Tiger Woods improves on day two of his long-awaited return to golf

By David Close and Thomas Schlachter, CNN

(CNN) — Tiger Woods had a much improved second round at the Hero World Challenge on Friday, shooting a two-under-par 70 as he continued on his golfing comeback.

Woods, making his highly anticipated return to golf after a lengthy layoff, got off to a brilliant start on day two and looked to be flying up the leaderboard.

The 47-year-old opened the front nine holes with four birdies to move to four-under-par for the tournament.

However, like the first round, Woods stumbled towards the back end of his 18 with three bogeys before closing it out with a birdie on the final hole.

The 15-time major winner ended the day on one-over par after his second round and in 15th on the leaderboard.

“Better than yesterday for sure,” Woods said after his improved showing on day two. “Overall, the round was better for sure. The start was better, the middle part of the round was better.

“I missed a couple putts there towards the end, I thought would’ve kept the round going and unfortunately it kind of stalled out a little bit but surely it was better than it was yesterday.”

However, Woods admitted his golf game isn’t exactly where he’d like it to be after spending so much time away from the course since undergoing ankle surgery in April.

“I haven’t played in six months so things are not as sharp as they normally would be,” Woods added. “There’s some good in there and just got to make sure that the good is more consistent than it has been.”

Woods tees off at 11:43 a.m. ET on day three and will be playing alongside talented Norwegian Viktor Hovland.

Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth currently sit atop the leaderboard on nine-under-par.

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