Memorial Tournament 2012: Solid First Round a Positive Step for Tiger Woods

It's back to counting baby steps for Tiger Woods, this time at the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio.

What choice does he have? Or rather, what choice do we, who are still waiting for Tiger to be Tiger, have? He's coming off the worst three-tournament stretch of a professional career—a 40th at the Masters, a missed cut at the Wells Fargo Championship and a 40th at the Players Championship—in golf that includes 99 wins and 14 Major championships.

So, really, what else is there to do but nitpick and overanalyze every step Tiger takes, good and bad included?

Especially the (largely positive) one Tiger took at Muirfield Village Golf Club on Thursday. Woods shot a two-under 70 at the Memorial, a round that included four birdies along with a double-bogey on the 18th hole.

That poor finish aside, Tiger's play on the par fives was particularly encouraging. He birdied three of four par fives on the day, and came close to a perfect four-for-four with a pair of sweet shots on the 11th hole.

Why does this matter? Coming into Thursday, Tiger had picked up birdies on just 11-of-40 par fives (27.5 percent) in his previous three tournaments.

Now, before anyone gets up in arms about how Tiger's "figured it out" and starts proclaiming that everything is hakuna matata on the golf course, keep in mind that four holes is an inordinately small sample size.

And, perhaps more importantly, Tiger should perform well in an event that he's won four times.

Of course, Tiger's come away victorious at Augusta National on four occasions, and that didn't stop him from tumbling out of contention there earlier this spring.

Still, it's somewhat encouraging to see Tiger working his way back into the fray at Jack Nicklaus's own event. An adjustment on a putt here, a slightly better shot there, and Woods's round could've been much better.

But, it was solid as is, and if Tiger keeps turning out birdies on those par fives, who knows?

Maybe we can all get excited about him again. For real this time.

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