NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Tiger Woods went back to where he started, returning his trusty Scotty Cameron putter to the bag before scorching Aronimink Golf Club with his best round of the year.
Woods shot 29 over his first nine holes and finished with an 8-under-par 62 to hold the early lead at the BMW Championship, the third of four FedEx Cup playoff events.
The 29 included four birdies and an eagle over Aronimink’s back nine. It was the sixth sub-30 score of his career and the first since he shot 28 in the second round at East Lake during the 2007 Tour Championship.
Woods tied for 24th last week at the Dell Technologies Championship, where he had put a new TaylorMade prototype putter in play, one that looks similar to the Cameron but that has grooves on the face much like the mallet-like putter he had been using.
He began the year using the Cameron and did so through the U.S. Open before switching at the Quicken Loans National in late June.
But it wasn’t all about the putter. Woods hit 16 of 18 greens and bombed 11 drives of over 300 yards in sizzling temperatures.
If Woods finishes atop the leaderboard alone, it would be his first outright lead after the first round of a tournament since the 2009 PGA Championship. He has not held a shared lead through one round since the 2013 WGC-Cadillac Championship, which he went on to win.
The 62 is Woods’ lowest round of the year, besting the 64 he shot in the final round of the PGA Championship last month at Bellerive.
His career best is 61, shot four times, the most recent in 2013.