NAPLES, Fla. – Steve Stricker returned from a long layoff to team with Jerry Kelly to take the first-round lead in the Franklin Templeton Shootout.

The Madison, Wisconsin, duo shot a 16-under 56 on Thursday in the scramble format for a one-stroke lead over Harris English and Matt Kuchar at Tiburon Golf Club.

“It was just a great team effort today,” Stricker said. “We both played well. We both kept the pedal down all the way around, we never let up. We made a lot of good birdies, threw in an improbable eagle at the sixth hole, but other than that it was just good, solid golf all the way around, all the way to the end. Usually we have little hiccups here and there or a little lull period and today that never happened. We just continued that good play every hole really.”

On the eagle, Stricker holed a breaking 60-footer on the par-5 sixth.

“The pin was in a very difficult position kind of on the left side of the green,” Stricker said. “It was kind of up and over and speed was tricky. He put a good putt on it, on the first one. It was difficult, it had a lot of break. But speed was the issue and he gave me great speed and the line because I ended up giving it a little bit more.”

The 49-year-old Stricker had not played since the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day. He’s teaming with the 50-year-old Kelly for the record eighth time. They won in 2009, and Kelly also won with Rod Pampling in 2006.

“We know everybody’s going to get in the fairway and get on the green in this format, so it’s really rolling in the putts,” Kelly said. “I just need to do my job and hit solid putts, so he can see where the line is and make it like he does.”

Harris and Kuchar won in 2013 in their first start together and finished second the last two years.

Charles Howell III & Rory Sabbatini were third at 59, and defending champions Jason Dufner and Brandt Snedeker were at 60 with Kevin Chappell-Kevin Kisner and Luke Donald-Russell Knox.

Lexi Thompson and Bryson DeChambeau were eighth after a 62. Thompson is the second woman to compete in the event, following Annika Sorenstam with Fred Couples in 2006.

The teams will play modified alternate shot Friday and close with better ball Saturday.

NASSAU, Bahamas – A flop shot that required feel. A wedge to a back pin that he had to trust. Tiger Woods followed those two birdies with a perfect 6-iron that he wanted to be even better, urging it to move “one yard … one yard!”

The golf ball didn’t listen. Television viewers did.

And his three straight birdies after going 466 days without competition sure got everyone’s attention, even those who were playing.

“When I saw that he was 4 under through eight, I wanted to withdraw so I could go watch him,” Russell Knox said.

Was he back to being Tiger Woods?

Of course not.

This was only the front nine of the first round at the Hero World Challenge. By the end of the week, Woods was 15th out of 17 players . What returned was the excitement of having him inside the ropes again.

“Everybody loves the comeback story,” Matt Kuchar said. “A guy like Tiger, good or bad, draws attention. If it’s good, it gets really exciting.”

So he’s back. And now he’s gone again.

Still to be determined is when he will play and how much. There has been chatter, and nothing more at this stage, of Woods playing in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship the third week in January. HSBC already has Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson, not to mention Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson, and might not want to break the bank. But a happy and healthy week for Woods in the Bahamas – not to mention his 24 birdies – certainly raised interest.

Torrey Pines is a week later and a more likely start.

Woods said in his “heart of hearts” he wants to play a full schedule. It will a different one, at least early.

Riviera is back on the schedule because his foundation runs it. The Valspar Championship at Innisbrook is in play because it’s a week after one World Golf Championship and two weeks before another – both in the month leading to the Masters. Woods isn’t eligible for either WGC event and won’t be unless he wins before then.

That leads to the more critical question.

When will it be time to stop marveling at seeing the red shirt and start judging him by red numbers on the scoreboard?

Woods doesn’t like any victory that doesn’t come with a trophy, so he was quick to point out “silly mistakes” and six double bogeys whenever he caught himself getting too excited talking about his good golf. But he had reason to smile. Only the winner, Hideki Matsuyama, had as many sub-par holes. Woods shot 65 in the second round with no bogeys, not a tall order at Albany except that it was his first tournament in 15 months.

This was a good week for him.

His swing showed very little stress. It was graceful, not violent. Woods knows he isn’t among the top power players anymore, though he showed ample length off the tee, even finding an extra gear on occasion. He said before the tournament he had all the shots, and there was little evidence to suggest otherwise.

He just didn’t score very well. But only those wanting to see him fail cared about that after such a long layoff.

That will change over time. There’s just no consensus on when.

“Give him three or four tournaments, maybe six tournaments, maybe around the Masters,” Henrik Stenson said. “Probably give him a number of tournaments and he might be in contention in one of the early ones next year. Then you know you have the answer quicker. It’s easy to overanalyze a very limited amount of golf.”

Kuchar said he has low expectations of Woods in the Bahamas, and was impressed to see him start 73-65-70.

“I still don’t hold him to any standard just yet,” he said. “He’s kind of a new man. Great to see. Shoot, he gets back in the hunt and wins a tournament, you’d have to put those expectations right back on him. For having nearly two years off, it’s hard to hold a guy to his typical expectation level.”

Brandt Snedeker was curious to see how much progress Woods makes in his next tournament. Others, like Jordan Spieth and Zach Johnson, had a longer view when it came to measuring Woods by his scores.

“To me, it’s if we can chat next year at this point,” Johnson said. “It’s not so much the golf game and the golf swing and the putts being holed and contention. It’s physically. Can he withstand a Tiger year, which is what, 15 to 20 events?”

Curiosity has given way to anticipation. Doubts have been replaced by optimism.

Reality is still months away, if not longer.

NASSAU, Bahamas – The return of Tiger Woods was more about the big picture than any of his big numbers.

And that started with the sight of that red shirt on Sunday.

Woods grumbled about three more double bogeys in the final round of the Hero World Challenge. Considering how badly he has felt in the 15 months since he last played, he still was able to keep it in perspective.

“It feels good to be back out here playing again, competing and trying to beat the best players in the world,” Woods said. “I missed it. I love it.”

He even loved some of his golf at Albany.

Woods made 24 birdies, the most of anyone this week. He also had six double bogeys, three of them in the final round. The last one on the final hole, his third of the week on the 18th, gave him a 4-over 76. It was the highest score of the tournament, and he finished 15th in the 17-man field.

The other players were not about to measure him by his score – not yet, anyway.

“The whole world is watching a couple of rounds of golf,” said British Open champion Henrik Stenson, who finished second to Hideki Matsuyama. “It’s great to see him back and healthy and playing. I want to see him up in contention and try to beat him when it matters the most.

“Give him three or four tournaments, maybe six tournaments, maybe around the Masters,” he said. “It’s easy to overanalyze a very limited amount of golf.”

Rarely has a December event attracted this much curiosity. Woods, the dominant player of his generation, had gone 466 days since his previous tournament because of two back surgeries. The recovery at times made it difficult for him to walk and led him to wonder if he would ever play.

“Getting back to this point is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime,” said Woods, who turns 41 at the end of the month. “The pain issues that I had, it was rough. Quite frankly, there some pretty dire times where I just couldn’t move.”

Woods showed no stress in his swing or in walking five straight rounds, starting with the pro-am. He had plenty of length, at times going after his driver with a little more pop to clear a bunker. He holed a few long putts . He missed a few short ones. At times, he looked like he had never been away for that long. And at times it did.

“It’s kind of new to me again, the feel of playing, the feel of adrenaline in my system, hitting shots,” Woods said.

One day after he briefly pulled within two shots of the lead, it was clear early on this day would be a struggle.

Woods was scrambling for pars instead of being in a position to attack pins. He twice made double bogey on a par 5, starting at No. 6 when he blasted out of the sandy area to the back side of a double green, forcing him to chip off the putting surface. Still, he rallied with three straight birdies to play the front nine in even par.

He was never going to win the tournament – Matsuyama was too far ahead – but it was a chance to post a decent number and take more positives into what figures to be a two-month off-season. Instead, Woods added two more double bogeys and shot 40 on the back nine.

He made his third double bogey of the week on the 18th hole without even going into the water. His tee shot landed in a thick palmetto bush, and he had to take a penalty drop to take it out. Just his luck, his drop in the sandy waste area settled right in front of the nub of another bush. He got that back to the fairway, went just over the green and took two putts from there for his 6.

“What he did here showed that he’s certainly up for the task and his game is there. He’s ready to go,” Jordan Spieth said. “Even with Tiger, every time we set expectations, he exceeds them.”

Woods at least starts his climb from No. 898 in the world, the product of not playing since Aug. 23, 2015.

He said he wants to play a full schedule in 2017 – that typically means no more than about 20 a year – and will look at his options over the next few weeks.

“I need to play more tournaments. Zero in 15 months is not a lot, so this is one,” Woods said. “I thought I made some good, positive things happen this week. Made a lot of birdies, also made a lot of mistakes. That’s something I know I can clean up.”

His caddie, Joe LaCava, offered the best perspective.

“I wasn’t going to compare him to the rest of the field. They’ve been playing all year and they’ve been playing great,” LaCava said. “Honestly, my goal was to get him through five rounds on his feet. That was big.”

NASSAU, Bahamas – Tiger Woods started with brief run at the lead. Hideki Matsuyama ended Saturday on his way to another victory.

Matsuyama, a winner in three of his last four tournaments, holed out for eagle on the front nine and kept his mistakes to a minimum for a 7-under 65 to build a seven-shot lead in the Hero World Challenge.

British Open champion Henrik Stenson (66) and U.S. Open winner Dustin Johnson (72) were the closest players to the Japanese star.

Woods was even farther back – 11 shots – though the opening hour was filled with big excitement and raised expectations. Woods opened with three straight birdies, and then holed out a 40-yard bunker shot on the par-3 fifth hole to get within two shots as Matsuyama was getting started.

But it didn’t last.

After an 18-foot birdie putt on the 11th hole to reach 11 under, Woods started missing fairways and dropping shots. And he ended the third round with another tee shot into the water on the 18th hole for a double bogey. He had to settle for a 70 and was in 10th place among 17 players.

Even so, Woods has made 19 birdies in three rounds of his first tournament in 15 months. Asked what he would have thought at the start of the week to hear that he was 8-under par through three rounds, Woods replied, “I’ve had said I’d be pretty far behind. And I’m right.”

Matsuyama was at 19-under 197, matching the 54-hole score by Bubba Watson last year at Albany. A year ago, Watson had a two-shot lead. No one is close to Matsuyama, the hottest player in golf over the last two months.

“I knew somebody was going to go low, but I thought it was going to be probably three, four guys that would post this kind of a score,” Woods said. “But Hideki is just playing unbelievable golf.”

Johnson tried to stay with him, but had a hard time keeping it out of the sandy areas off the tee. Matsuyama was two shots ahead when he laid up on the short seventh hole, which played downwind, and then one-hopped his wedge into the cup for an eagle. Just like that, the lead was up to four. And when Johnson kept making mistake, ending with a double bogey on the 18th, the margin only got wider.

Brandt Snedeker (69) and Matt Kuchar (71) were at 11-under 205.

Matsuyama took notice early when he saw Woods made a brief run up the leaderboard.

“Only Tiger could take a year-and-a-half off and put up the numbers he’s putting up this week,” Matsuyama said. “I don’t care how many strokes I’m leading over him, I still worry about him, fear him.”

That was more respect than reality. The winners of golf’s two oldest major championships this year don’t sound like they have much of a chance from seven back.

“Anything’s possible, but I’m going to have to shoot a really special round,” Johnson said.

Matsuyama won his first World Golf Championships title last month in Shanghai at the HSBC Champions, winning by seven shot over Stenson and Daniel Berger.

“That’s exactly what he did at HSBC Champions, and it was not much to do at that time. And possibly, that could be the same tomorrow,” Stenson said.

Woods still captivated the small island crowd, at least with his start. He three-putted for bogey to slow his momentum, and he missed a pair of 6-footers for par early on the back nine. Still, most players said his score was above their expectations given the injuries he had and the rust he accumulated.

Woods said he had no expectations at all, though he was surprised about his start. Typically after a long layoff, Woods said he struggles to get going. Now it’s about finishing a round.

“That’s the most concerning part of the game, is getting off to I guess halfway decent starts,” Woods said. “But I’ve been into the round early, and I’ve been able to build a significant amount of positive shots and go under par early. And unfortunately, I haven’t been able to keep it going, except for yesterday. I didn’t hit the ball that poorly today, but hit bad putts in the middle part of the round.”

NASSAU, Bahamas – Dustin Johnson wasn’t even expecting to be in the Bahamas for the Hero World Challenge. He was tied for the lead Friday with Hideki Matsuyama, who has reason to expect being at the top of any tournament he plays.

Six shots behind was Tiger Woods, who shot a 7-under 65 without anyone in his way.

Johnson ran off three straight birdies early in his round, moved into contention with an eagle and closed with a fearless drive down the middle of the water-lined 18th fairway at Albany that set up a birdie for a 66. Matsuyama had the lead to himself until a bogey from the bunker on the par-3 17th. He shot a 67 to tie Johnson at 12-under 132.

They were two shots ahead of Louis Oosthuizen and Matt Kuchar, who each shot 67.

No one knows winning like Matsuyama over the last few months. He has three victories in his last four starts around the world – the other was a runner-up finish in Malaysia – which includes his first World Golf Championship title at the HSBC Champions.

Johnson was scheduled to play an exhibition against Rory McIlroy in the Philippines on Tuesday, and while he thought about a trip halfway around the world to get to the Bahamas on time, he was resigned to sitting this one out. But he never withdrew in case the exhibition fell through, and it did.

NASSAU, Bahamas – Tiger Woods saved par from the dunes with a shot so good that two spectators ran over and scooped up sand for a souvenir.

It also served as motivation Friday at the Hero World Challenge. The tee shot on the par-3 eighth that landed next to a bush was so bad that Woods said he told caddie Joe LaCava after his par putt, “I’m not dropping a shot.”

Woods capped off a bogey-free round with an even more unlikely par save, but what stood out at Albany was a seven-hole stretch in the middle of the round in which he never really missed a shot. It led to enough birdies for a 7-under 65, at least getting him back toward the middle of the pack against an 18-man field.

His golf was as good as it was Thursday, his first competition in 15 months, only this time he eliminated the mistakes.

“I wanted to keep that card clean,” Woods said. “I don’t know what it is about playing and competing, but keeping cards clean, there’s something really special. And it feels pretty good about doing that.”

And he did it quickly, in just under three hours.

Justin Rose, who opened with a 74, withdrew with back problems. That left Woods as a single, and when he realized there would not be much wind, he felt he could play just as well without a marker (typically the club pro) to get a feel for how various shots might be affected.

He was on his own and moving in the right direction.

The par save on No. 8 and a wedge to tap-in range on the No. 9 allowed him to make the turn in 33, just like Thursday. The difference was how he finished.

After pounding a drive down with the wind at his back on the par-5 11th – he had to carry a bunker 290 yards away – he switch to a 5-iron to play away from a bunker to the right of the green, making sure he would have the right angle to the pin. It was right where he was aiming, a yard off the green, setting up an easy two-putt birdie. He followed that with a 6-iron to a foot for birdie on the 12th, a 10-foot birdie putt on the 14th and a two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th.

He made seven birdies, but nothing brought out the emotion like a par.

His tee shot on the 16th, where he made double bogey on Thursday, took a wild hop into a bush in the sandy area. Enough of the ball was showing that Woods tried to hit 6-iron to the front bunker, but it came out heavy into more of the waste area. The next shot was well beyond the hole.

The par putt dropped on its final turn, and Woods thrust his fist toward the cup and slapped the face of his putter.

Two more pars, and he was done and feeling much better about the next two days.

“I really had it dialed in both ways,” he said. “I was shaping it both ways and I really had nice control of my (trajectory). That was the key. I was able to keep the ball down when I needed to and send it at times.”

Woods stayed out of golf following two back surgeries over the last three months of 2015, and he had not competed since a tie for 10th at the Wyndham Championship on Aug. 23, 2015. There have been no issues with his back, and Woods said he has made a few changes with his swing and how much he works away from golf.

If he looks slimmer, he says he picked up an illness from his children over Thanksgiving. More relevant is that he said he no longer lifts weights or trains like he once does. Woods said he used to run 30 miles a week in his early days on tour.

“I’ve had four knee surgeries, three backs. My body’s been through it,” he said.

As for the weights?

“I don’t load the spine like I used to,” he said. “I’m trying to do other things to gain strength. I don’t have any problem with suppleness and flexibility, but I also need to have stability.”

As for his swing, Woods said he has made subtle changes to alleviate the strain on his back.

“I’ve tried to go back and look at and do some stuff that I used to do as a junior that I did naturally,” he said.

Another change is that he is at Albany without a swing coach. Woods began working with Chris Como in November 2014, but the work is done in what Woods described as “training camps.”

“We’ll have little windows where we’ll practice when I have time to do it,” Woods said. “Then I’ll shut it down, I’ll work on my short game in the backyard, chip and putt, and then we’ll have another training camp a week or two later.”

The real measure might not come until early next year, when he gets more tournaments and different – and colder – conditions. Friday was just another round, and a step forward.

NASSAU, Bahamas – Not only did Tiger Woods return to golf Thursday, he returned to being Tiger.

Just not for long.

Hardly looking like a player who had not competed in 466 days, Woods ran off three straight birdies with a variety of shots and was tied for the lead in the Hero World Challenge as he approached the turn.

Three shots in the bushes, one shot in the water and a few fits of anger sent him toward the bottom of the pack. A pair of double bogeys over the final three holes ruined an otherwise impressive return, and Woods shot 40 on the back nine at Albany Golf Club and had to settle for a 1-over 73.

He was in 17th place in the 18-man field. Only Justin Rose had a higher score.

Even so, Woods has reason to be encouraged. After taking off 15 months to recover from two back surgeries, he felt no pain or limitations. His misses were not big, just costly. And he was playing again.

“It could have been something really good,” Woods said. “I got off to a nice, solid start and made a few mistakes there. I didn’t play the par 5s very well in the middle part of the round and consequently, got it going the wrong way. … But all in all, I feel pretty good. I’m looking forward to another three more days.”

He was nine shots behind J.B. Holmes, who opened with an 8-under 64 and had a one-shot lead over Hideki Matsuyama, with U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson at 66.

Curiosity was greater than expectations for Woods, who was coming off the longest hiatus of his golfing life. Plagued by back problems since 2013 when he was No. 1 in the world, he finally shut it down after tying for 10th in the Wyndham Championship on Aug. 23, 2015, and then going through two back surgeries.

He was in so much pain last year there were times he wondered he had played his last tournament.

With high anticipation, he tugged his opening tee shot into the rough on the left edge of a bunker and gouged that out to 15 feet for par. Just like that, it all started to feel as though he had never been away.

“By the time I hit my tee shot on the second hole, I had already gotten into the flow of the round,” Woods said. “That’s something that for me, when I’ve taken layoffs and taken breaks, it’s how quickly can I find the feel of the round? To not play in 15, 16 months and get it on the second hole is nice.”

He also knew that with only a stiff tropical wind behind him on three of the par 5s, scores would be low.

For a short time, Woods seemed up to the task. He hit a 5-iron from 231 yards just over the green and passed his first test, a 30-yard pitch-and-run and that checked slightly and rolled out to a few feet from the hole for a birdie . He faced a more difficult pitch up the slope on the next hole and hit a chunk-and-run to 3 feet.

His confidence kept building – the flop shot from 40 yards to 5 feet for birdie on the par-5 sixth, the wedge to 5 feet for birdie on the seventh, and a 6-iron he struck so well on the par-3 eighth that he was asking for perfection. “One yard! One yard!” he said as the ball was in the air, and then settled 2 feet away.

At that point he was tied with Holmes.

But he flubbed a pitch on the par-5 ninth and made bogey. Two holes later, he flared an iron from the sandy waste area into a bush and had to take a penalty shot, making another bogey on a par 5. Woods was still hanging around in the middle of the pack when he hit 7-iron to 12 feet on the par-5 15th and two-putted for birdie.

And then it all fell apart.

Froom the middle of the 16th fairway, he pulled his approach and dropped the club as it sailed into a bush. He had to play that backward to the fairway, pitched a wedge some 30 feet by and made double bogey. And then on the 18th, he pulled his driver and immediately slammed the club into the turf as he watched for the splash.

His pitch hit the pin – it was too strong, anyway – and he missed from 20 feet for another bogey.

“Just made some really silly mistakes, mistakes I don’t normally make,” Woods said. “But I haven’t played in a while. Unfortunately, I made those mistakes. I can clean that up. We’ve got three more days. Wind is supposed to pump on the weekend, and I’ll be playing a little bit better.”

Highlights from Tiger’s round:

NASSAU, Bahamas – This might be one time that Tiger Woods doesn’t measure success on the golf course by the score on his card.

He measured it with three words Tuesday: “I’m playing again.”

There were times during his 15 months away from golf that Woods wasn’t entirely sure that would be the case. He said that when he was at the Hero World Challenge last year, he needed help just to climb out of bed. At an outdoor party at Albany Golf Club, he would mingle for a few minutes and then sit on a stone bench.

He spent more time looking back than looking forward, saying at one point that anything else he achieved in golf would be “gravy.”

And now he can’t wait to get started on Thursday.

The 15-month break to heal following back surgeries is the longest he has been away from golf. Woods was a mixture of optimism and reality about his return. He talked about having all the shots he needs to compete against a field that includes 17 players from the top 40 and Woods, the tournament host who is at a career-low No. 898. He is playing, so he said he wants to win. The outlook is no different.

He also noted that Bubba Watson won last year at 25-under par, and it probably will take something around that to win.

“I know that’s a tall order since I’ve been away from the game for so long and I’ve made a lot of different changes in my game,” he said. “Physically and also equipment, practice schedules, training, all that has evolved. The mindset of competing hasn’t. That is to go out there and try to beat these guys.”

He still is working with swing coach Chris Como, whom he brought on two years ago. Now that Nike is out of the equipment business, Woods is using a TaylorMade driver and fairway metals, a Bridgestone golf ball and his old Scotty Cameron putter that he used to win all but one of his 14 majors.

But it starts with playing.

“Put it this way: It’s a lot better situation this year than last,” Woods said. “I just couldn’t get out of bed. I needed help. It was a tough, tough time. You asked me then, ‘Could I play?’ No. I can’t even get out of bed. How am I supposed to swing a club at 120 miles an hour? That’s just two different worlds.”

The Hero World Challenge, which he started in 1999 to benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation, is effectively a holiday tournament for golf’s elite that has no cut and pays $1 million to the winner. It feels so much bigger this year because of Woods.

Over the last year, he played five holes to open his new golf course, Bluejack National, outside Houston. And he took three swings with a wedge on the par-3 10th hole at Congressional during a day to promote the Quicken Loans National. All three went in the water.

Everyone is curious to see how he plays. That includes Woods.

His biggest concern is how far his shots will go because he hasn’t played with any adrenaline since the final round of the Wyndham Championship on Aug. 23, 2015. He doesn’t know how his game will stack up against players he watched at Hazeltine when he was an assistant captain at the Ryder Cup.

His previous long break from golf was eight months when he had reconstructive surgery on his left knee after winning the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the last of his 14 major titles. He won his opening match in the Match Play Championship and won two tournaments later at Bay Hill.

That was a knee. This is a back.

He was 33, not a month away from turning 41. And that was long before any chaos in his personal life.

Asked what he would expect to feel Thursday at Albany Golf Club, Woods said, “I’ll let you know then, because I don’t know right now.”

“Yeah, there’s nerves, of course, because I care. I care about what I do out there,” he said. “I want to win, and I want to place the ball in the correct spots, give myself the best angles and bury these putts. Trying to figure that out, yeah, there’s nerves.”

Woods often talks about the “process” when he’s changing his swing. This was a different kind of process. It starts with hitting golf balls at home, then playing a practice round at home, and then bringing that game out to a tournament, competing and eventually getting into contention.

“Right now, I haven’t even competed yet, so I’m at the beginning stages of that,” he said.

Jack Nicklaus spoke Tuesday morning at the HSBC Business Forum in Florida and talked about how golf wasn’t nearly as important to him as competing. That’s something to which Woods can relate. What he said he missed was the competition, whether on tour or at home with friends.

“But the bigger the stage,” Woods said, “the more fun for me.”

NASSAU, Bahamas – Tiger Woods has gone through two back surgeries since he last played a golf tournament 15 months ago. He had another back surgery that knocked him out of the Masters for the first time in 2014. He had four knee surgeries before that.

None of that matters to Ernie Els when Woods returns to competition this week.

Els is more curious about what’s going on in his head.

“The talent’s there. It’s been proven. It doesn’t go away,” Els said. “It’s what you think of yourself. It’s what you think where you are. We look at this great player, but he’s not seeing the same stuff in his own mind. A lot of us are like that. When you’ve achieved as much as he has … it’s a shock to the system not to play as good as you have been. To look at other people looking at you like, ‘Hey, you’re not the same guy,’ that’s hard to take.”

Els, perhaps more than any other player, has a deep golfing connection with Woods.

He was the player Woods sought out 20 years ago at Royal Lytham & St. Annes when deciding whether to turn pro. They had so many meaningful battles, and Woods almost always got the better of him. Els was runner-up to Woods seven times, the most of any player.

Els designed the Albany golf course where Woods comes back from the longest layoff of his career. He plans to be in the Bahamas, and he is as eager as anyone else to see how a guy who won 79 times on the PGA Tour, including 14 majors, stacks up against a generation that grew up in awe of how Woods played golf.

The Hero World Challenge is a holiday tournament with an 18-man field and no cut. Even so, it commands as much attention as any tournament this year. Woods has been a star attraction his entire career, and the appetite is even stronger after an absence that dates to Aug. 23, 2015.

“I can’t wait to watch, either, just to see him play,” Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III said. “The last time I saw him play, I won. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I’ve seen his swing. I’ve seen him on video. He’s sent me clips, and I’ve heard the description of how he feels. I’m excited to see him play.”

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” he added. “And I want to see the start.”

Woods already has had one false start. He signed up to play the Safeway Open, only to pull out three days later because he said he felt “vulnerable.” That followed a week as assistant captain at the Ryder Cup, and cramming in practice the week before with results that made him want to wait.

Love won the Wyndham Championship last year in August at age 51, and it could easily have served as a model for Woods – a power player no longer in his prime, not among the biggest hitters anymore, but with enough experience and talent to find a way to score and to win.

“It has to motivate him that Vijay Singh is lasting until 53, that Ernie is still competitive, that Davis is still competitive,” Love said. “He knows Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986 playing part-time. He knows what everybody has done. I know he’s working hard not to come back and be average. He wants to come back and win again.”

That might be expecting too much, way too soon.

Woods hasn’t won a tournament since his seven-shot victory in the Bridgestone Invitational in 2013, the year he won five times and was PGA Tour player of the year. He hasn’t had a serious chance at winning since his tournament three years ago when it was at Sherwood Country Club. Zach Johnson holed a wedge from the drop zone to force a playoff, and won when Woods missed a 5-foot putt in the playoff.

No other player has ever faced so much scrutiny, especially now.

“I won’t be able to turn the TV on, or the radio on, or look at my phone without knowing what he shot,” Jim Furyk said. “The expectations are so high. … Every pitch shot, every putt, every 3-footer, it’s not under public scrutiny like he has. I guess you live by the sword, die by the sword. That’s why he’s Tiger Woods. It’s a tough situation.”

Woods said his health had nothing to do with pulling out of the Safeway Open, and Els believes him. He says Woods is in better shape than some players in their 20s. Then again, he has accumulated plenty of emotional baggage over the last several years, on and off the golf course.

“They physical side is not an issue. It’s the other side that’s an issue, whatever is blocking him,” Els said. “But you’ve got to get on the horse. You can’t be standing on the sidelines. You’ve got to get out there. … Hopefully, he plays well, really, for his own goodness, his own sake, his own mental sake. If he plays well, it would be great. He’ll have hope and start a good schedule. If it goes the other way, he’s behind the 8-ball again.”

MELBOURNE, Australia – Denmark fought off a three-pronged attack to win golf’s World Cup at Kingston Heath on Sunday.

Soren Kjeldsen and Thorbjorn Olesen held their nerve after a four-shot overnight lead was threatened by China, France and Sweden.

The pair combined superbly in the best-ball format for a closing 6-under 66 to finish on 20-under 268, four shots clear of France (63), China (65) and the United States (66) in a three-way tie for second.

Kjeldsen and Olesen took turns to nail critical birdie putts every time the lead was whittled back.

“Our mental strength is keeping calm and playing our own game. I wasn’t too worried, I thought the birdies would come on the back nine and they did,” Olesen said.

Chinese duo Ashun Wu and Haotong Li crept within one stroke early on the back nine before Kjeldsen holed a birdie putt to restore the buffer. Victor Dubuisson’s birdie at the par-three 15th propelled France to just one shot back. And this time Olesen answered with a 7-foot putt, playing three holes behind the French, to ward off the leaderboard danger.

While Kjeldsen and Olesen weren’t threatened by US pair Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker, Sweden’s Alex Noren and David Lingmerth did move to within a shot – after firing a brilliant 10-under 62 to eventually finish fifth at 15-under. But nobody could catch the Danes.

Olesen’s hot putter delivered birdies at Nos. 13, 14 and 15 to restore the leaderboard buffer. He also rolled in a curling 30-foot birdie putt on the 18th.

“The psychology (of a team) is really interesting to me. When you get a guy like this, on the back nine you feel you want to die for this guy,” Kjeldsen said of Olesen. “I’ve never felt that before and that team thing is amazing.”

In golf terms, the Danish pair formed an odd couple. Olesen loves to keep check of leaderboards around the course and Kjeldsen tries to avoid them.

“We play different games, we don’t talk much and just play our shots and that’s helpful,” Olesen said.

Sweden, who started the fourball final round nine shots back, could only ponder what might have been with a more polished foursomes effort than the tardy third round 73.

“We really played quite solid (on Saturday) and ended up bogeying a couple of the last four holes. So, 1-over yesterday could have been a couple under and we would have really been in the mix. But finishing on a good note today, we’re not going to dwell on the last few days. It has been a fun week,” Lingmerth said.

Italy’s Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero reeled off an 8-under 64, but they were just too far back to get a glimpse of the leaders.

“We gave ourselves a lot of birdie chances and it could have been a really low one. It was a low one with a good finish, so we’re happy about that,” Manassero said.

“Obviously, Francesco gave me the opportunity to play and we had a lot of fun. I think this is a great format and, obviously, you’re representing your country.”

Host nation Australia at least gave their home galleries a sub-par salute in a polished round built on several pinpoint approach shots from Marc Leishman before Adam Scott rifled one to almost tap-in range at the par-three 15th. They eventually deliver a 7-under 65 to finish on 11 under and tied ninth with Ireland.

“It was nice to finally see a few putts drop and some red numbers on the leaderboard. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t start that on Thursday,” Leishman said.

Wales pair Bradley Dredge and Stuart Manley, in the first group onto the course, redeemed themselves after Saturday’s horror 80 with a flawless 9-under 63.

England’s Chris Wood and Andy Sullivan, who tumbled down the leaderboard after a leaky back nine on Saturday, also bounced back with a 7-under 65.

Canada’s David Hearn and Adam Hadwin finished tied for 11th with New Zealand’s Danny Lee and Ryan Fox at 10-under.

Germany’s Alex Cejka and Stephan Jaeger, equal last in the 28-team competition at the halfway mark, hit back with a closing 64 to finish on 9 under and tied 13th.