WINDEMERE, Fla. – Tiger Woods appears to be on the road to recovery again, only it’s no longer a question of how soon before he reaches full speed.

There are a lot more cars on the road now.

Faster ones, too.

Woods acknowledged as much before the Hero World Challenge began when he jokingly said, “Father Time remains undefeated.”

He still has plenty of power when he’s healthy and swings freely. But there’s a long list of players who hit it farther.

“We all eventually are losing some of the things we are able to do when we were younger,” Woods said. “But there’s other ways to go around a golf course. … You can win at a very late age because you don’t have to physically dominate anybody. You don’t have to physically beat anybody. You just have to beat the golf course.”

That’s a recipe for winning, but not for being the best in the sport.

That label belongs to 25-year-old Rory McIlroy, an undisputed title at the moment. The most consistent threat in the majors this year was 25-year-old Rickie Fowler, who played in the final group twice and finished in the top five in all of them.

The latest arrival is 21-year-old Jordan Spieth, who showed off his potential not because of the fields he beat (strength or size) but because of the stamps in his passport. In three weeks in three corners of the world, Spieth finished one shot out of a playoff in Japan, won by six shots in the Australian Open against a field that included McIlroy and Adam Scott, and then overwhelmed an 18-man field of top-50 players in Florida with a 10-shot victory.

One of the more telling comments after he won at Isleworth was how Spieth defined his target.

“In order to take it to the next level and try and win majors, I’ve got to look to Rory,” Spieth said. “He’s the youngest guy, the one with the most success. He’s No. 1 in the world and setting the bar. He’s the one we’re all chasing.”

Woods is now part of the chase.

He did not say where he would start in 2015, but here’s a sobering thought: If Woods does not play better than he did at Isleworth, there’s a mathematical chance he’ll fall out of the top 50 by March and not be eligible for the first World Golf Championship at Doral.

This isn’t the first time Woods has returned from an injury-induced layoff. But it’s the first time he is coming back from injury and retooling his swing under a new coach. This could take time, and that’s something Woods doesn’t have at this stage in his career. He turns 39 at the end of the month.

Can he get back to where he was? Probably not.

Can he get back to No. 1 in the world? Certainly. The last time he was in this position, it took five victories for Woods to climb back to No. 1, along with a mini-slump by McIlroy. Both are capable of doing that again.

Woods is so popular as a golfer, and he demands so much attention, that it’s easy to fall into a trap of measuring his progress without considering the rest of the field.

When he opened with a 77 at Isleworth, it was easy to blame that on rust because he had not faced any competition since the PGA Championship. Except that Steve Stricker had not played since the PGA and he opened with a 67.

Woods made progress in the second round. He was attacking. He was making birdies. He was 4 under through 16 holes, which ordinarily would seem like a good score. Except that the guy playing alongside him, Patrick Reed, was 9 under through 16 holes.

The competition has never been deeper – and as it relates to Woods, younger.

He is responsible for that. Most of these rising stars, if not all, grew up watching Woods destroy his competition. They learned by watching him. It was different for an older generation of players who only saw Woods when he arrived on the PGA Tour, and then didn’t know what hit them.

“He was the best anyone had seen,” Reed said. “He was so much better than anyone else at the time. With me growing up and watching that, I tried to copy his mental strength and go from there.”

And how does one copy mental strength?

“Be stubborn,” Reed said. “Focus on what you’re doing and not anyone around you. You could see it just by looking at him in the eyes. If looks could kill, he would literally kill you. It’s not because he’s not a good guy. He was just so focused and determined to play well. And he obviously gets it. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

WINDERMERE, Fla. — Jordan Spieth won the Hero World Challenge with a performance tournament host Tiger Woods could appreciate.

Staked to a seven-shot lead, Spieth blew away an elite field at Isleworth and set two tournament records Sunday when he closed with a 6-under 66 for a 10-shot victory over Henrik Stenson of Sweden.

From three birdies on his opening four holes, punctuated by a hybrid hit perfectly to 12 feet for eagle on the par-5 seventh, Spieth turned the final round into a casual walk along the lakes and palatial homes of Isleworth.

He glanced over at a leaderboard when he made the turn and saw that he was up by 11 shots. And then he made another birdie.

“It was the most fun I ever had playing nine holes of golf,” Spieth said.

The 21-year-old from Texas won his second straight tournament in dominant fashion. Spieth won the Australian Open last week by six, and even a trip halfway around the world didn’t slow his momentum.

He finished at 26-under 262, breaking the tournament record of 266 set by Woods in 2007 and Davis Love III in 2000, both of those scores at Sherwood Country Club in California. His 10-shot margin of victory broke Woods’ record.

Woods, in his first tournament in four months while recovering from back injuries, stubbed two more chips on the 13th hole for a triple bogey and closed with a 72. He tied for last place in the 18-man field with Hunter Mahan, 26 shots out of the lead.

Woods noted that Spieth closed with a 63 in Australia and flew some 9,000 miles to get to Isleworth.

“He’s playing some pretty special golf right now,” Woods said.

Spieth completes his second full year as a pro by moving into the top 10 in the world ranking at No. 9. The Hero World Challenge is not an official PGA Tour event, so the $1 million prize does not count toward the money list.

Spieth won by eight shots at Isleworth just three years ago, when he was still in college at Texas.

He had never had such a big lead going into the final round, and there are numerous examples of players who lose ground by trying to protect it.

Spieth came out swinging. He set a target of wanting to lead by 10 shots, and he got there with two of his best shots.

After flinching in the middle of his drive on No. 7 when a camera went off, he hit hybrid toward the left edge of the green, and it fed perfectly off the slope and trickled onto the green. Keegan Bradley two-putted for birdie to get within eight shots, and then Spieth poured in his putt to go up by 10.

Bradley was headed for the eighth tee, when he reversed course and walked over to Spieth to playfully body-slam him. Bradley’s caddie, Steve Hale, walked off the green and said, “If we can’t beat him, we can at least mess with his bag.”

Hale undid the strap on Spieth’s bag and moved it to a different location to make it shorter. Spieth’s caddie, Michael Greller, was so wrapped up in the round that for the next two hours, he never noticed.

Stenson played with Spieth Saturday, and knew what to expect.

“He was in pretty much full control of every part of his game,” Stenson said. “He drove it nicely, hit some good iron shots and his pitching and putting was phenomenal. So it was a one-horse race coming into Sunday. All the rest of us had to do was battle it out for second, really.”

Stenson closed with a 69 to take those honors and entrench himself a little deeper at No. 2 in the world behind Rory McIlroy, who did not play this week.

Patrick Reed (68) and Bradley (70) tied for third.

Woods opened with a 77 and was in last place the rest of the tournament. He had not played since Aug. 9 at the PGA Championship, taking nearly four months off to strengthen his back muscles.

“I made some progress,” Woods said. “I hadn’t played in four months and I’m in absolutely no pain, which is nice. To be able to go all out on some of these drives like I did this week really enforces what I’m doing is the right thing for my body.”

WINDERMERE, Fla. — Jordan Spieth rolled in a 50-foot birdie putt on the last hole to cap off a Saturday at the Hero World Challenge that was close to perfect.

Spieth opened with three straight birdies on his way to a 9-under 63 at Isleworth, matching the best score of the tournament. That gave the 21-year-old Texan a seven-shot lead over Keegan Bradley and Henrik Stenson going into the final round.

“This is the best I’ve played in a 54-hole stretch,” Spieth said.

He was at 20-under 196. Spieth said he has never been 20 under on any course through 54 holes, and he has never finished a tournament that many under par. That gave him a target for Sunday, when he goes after his second straight victory.

Spieth won six days ago halfway around the world at the Australian Open, where he closed with a 63 for six-shot victory.

Tournament host Tiger Woods was 20 shots behind and in dire need of his antibiotics taking effect. Woods lost his voice overnight and had nausea on the practice range and on the golf course. He felt slightly better at the end of his round when he made three straight birdies for a 69.

He remained in last place.

Bradley made four straight birdies around the turn on his way to a 65. He will play in the final group with Spieth.

“I’ve got to shoot a low one and get some help from Jordan,” said Bradley, who has not won in more than two years. “He’s such a good player. I don’t expect that. I’m going to have to shoot a really low one.”

Stenson, who played in the final group with Spieth on Saturday, recovered from a sluggish start with four birdies over his last eight holes for a 68.

Spieth made two big putts on the 18th hole.

He returned Saturday morning to finish his rain-delayed second round, chipped up to 5 feet and holed the par putt. He also watched Steve Stricker hit a putt from about 50 feet across the green, which came in handy later in the day.

Spieth had about the same putt, only going in the opposite direction of Stricker’s putt. That at least gave him an idea of the speed, though he had imagined a 3-foot circle around the hole that he would have accepted to walk off with par.

This turned out even better. The putt dropped for an unlikely birdie, and Spieth was all smiles walking off the green.

“I put my putter up, which usually means it will find a way to lip out,” Spieth said.

No chance on this day.

He opened with an 18-foot birdie putt on No. 1, got a good bounce with his 7-iron on the par-3 second to about 8 feet, and then made birdie on the par-3 third. After that, his iron play and his short game – always exquisite – were so good that he didn’t need to make any big putts.

Wrapping up his second full season as a pro, Spieth gets a new experience on Sunday – playing with a big lead.

“I’m still going to have to shoot under par to win,” he said.

Bradley will be chasing using the short putter, as he has done this week ahead of the Jan. 1, 2016, ban on the anchored stroke used for his belly putter. Bradley in the 2011 PGA Championship was the first player to win a major using a belly putter.

“I’ve had five years and hours and hours of practice that are now taken away from me,” he said. “But it’s fun to come out here and prove to everybody and myself that it’s not a big deal. This is probably the best three days of putting I’ve had in a couple of years.”

WINDERMERE, Fla. — Tiger Woods had his best score of the week and never felt worse Saturday in the Hero World Challenge.

Woods lost his voice overnight. He was nauseous on the practice range and when he took a swig of water on the first hole, he threw it up. He had a fever that finally broke on the front nine at Isleworth. And he closed with three straight birdies for a 3-under 69.

“It wasn’t easy and I fought hard,” Woods said. “That’s about all I had.”

It was enough to at least get back to even par for the tournament, though he remained in last place and was the only player not under par.

Woods hasn’t competed since Aug. 9 when he missed the cut at the PGA Championship, taking off nearly four months to build up strength so that his injured back would be fully healed. This is the only tournament he will play for about two months. The tournament benefits his foundation and learning centers, and it has a new sponsor.

What a time to get sick.

“That’s the way it goes,” Woods said.

He said he wouldn’t have withdrawn even if this were not his tournament. And it’s not like illness has never held him back. It was 11 years ago, and just down the road at Bay Hill, when Woods battled a nasty bout of food poisoning during the final round. He won by 11.

“I like to compete,” he said. “If I can go, I can go. I’ll give it everything I have. I wasn’t in pain. Just a little bit under the weather.”

Woods said he threw up before and during the round, and he probably wanted to vomit after a couple of more duffed chips, which have received plenty of attention this week. Woods stubbed two more chips on Saturday, bringing the total to eight chips that could only be described as shockingly bad.

Both led to bogey, and Woods appeared to be on his way to another mediocre score until the end. After the fever broke and he said his strength slowly started to return, Woods was pin-high on the par-4 16th with a 3-wood (the tees were moved forward) and made an 8-foot birdie. He hit the middle of the green on the par-5 17th with a fairway metal that never left its target and had a two-putt birdie. And with an 8-iron from 170, he stuffed it on No. 18 for a third straight birdie.

The best part of the day? Playing with Billy Horschel, they finished in just over three hours.

“We played fast, which was nice,” Woods said. “I didn’t have to sit out in that heat for too long.”

WINDERMERE, Fla. — The guy in a red shirt put on quite a show Friday in the Hero World Challenge to get into contention.

That was Patrick Reed – and Tiger Woods watched it all.

Reed, playing alongside Woods at Isleworth, was 8 under through 10 holes and wound up with a 9-under 63 in the second round, which was delayed 90 minutes by heavy rain. Jordan Spieth elected not to finish his round in darkness, mainly because he had a tough chip short of the 18th green and couldn’t see the flag from 30 feet away.

Spieth was at 11 under, two shots ahead of Henrik Stenson, who had a 68.

Reed was another shot back, along with Justin Rose.

He became the third player this year to shoot a 63 while playing with Woods.

“I never played with Tiger before, besides a practice round at the British,” Reed said. “It was good to finally be able to play with him, especially in competition. It was a lot of fun. We had a good time. I felt like we enjoyed ourselves out there, and luckily I played well.”

Woods was better that his opening 77, except for a sour ending because of another flubbed chip.

Woods was making progress toward his goal of getting back to even par for the tournament. He hit a 5-iron out of the rough to 4 feet for eagle on the par-5 13th, followed with a flip wedge into 3 feet for birdie on the 14th, and he hit another wedge to 5 feet for birdie on the 16th.

But after the rain, Woods had mud on his ball in the fairway and could only smile as it sailed left and long of the green. What followed was another bad chip – that’s six already in two rounds – that traveled only about 10 feet. He wound up with a double bogey for a 70. He remained in last place, 14 shots behind Spieth.

“It’s not very good,” Woods said of his short game.

The best golf in the group came from Reed, who grew up trying to pattern his game after Woods, even down to the wardrobe. He always wears black trousers and a red shirt on Sunday, the ensemble Woods has made famous on his way to 79 PGA Tour wins and 14 majors. Every now and then, Reed likes to wear black and red on Friday.

This was a good time for that.

Reed wasn’t even sure he would be in the tournament until Jim Furyk withdrew last week. And if there was ever a time to get excited about opening with a 73, this would be the occasion. It meant Reed would be paired with Woods, in the first group out.

Reed opened with three straight birdies. He rolled in a 40-foot eagle putt on the seventh, and he went out in 29 after making a 15-foot birdie putt at No. 9.

After his 7-foot birdie putt at No. 10, Reed even began “thinking in the 50s,” though that ended quickly. With a sand wedge from the rough, his ball came back off a hill behind the 12th green with so much steam that Reed begged it to “hit the microphone.” That would have been the only thing to keep it from rolling into the water, and it missed. He made bogey.

Rory McIlroy shot a 63 with Woods in the opening round at Dubai this year (Woods shot 68). Spieth played with Woods at Torrey Pines and shot 63 on the North Course (Woods shot a 71).

Woods is playing for the first time since Aug. 9 at the PGA Championship. He took nearly four months off to strengthen his muscle structure, and during the time away, he hired a new swing coach.

His swing looks fine. His short game does not.

And that’s why Reed didn’t read too much into a seven-shot advantage over Woods in their first pairing.

“He had a couple of loose shots here and there, but he knows what he’s doing,” Reed said. “When was the last time he played a competitive tournament? It’s been awhile.”

That’s not the case for Spieth or Stenson.

Spieth won by six shots last week in the Australian Open. Stenson won the World Tour Championship in Dubai the week before.

Stenson had the lead after his sixth birdie at No. 13. But he make bogey on the 15th and 16th and had to settle for a 68.

“You’re not winning anything on Friday,” he said. “We’re still at the races.”

And that’s what the final hour resembled – a race.

With the rain delay, it was a push for everyone to finish.

Spieth figured the horn would have sounded when he was on the 16th hole in a regular tournament. They pressed on, but when his approach to the 18th came up just short, caddie Michael Greller talked him out of playing a delicate chip into the grain with a muddy lie.

“It was a good idea to hit that pitch tomorrow,” Spieth said.

WINDERMERE, Fla. — Tiger Woods returned to competition Thursday and it was like he never left – except that he looked healthy.

Woods flubbed four chips around the green, only had four birdie chances inside 20 feet and stumbled to a 5-over 77 in the opening round of the Hero World Challenge at Isleworth, his home course for the first 16 years of his pro career.

He was in place among the 18-man field, already 11 shots behind Jordan Spieth, who is coming off a runaway win last week in the Australian Open.

“One of those days where nothing went my way,” Woods said.

The score was not nearly as significant as his health in what has been a lost year for Woods because of back problems. He had surgery a week before the Masters that kept him out for three months. He had not played since Aug. 9 at the PGA Championship because of lingering back issues, and the need to build up his muscle structure.

Woods missed the cut at Congressional in June in his first tournament after back surgery. This time, he is coming back from injury and he is working with a new coach. In that respect, the score was not a surprise.

It was the 10th time in 12 rounds that he failed to break par since his first return in June.

Even so, some of the shots were shocking, especially around the green.

He flubbed one chip behind the eighth green on his way to double bogey and a 41 on the front nine. After his lone birdie at No. 12 – a wedge that spun back to tap-in range – Woods blasted a driver and hit a long iron that came up just short of reaching the top ridge. Instead, it rolled off the green and into a steep collection area.

His first pitch was too soft and rolled back down toward his feet. Woods came in too steep on the next pitch and the ball moved only a few feet forward, leading to his second double bogey. And on the par-5 17th, he was in another swale pin-high in two and flubbed his fourth chip, angrily swinging the club and turning his back while the ball slowly rolled back to his feet. He had to make a 10-footer for par.

“It is surprising that I could hit chips that poorly,” he said.

The 77 was his second-highest score of the year. He had a 79 on the South Course at Torrey Pines in January. What kept the day from being a total loss is that Woods reported feeling “zero pain.”

“I haven’t said that in a long time,” Woods said. “It’s very exciting to step up there and hit the drives I hit – especially on the back nine – and feel nothing.”

The opening drive set the tone for the day – and his return.

Woods was about to hit his first shot in nearly four months when he heard a loud click of a camera and backed off. Then, he tugged his 3-wood through the fairway, beyond an iron fence into someone’s backyard and presumably into a swimming pool. He had to hit another from the tee and did well to escape with a bogey.

Any questions about his back were answered on the seventh hole when he hit a long iron from an awkward stance just beyond the lip of a steep bunker. He wound up in a bunker right of the green, and took two shots to reach the green.

Rust would seem to be an issue, but it certainly wasn’t the case for Steve Stricker. He hasn’t played since the PGA Championship, either, yet Stricker made five birdies in a bogey-free round of 67 and was one shot behind Spieth, along with Dubai World Tour Championship winner Henrik Stenson, Zach Johnson and Rickie Fowler.

Woods played with Jason Day, who last competed at the Tour Championship three months ago. Day shot a 71. FedEx Cup champion Billy Horschel and Patrick Reed, both at 73, were the only other players over par on a warm, breezy afternoon.

Woods felt as though he hit the ball, though certainly not as close as we would like.

Even when he did hit the green in regulation – only four times in his opening 10 holes – he was never close enough for a reasonable birdie chance. He finally got that on the par-3 11th hole, only to miss a 10-foot putt.

When he hit his stride on the back nine, his putting was off. Woods missed a 3 1/2-foot birdie putt on the 14th, and he never came close on an 8-foot attempt on No. 16.

“Today was weird,” Woods said. “I didn’t feel like I hit it that bad. My short game was awful. Didn’t make anything. … Bad chips, bad putts and a couple of missed shots on the front nine on the wrong side compounded the problem.”

WINDERMERE, Fla. – Tiger Woods is making his latest comeback in golf with an eye to the past.

Equipped with a new teacher and a stronger body, Woods said Tuesday he is working on a swing that incorporates previous moves that date as far back as his amateur days. He referred to it as “new, but old,” and the 14-time major champion will start testing it this week against an 18-man field of elite players at the Hero World Challenge.

How old were some of those videotapes he watched of his previous swing?

“Actually, it’s pretty interesting trying to find a VHS recorder,” Woods said. “I have a lot of tape like that. Fortunately, my mom is of age where she has that still in the house. So that was very beneficial to look at some of the old tapes.”

Otherwise, it’s another new beginning.

This is the fifth time Woods has returned from injury – the back, this time – over the last five years. The breaks have ranged from four weeks to four months. He last competed on Aug. 9 when he missed the cut at the PGA Championship, ending the shortest season of his career (eight tournaments) and the first time he did not have a top 10.

Woods said he had enough time off to let his body heal and to think about where he wants his game to go.

First, he split with swing coach Sean Foley, ending a three-year relationship that produced eight PGA Tour wins but no majors.

“I think that physically, I just wasn’t able to do some of the things that we wanted to do in the golf swing,” Woods said.

Woods said there was no reason to look back at old swings at the time because he felt he was headed in the right direction – three victories in 2012, and five wins in 2013 in which he was voted PGA Tour player of the year for the 11th time. Those two years were relatively free of injuries.

“But unfortunately, physically I was getting damaged doing it,” he said. “So in retrospect, you look at it. Was I ever hurt when I was little? Granted, I don’t think we all were. I think we all could jump off roofs and nothing would break. But playing detective and looking back on it, you have to somewhat have an understanding physically of where you are at the time.”

He announced just over a week ago that he had hired Dallas-based Chris Como as a swing consultant, after longtime friend Notah Begay put them together.

Woods said he had a plan, and that Como was on the same page.

“I was very surprised and very excited to see what he felt my swing should look like, and should look like going forward,” Woods said. “Because that was very similar to the vision I had.”

Woods did not delve into specifics of his swing, which he rarely did when going through an overhaul with Butch Harmon, then Hank Haney and Foley.

“It is new, but it’s old,” he said. “I say that because I haven’t done it in a very long time. We looked at a lot of video from when I was a junior, in junior and amateur golf. … And it was quite interesting to see where my swing was then and how much force I could generate with a very skinny frame. How did I do that? How do I generate that much power? That’s kind of what we are getting back into it.”

Even so, Woods concedes that age – he turns 39 at the end of the month – has kept him from overpowering golf the way he once did.

Along with four operations on his left knee, and problems with his Achilles tendon in 2011, Woods lately has been coping with back problems. He had surgery a week before the Masters and missed two majors. Upon his return in the summer, he had his worst 72-hole showing in the British Open and missed the cut in the PGA Championship.

“I’ve gotten stronger. I’ve gotten more explosive. I’ve gotten faster,” he said. “I now just need to hit more balls. But the body is good. I don’t have the sharp pain like I used to at the beginning of the year. I don’t have that anymore. I still have some aches and pains, just like anybody else who is my age and older.”

It took Woods about 18 months to work out the big change under Harmon, and about a year to adapt to changes under Haney. He won his first tournament just over a year after working with Foley. He doesn’t know how long this change will take, although he said the motor patterns are vaguely familiar.

“Am I game ready? Probably not quite as I would like to be,” Woods said. “How long does it take me to get back into the flow of a round? Sometimes it takes me a shot, sometimes it takes me three or four holes after a long layoff. I don’t know. We’ll see on Thursday.”

Here’s a first glance at Tiger working with his new swing coach, Chris Como.

And, here’s a comparison of Tiger’s swing today from 2013.

The PGA Tour has smaller circuits in Latin America, Canada and China. Commissioner Tim Finchem spoke in 2010 about golf heading toward a “world tour,” even though he wasn’t sure what it would look like or when it would all come together.

It’s worth paying attention to the activity of players over the last month.

Brandt Snedeker was in Japan for the Bridgestone Open. Jordan Spieth was in Japan last week at the Dunlop Phoenix, and he’s at the Australian Open this week. Webb Simpson was in Japan. Jason Dufner went to Thailand.

Finchem wants to see golf get through the 2016 Olympics – and the schedule problems that will present – before looking too far ahead.

“We need at least two and maybe three years of looking at the schedule in this environment with the wraparound,” he said earlier this month in Shanghai. “We need that experience before we start tinkering. In terms of fundamental schedule, we’re at least another year away from starting to think about that.”

But when asked about a world tour, Finchem made it sound as though the three satellite tours could be part of a larger, global picture.

“I think what we’re going to do – and are doing – is watching carefully not just this tour in China, but also South America and Canada,” he said. “And we’re spending more time evaluating the other core tours – the Asian Tour, Australia, South Africa – understanding more about co-sanctioning between Europe and some of these other tours. We’re just asking ourselves, overall, what’s the best mix?”

“Those two things dovetail,” he said. “We need to get a better sense of what the Olympics are going to do on the weeks it’s played and the weeks around it. And then that kind of feeds into the world schedule.”

Finchem said it was a “possibility” of co-sanctioning an event in Australia, though it didn’t sound as if the PGA Tour was headed in that direction.

Australia now has four big events on world schedule – the Masters, Open and PGA, along with Perth on the European Tour. This week in Sydney features Nos. 1 and 2 in the world with Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott, along with Spieth.

“We’ve got more big events around the world that are linked to the PGA Tour,” Scott said. “I think the ball is really in their court as to what direction we want to go. It certainly has got the power to dictate to tournaments when they are and where they are. … If I was the Australian Open or one of the other tournaments, I’d be knocking on Tim Finchem’s door and trying to make it a World Golf Championship.”

NAPLES, Fla. — Tiger Woods has hired a swing consultant as he prepares to return to competition.

Woods announced Saturday on Twitter that Dallas-based Chris Como, a specialist in biomechanics of the golf swing, will be working and consulting with him. Woods did not identify Como as his swing coach.

“Happy to have Chris Como consulting and working with me on my swing. I’m excited to be back competing,” Woods said.

He is to return Dec. 4-7 at his Hero World Challenge, an 18-man field of top 50 players at Isleworth.

Not long after the tweet, Como’s website was unavailable because it exceeded its bandwidth. He works at Gleneagles Country Club outside Dallas and was listed among the best young teachers by Golf Digest magazine last year.

The magazine said on its website that Como is completing a master’s degree in biomechanics at Texas Woman’s University. He is studying under Kwon Young-Hoo, an expert on how sports movements impact the body.

Woods said good friend Notah Begay introduced him to Como this summer.

“Subsequently, we had several good conservations about the golf swing,” Woods said in a statement. “I’ve worked with him about a month since I started practicing. Chris will consult and work with me during the year.”

Woods already has had three swing coaches and four swings during a career that already has brought him 14 majors among his 79 PGA Tour titles. He most recently worked with Sean Foley, whom he dismissed in August after three years and no majors. Woods last won a major in 2008 at the U.S. Open.

This is the first time in his career he failed to register a top-10 finish.

Woods missed most of the year with back issues. He had surgery on his back a week before the Masters, forcing him to sit out three months to recover. He last played in the PGA Championship, where he missed the cut, and then said he would take more time off to get stronger.

Como also works with Aaron Baddeley, Trevor Immelman and Jamie Lovemark.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Adam Scott moved in the right direction Saturday at the Australian Masters, shooting a 1-under 71 to pull to within four strokes of the lead as he attempts to win the tournament for the third consecutive year.

Scott got some help from gusty winds that affected the last few groups. He trailed by six when he finished, but an hour later, Paul Spargo, playing in the final group, was the leader after a 71 and a 54-hole total of 8-under 208.

That was one stroke better than second-round leader Michael Wright, who bogeyed four holes on the back nine for a 74 and after he and fellow Australian Spargo were told they were on the clock for slow play.

“I’m happy with the result considering the conditions, I made some good shots coming in,” said Spargo. “Who knows what we’ll get weather-wise tomorrow.”

The forecast for Sunday was for lighter winds from the south, just the opposite of the strong northerlies that buffeted Metropolitan Golf Course on Saturday.

Three Australians were tied for third, two strokes behind – 18-year-old amateur Lucas Herbert, who had the round of the day with a 65, Nick Cullen (66) and James Nitties (67).

“I was quite fortunate to get out before the weather really hit,” said Herbert, whose 7-under came in mostly calm morning conditions. “That wind was really tough on the last four holes.”

Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, shot 71 and was in a group three shots behind and tied for sixth.

Scott, tied for eighth with seven others, shot 39 on the front nine after three bogeys and a birdie, but made a run on the back with four birdies in eight holes before making bogey on 18. Twice he needed two shots to get out of bunkers.

Still, Scott remained optimistic heading into Sunday.

“I hung in there, I felt I swung the club today better than before, and that’s something I need to keep going for tomorrow,” Scott said. “You never know, I might be within shouting distance.

“Anyone sitting in my position is going out with no pressure. Posting a number is a big thing in a golf tournament with some tough finishing holes here.”

Scott will go up against world No. 1 Rory McIlory at next week’s Australian Open in Sydney, where the Northern Irishman is the defending champion.

Last year at Royal Sydney, McIlroy birdied the 18th hole to relegate Scott to second and prevent the Australian from capturing all three of his country’s majors – the PGA, Masters and Open.

Canadian Riley Wheeldon shot an 81 on Saturday and dropped back into a tie for 62nd at +6.

Americans Zac Blair (69) and Boo Weekley (70) were at 2-under, six behind Spargo. Another American, Kyle Stanley, shot 73 and was another stroke back.