Tiger Woods opens 2014 WGC Bridgestone Invitational back inside the top 10

No one had any real idea what we’d get from Tiger Woods this week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, but he’s back in the hunt again at Firestone, a venue he’s owned throughout his career. Woods carded a 2-under 68 on the South Course on Thursday to get inside the top 10. He’ll be pleased with the finishing spot, but it was an up-and-down inconsistent day for Woods. That’s to be expected given his lack of competitive reps. The position is also just about exactly where he was after one round at The Open, so the question now becomes whether he can put four steady rounds together in Akron.

It was an ugly start to the day for Woods. After piping his drive down the middle on No. 1, and sticking his approach shot, Woods somehow three-putted from about 8 feet for an opening bogey. After that ugly putting display, he snap-hooked one into the trees at the second and right off the top, we were worried that we might get a repeat to that woeful final round at Royal Liverpool.

But after that yank, he’d clean things up from the adjacent fairway and make his birdie on the gettable par-5.

The entire front nine was an inconsistent ride. He made only two-pars on his way to an outward even-par 35. The best shot of the stretch was probably an approach at the 8th, which he nearly holed out for eagle. This came moments after he almost holed out at the 5th, where he put his tee shot at the par-3 just a foot short for another tap-in birdie.

Given those two shots into the greens at the 5th and 8th, you’d think his ball-striking was perfect and firing on all cylinders. But sandwiched in between those two near hole-outs was one of the worst 5-irons you’ll ever see from Tiger. At the par 3- 7th, he left his tee shot a good 42 yards short of the green. The Golf Channel crew characterized is as a “whiff” and the ugly swing prompted an immediate “God dammit” from Tiger.

Tiger would hit a few more poor shots on the back nine, and continue to have some outbursts of anger, but overall it was a pretty good day for the eight-time champion here. He posted two red numbers and avoided the bogeys on the back side at Firestone, getting into the clubhouse in 68. That continues the trend of his red-figure opening rounds at this course.

As Justin Ray noted, Tiger has shot 68 or better in the first round of all eight of his wins here. And he’ll need a win or probably back-to-back top five finishes here and next week at the PGA just to play on and get into the FedExCup.

Again, this is just about the position he was in at Hoylake, where he’d also won in the past. Now comes the harder part of keeping it under par against one of the deepest fields of the season.

Marc Leishman is the early leader at 6-under, while Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler are two of the bigger names also ahead on the leaderboard. Here’s the leaderboard after the opening 18 in Akron: