Tiger Woods grabs first-round lead at Zozo Championship, his first event of the year
Tiger Woods isn’t wasting any time.
Just one round in to his 2019-20 PGA Tour season, and he’s already sitting at the top of the leaderboard.
Woods fired an impressive 6-under 64 on Thursday at the Zozo Championship in Chiba, Japan — the Tour’s inaugural event in the country — to take a share of the lead with Gary Woodland after the opening round. His 64 marked his lowest score to kick off a PGA Tour season throughout his entire career.
His morning got off to a slow start, too, as he carded three straight bogeys on his first three holes.
“I certainly was not expecting to shoot 6-under-par after that start,” Woods said, via the PGA Tour. “That was a very ugly start and I felt that if I could get to under par for the day after that start, I figure most of the guys would be about 2-, 3-under-par with the wind blowing as hard as it was today, that I wouldn't be that far behind. But it flipped and I got hot and made a bunch of putts.”
That, though, was the end of his struggles.
Woods finished with nine total birdies on the round, including five in his last seven holes, to jump ahead of the pack.
Another one.@TigerWoods is putting on a show in Japan.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/0G4Vr3Sc2T
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 24, 2019
NINE birdies in the first round.@TigerWoods leads by two at the @zozochamp.#LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/tf5IHdjw8F
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 24, 2019
Woods is coming off an up-and-down season on Tour. While he won the Masters in April — marking his 81st career win on the PGA Tour, just one behind Sam Snead’s all-time record — and had four top-10 finishes, Woods missed the cut at both the PGA Championship and The Open Championship and failed to qualify for the Tour Championship.
Now, there’s still plenty of golf left to be played in Japan. The co-leader Woodland is the reigning U.S. Open champion and Japan-native Hideki Matsuyama is only a stroke behind. The season itself is still incredibly young, too, with the Zozo Championship serving as just the seventh event of the year.
Yet if the way Woods played on Thursday is any indication, he’s bound and determined to break Snead’s all-time wins record this season.
“It’s going to be sloppy and tough for us tomorrow morning before the storm gets in and I think we’re probably going to get a little bit wet while we’re playing out there tomorrow and then it’s going to be a grind on the weekend,” Woods said, via the PGA Tour. “Hopefully I can keep it going.”
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