Tiger Woods starts Wyndham Championship with improbable chip-in birdie

For the first time in his almost 20-year PGA Tour career, Tiger Woods is playing the annual stop in Greensboro. Tiger has played 40 different PGA Tour events over the course of his career, but never made the trip to one the circuit’s oldest events.

So the crowd in Greensboro, one of the best on Tour, is pretty fired up to finally have Tiger in town -- even if he’s 286th in the world and just trying to find some form with these unexpected but additional reps at the Wyndham. He did not wait to ignite the crowd, pulling off this birdie from a challenging spot right on his first green of the day.

This may turn out to be the perfect bit of therapy for Tiger’s game. The Sedgefield course is soaked, so a course that’s already an easier track on Tour is extremely susceptible to low rounds. There will be birdies all over the course and the scores are going to dip into the low 60s on a soft course where lift, clean and place rules are in effect. The pace will be quick and Tiger will need to keep making birdies, but we’ve seen him perform better at these lesser Tour events this summer, like Greenbrier and his own Quicken Loans National.

Woods poured in four birdies on his opening nine to get in the mix in the top 10, so he’s starting well enough at a new place that he could carve up if he can keep it together. Of course, that’s a 50-50 proposition these days -- he flubbed a chip shot on the very next hole after sinking it at his first.

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