Tiger Woods is on fire and making moves at the Masters

Tiger Woods back!

UPDATE: Woods finished with a vintage 4-under 68 -- read a full recap here.

It’s moving day at the Masters and the four-time champ is making an early charge up the leaderboard. Woods opened with three birdies in his first four holes and now stands at 5-under for the week and safely inside the top 10.

Tiger started the day 12 shots off the record pace set by Jordan Spieth, but he’s doing the things he must in order to at least make a game of it by Sunday. He piped it down the middle at No. 1, a hole that’s given him plenty of trouble over the years, and made a safe par there.

In order to post that mid-60s round to try and get close to Spieth, Woods HAS to carve up the par-5s. He’s off to a good start there, posting his first red number of the day at the 2nd hole. Fellow Spieth chaser Rory McIlroy had eagled there just a few groups ahead. Tiger couldn’t get home in two, but he did get up-and-down from the front of the green for birdie.

So Tiger got a birdie on a par-5? No big deal, he should do that.

But the next two holes should put the rest of the field on notice that Woods is dialed-in early on Saturday. At the shorter third, he popped one out there but went a little wild left. A 67-yard wedge shot, however, stopped just a couple feet from the stick for a tap-in birdie. It was tracking as if it would drop for another eagle.

The shot of the day so far, and perhaps of Woods’ tournament, came at the par-3 4th hole. That hole was the most difficult on the course on Friday. The pin might be in a slightly easier spot on Saturday, but Woods absolutely stuffed his tee shot to just 10 inches from the cup (video above).

So that was a second straight green where Tiger really only needed his putter as a formality.

The start comes as a bit of a surprise, because Woods was seen shakily pulling his iron shots on the range. Even his good buddy Notah Begay III said it didn’t look great. But that wedge at the 3rd and that 226-yard shot at the 4th are about as good as we’ve seen from Tiger in more than a year.

The three-birdie-in-four-hole start has Tiger inside the top 10 at a major for first time since the 2013 Open Championship. Now we wait to see if he can add a few more red numbers and if Spieth will ever let up this week.

UPDATE: Tiger is up to 6-under, weathering this horrendously hooked drive at the 13th that prompted him to let the curses and his club fly.