Tiger Woods climbed the leader board on Sunday at the Hero World Challenge with a final-round 68. On Monday, he made an even bigger jump in the Official World Golf Ranking.
With a T-9 in the 18-man event in the Bahamas, Woods moved up 531 spots. The 14-time major champ is now ranked No. 668 after entering the week at No. 1,199. It's a similar position to where Woods finished 2016 (No. 652) in the OWGR.
Woods shot rounds of 69-68-75-68 in his first start in 10 months. It was also his first tournament since undergoing a fourth back surgery in April.
“I’m excited,” Woods said on Sunday. “This is the way I’ve been playing at home and when I came out here and played, I was playing very similar to this. Not quite hitting it as far, but I had the adrenaline going and overall I’m very pleased.”
Rickie Fowler won the event to move up two spots in the ranking to No. 7. Fowler entered the final round seven shots behind Charley Hoffman, but shot 61 to win by four.
For Woods, it was his first top 10 since a T-10 at the 2015 Wyndham Championship. However, the Hero is not an official PGA Tour event, and again, it only had a field of 18 players, albeit many of the world's best, including eight of the top nine in the OWGR. Woods beat current World No. 1 Dustin Johnson by eight shots.
Woods holds the record for both overall weeks at No. 1 in the OWGR (683) and consecutive weeks in the top spot (281). He was last No. 1 in May of 2014.
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