Looking like a man who decided that this would be the first day of the rest of his life, Tiger Woods put the turmoil of 2010 behind him and shot his best round of the year to take the early lead at The Barclays. In his first tournament since his divorce was finalized, Woods made seven birdies against a lone bogey to shoot 65 Thursday on a rain-softened Ridgewood Country Club.
More impressive was that he hit 13 of 14 fairways and 15 greens in regulation, by far his best ball-striking display since returning to golf in April.
"It's exciting to hit the ball flush like this again," Woods said later, "It's something I've been missing all year."
Not that he wasn't happy with just his third score in the 60s in 22 rounds, but Woods was determined to remain on a more even keel.
Perspective, when it comes to him, is elusive.
When he was asked if he felt like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders, Woods shrugged.
"I can't really say that's the case," he said.
It was the answer of a man who's still grieving over the loss of his family.
"As far as golf-wise, it was nice to put it together," he added.
And that's all that Woods can do now: come to terms with the realities of his family life, move forward and play some good golf, as he did Thursday.
That's not to say that he hasn't tried to play well throughout this year. The difference on Thursday was that he wasn't fighting his swing.
Back in Orlando, one could forgive a smile breaking out across the face of Sean Foley, the 35-year-old Canadian swing coach who's been working with Woods for the past few weeks.
Foley's a maverick kind of thinker — he'll quote Voltaire and cites among his heroes men as disparate as John Wooden and Malcolm X — and he's also become the hottest swing coach on the Tour with a stable that includes Hunter Mahan, Sean O'Hair and Justin Rose.
Last week, Foley, who got the SOS call after Woods finished next-to-last at the Bridgestone Invitational earlier this month, had the world's No. 1 player hitting balls for two hours in his bare feet as part of a training regimen he's designed to wean Woods out of his bad swing habits.
"If you're hitting in bare feet, when you get to the top, you can't have a violent change of direction. You just can't or you'll fall over. So instead of having me say that, why not have him feel it?" Foley told me.
Foley's tried to make three major changes in Woods' swing: not letting his head sway off the ball in the backswing, turning his shoulders steeper, more toward the ball, and not tilting backward on the downswing, which causes the "stuck" feeling Woods has often complained about.
"We need to get rid of excessive movement and get the body in the right positions," Foley says. "The goal is to hit it more consistent with less (dependence on) timing."
Woods hasn't completely climbed aboard the Foley Express — which, to be clear, isn't a watered down version of the Stack'n'Tilt — just yet.
"I know it's going to take a long time," Woods said of what would be the fourth major swing change of his career, "That's the reason (for) the hesitation."
"I just haven't quite figured out which way I'm going to go with it yet."
In Foley's favor is the fact that Woods felt like he's grasped the principles well enough to fix his swing after a bad warm-up on the range.
"If I had the same warm-up at the PGA (two weeks ago) I wouldn't have known how to fix it because it was too new," Woods said.
Though he hit some stellar shots — the drive on the short par-4 fifth to 15 feet stands out — it was his consistency that was most impressive.
Give Woods enough looks at birdie and he's going to drop more than his fair share.
Foley, who was working on the range with Parker McLachlin in Florida while Woods was playing, isn't sure how the story will end.
"I think at its core, Tiger's swing's pure," he says.
"What I've got to do is to get rid of all the counterintuitive moves that were introduced in order to offset something else that didn't need to be there."
Golfers, Foley thinks, get "un-taught" out of their natural instincts by teachers who try to fit the proverbial square pegs into round holes.
"You want to know what I want to do with Tiger? I'm not saying it's a great movie or anything, but there's that scene in (The Legend of Bagger Vance) where Bagger Vance says, ‘You've got to find your true and authentic swing'," he says.
"And that's what we're going to do. We're going to find his Tiger Woods swing again."
Whether they do or not, Foley's quite sure that Woods is far from finished as a golfer.
"It was always for him about being the best ever and I don't think that's changed," he says.
"When he gets some clarity in his mind again, who knows, I'm wondering if maybe we haven't even seen the best of him yet?"
