Tiger Woods during a practice session, in Ohio, on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Akron: Just after the sun came up Tuesday and painted the sky orange, Tiger Woods walked across the practice range to the first tee at Firestone Country Club with no sign of a limp, leaving footprints from a pair of prototype Nike shoes on the wet grass.

Those were the first steps back on a road full of questions. Now that Woods, 35, is officially back after missing three months with an injured knee, his performance at the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational will show how much game he brought with him for a stretch of important events.

He said at a news conference Tuesday that he feels great and missing the last three months had been his own fault. He said he came back too quickly after injuring the knee in the Masters because he had wanted badly to play in The Players Championship in May.

“It was minor,” he said of the injury, “but I came back and played. If I had just sat out another week or two, I’d probably have been playing through this stretch. But I wanted to come back and play and made it worse.”

Woods said he considered returning to action last week, but this time followed his doctors’ advice about being patient. “And I’m glad I did,” he said. “Because I feel great now.”

This week, he will show if he is ready to contend, or if he’s here at an event he has won seven times just to kick off the rust to prepare for next week’s PGA Championship. Despite all the curiosity, when Woods struck his first tee shot in public at 7 a.m., his gallery consisted of the grounds crew mowing the fairway in front of him, and a half-dozen reporters. He struck a high 3-wood that drew into the light rough left of the fairway, and he and smiled as he walked down the fairway with his swing instructor Sean Foley by his side and his boyhood friend Bryon Bell on his bag.

Woods said Bell will caddie for him until he finds a permanent replacement for his long-time caddie Steve Williams, whom Woods fired last month after more than 12 years working together. It was a move that took nearly everyone in golf by surprise, including Williams, who reacted angrily that he had wasted the last two and a half years being loyal to Woods.

On Tuesday, Woods shrugged off the controversy by saying, “I just thought it was time for a change.” He said he had told Williams in person and the conversation was difficult but went cordially. He gave no timetable for picking his permanent replacement.

As he reacquainted himself with Firestone South, Woods was smiling and laughing as he went along, obviously in a light mood. As he was walking to the tee, Woods asked a reporter how his knee-replacement was progressing, and the reporter replied it was fine except for the security pat-downs at airports when it sets off the screening alarms.

Woods said, “The screw in my knee sets off the alarms at security when I go through.”

Tiger Woods flies commercial?

“Sometimes on the longer hauls, ” he said.

NYT News Service