA Today's Steve DiMeglio:
I played well today and anything in the 60s is going to be a good start in a major championship, and I'm right there[...]I putted well on the weekend (at last week's Bridgestone Invitational), made a few adjustments Friday night last week, and felt like I hit a lot of good putts.I started the ball on my start lines again and I think I made six putts over 20 feet out there or something like that on the weekend, which is good. I came here with the same thoughts, same feels, and I made a few today.
Tiger is right to feel satisfied with his performance, but it could have been a lot better.
He struggled with his accuracy on the rain-soaked course that was open to low scores. Missing with his driver quite a few times, Tiger hit only 10 of 18 greens and nine of 14 fairways.
Some accuracy with this club would help.Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
If he can start to find the short-cropped grass in the center of each hole, Tiger's scores are going to go down, especially if he continues to perform well with the putter.
The par-5s are normally where Tiger makes his mark, but he struggled on those as well. He only knocked down one birdie putt on the four longest holes, going one-under in total on those opportunities.
Despite these two flaws with his round-one performance, Tiger still only trails by three shots with three days remaining in the tournament.
He couldn't ask for a much better position to be in.
