Tiger Woods closes Genesis with 2-over 73

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Tiger Woods shot 73 on Sunday to complete a week that showed both the progress that he has made and the lengths he still has to go.

Woods finished The Genesis Invitational at 1-under 283, shooting 69-74-67-73 in his first official competition since The Open Championship in July. His third-round 67 was his lowest round since his latest comeback began at last year’s Masters and this week marked just the second time he has completed 72 holes in that span.

But the strain of the week showed Sunday. Getting prepared for each round is still an hours-long process for Woods and it may not be a coincidence that he shot over par on the two days that he had the earliest tee times.“

My game is fine. It is rusty. I made some silly mistakes here and there,” Woods said on the CBS broadcast. “I didn’t quite pick up the speed of the greens each day fast enough, but overall I felt like I hit the ball like I did at home. Now I have to bring it out here and walk point A to point B.”

Woods had to work hard for birdie on the opening hole Sunday, making a 14-footer for birdie after driving into the left rough and missing right of the green.

He bogeyed the fifth hole from the fringe, then closed the front nine with two more bogeys to shoot 37. Woods made two birdies and two bogeys on the back nine, holing a 30-footer for birdie on the 13th and making another birdie three holes later after knocking his tee shot on the 166-yard 16th to 6 feet.

After averaging more than 300 yards off the tee in each of the first three rounds, Woods’ averaging distance on all tee shots was just 285.4 yards on Sunday. He also lost more than 1.5 strokes on the greens Sunday, missing par putts from inside 5 feet on the fifth and 15th holes.

Where Woods will play next remains the question. When asked about his upcoming schedule by CBS' Amanda Renner, Woods said, "My goal each and every year from here going forward is to play each of the majors. I'm not going to play too much more than that. My body, my leg and my back won't let me play much more than that anymore. So that was my goal last year, and I was able to play three of the four, so this year hopefully I can play all four and that's going to be my schedule going forward because of all the limitations I have."