CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- Tiger Woods sent the internet into hysterics because of a couple of pieces of tape on his neck. His golf game couldn't quite match the excitement.
Woods arrived at Carnoustie on Thursday for the first round of The Open wearing two strips of KT Tape to alleviate pressure on his neck, which was bothering him due to a poor night's sleep earlier in the week.
The three-time Open champion, who competed in the event for the first time since 2015, downplayed its impact on the round but said his neck has "been bugging me for a while.''
Woods shot even-par 71 to finish the first round five strokes behind tournament leader Kevin Kisner. It is just the fourth time Woods has opened a major at par or better in the 13 times he has played going back to 2013.
"I played better than what the score indicates because I had two 8-irons into both par 5s today, and I end up with par on both of those,'' Woods said. "If I just clean up those two holes and play them the way I'm supposed to play them with an 8-iron in my hand, I think I'd probably have the best round in the afternoon wave.
"So it certainly could have been a little bit better.''
Woods' 71 matched the best score of any player in the last 12 groups, and there were just five scores under par among the last 51 players to tee off.
Keeping to a conservative strategy, Woods hit just a single driver (at the par-5 sixth hole) and two 3-woods (at the second and 10th holes). The rest were iron shots off tees to better position himself and avoid the cavernous pot bunkers from which it is nearly impossible to advance the ball toward the green.
The result was numerous long approaches, but those two opportunities at the par-5s were wasted, along with a three-putt par at the 13th hole.
"I'm just playing to my spots,'' he said. "And if the wind allows me to be more aggressive, then, obviously, I get it down there. But today with the wind coming out of the south, southeast, it didn't allow that. Granted, it did change a little bit out of the west at the end, but it's just hard to control that ball on the green, especially when it's rolling about 100 yards. It's just really hard.''
Woods ended one dubious streak, one that saw him shoot over par in the first round of his last eight major championships, dating to the 2014 Open at Royal Liverpool.
But another trend continued. In terms of place, he is well back, sitting in a tie for 32nd -- the seventh consecutive tournament in which he has not ended the first round in the top 10. Woods' best in that stretch was a tie for 29th at the Masters.
Still, this does not seem as much of a hurdle. He parred the brutal final three holes and made some excellent par saves in his round. Carnoustie is considered one of the toughest courses in the world for a reason, and even with abundant sunshine and little wind early in the day, there were just 17 scores in the 60s. Given relatively benign conditions for the first seven hours of the day, it was a surprise no one went lower than Kisner's 66.
"He hit it good,'' said Russell Knox, a Scotsman playing in his home country who shot 73 while grouped with Woods for the first time. "He plowed his way around, which I expected him to do, and he was very conservative off the tee. It's kind of fun to watch him do that, to be honest.''
Woods birdied the first and fourth holes and missed the good opportunity at the sixth, a 5-footer. He saved par with a 10-footer at the ninth, then made his first bogey at the 10th when he drove into a fairway bunker.
He followed with a 40-footer for birdie at the 11th, but that turned out to be the last of his three bogeys. The three-putt at the 13th was his second bogey of the day. Then, despite having just an 8-iron to the par-5 14th, Woods left it right and into a greenside bunker, where it plugged; he was fortunate to get it out, but left himself a long birdie putt.
Another fairway bunker at the 15th led to his third bogey, and then Woods did well to preserve par over the closing three holes.
Woods said that the neck issue was not a big deal, that "as I got warmed up I felt all right.'' But it was significant to KT Tape in Utah, whose executives were pleasantly surprised on Thursday morning when the buzz made it to their offices before most had even come in for the day.
"We saw it explode like everyone else," said Russ Schleiden, the chief marketing officer for the company. "We had no heads up."
Schleiden said that, from what he could see, Woods used two 20-inch strips of the KT Tape to help his neck. The product claims to relax muscles, improve circulation and reduce pressure.
The private company, which Schleiden says has experienced sales growth every year since 2008, has seen an uptick in use for golfers. Most notably, J.B. Holmes, Michelle Wie and Bernhard Langer have used KT Tape on the course without any formal deal. Schleiden said the increase in use on the course has prompted the company to enter into negotiations with a golfer. That golfer, Schleiden assured, was not Woods.
Schleiden said he expects Thursday's use of the KT Tape by Tiger to be a "big boost" to the company's sales. The company saw a nice bump when Tom Brady wore KT Tape on his right hand for this past year's AFC Championship Game and when Mirai Nagasu became the first woman to land a triple axel at the 2018 Olympics while wearing the tape, he said. Those were unpaid deals.
"We often see the biggest sales bumps when athletes use us out of the blue," Schleiden said. "When it's organic and real."