Pro-am gallery is kind to Tiger

Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Tiger Woods entered the room with little fanfare, and without the constant clicking of camera shutters.

His press conference lasted only 16 minutes. The PGA Tour required an admission ticket for the media, although that wasn’t necessary. There were 76 seats in the interview room, and 24 of them were empty.

On the golf course, Woods received warm applause when he was introduced on the first tee. The loudest cheer came at the end of his pro-am round Wednesday at Quail Hollow when he knocked in a 25-foot birdie putt before thousands of fans soaking up warm sunshine.

“I have to say, this feels a heck of a lot more normal than the Masters did,” Woods said.

The Quail Hollow Championship is another step toward Woods trying to get back to normal, at least with his golf.

Everything about this tournament was going to be different from Augusta National, where the world’s No. 1 player made his celebrated return to competition after five months of fallout from his extramarital affairs. Quail Hollow doesn’t have the magnitude of the stage, the size of the gallery or the level of media interest.

Even so, this is the first PGA Tour event Woods is playing where tickets were sold to the general public. The behavior was not much different from three weeks ago at the Masters, and Woods wasn’t surprised.

“I’ll tell you what, the people here have always been very gracious, very excited about this event,” Woods said. “These fans here really get into the event, and again, with a great field like this, I think it’ll be another great week.”

He caught a couple of jeers upon leaving the 18th green.