The PGA Tour leaderboard has Rory McIlroy attacking early on and through his first round day at the Honda Classic he was atop the leaderboard or close to it and Rory Sabbatini along with William McGirt were the clubhouse leaders after finishing their rounds early, while Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were down on the list as play heads from Thursday into Friday for the second round.
Tiger Woods continued to struggle early on in the year after playing at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines and in Dubai and he put in a one over par 71 on Thursday in the first round at the Honda Classic. Woods usually plays well in Florida and while this wasn't a great performance, it was better than his early goings at his first two golf tournaments of the year and he will be looking to improve on that for the second round on Friday.
When Woods finished up, he was six back of the leaders in Rory Sabbatini and Will McGirt by six strokes and now he is chasing McIlroy again as well. Woods took back his number one ranking from McIlroy last year and won five times while the Northern Irishman didn't and now the two are going at it again this year as they both look to try and win majors. The late part of the day saw stars Mickelson, Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy all tee off after Woods got down towards the end and the rest of the tournament is expected to be better for Woods, as he will be on the other end of the tee times on Friday.
Woods said he felt good physically after the day and that he left some shots on the course and that his early goings did not help with his putting. Woods was solid while hitting his fairways, but he wasn't clean on some other shots and now he is looking to have his first good performance of the season heading into the weekend. Woods was not good back in Torrey pines, a place he usually kills, as he did not play on Sunday after missing the secondary cut and finishing in 80th, while in Dubai he wasn't much better and ended up in 41st place at that tournament.
Woods is going to have a hard time making a comeback with the way the top of the leaderboard has started off, but he can salvage this tournament as he gears up for the Masters and on the day he made it onto eight of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens and he had to putt too many times. McIlroy was getting stronger at the end of his day, as he had a stretch of three birdies in a row and had five through 15 holes on the day. Mickelson finished even, while Scott was one under.
Woods was up and down all day, putting up a double bogey and two bogeys, but he saves it with three pars and now he has the chance to get back on track on Friday. Woods said this week that he could look to add a tournament leading up to the Masters, as he is currently set to play at the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which he won last year on both. Woods will have five starts and possibly one more heading into Augusta, where he was going along fine last year before the whole drop issue.
