Tiger Plays Torrey ...

... in a cart. Wuss.

I take that back. I occasionally use a cart, and not because I'm recovering from knee surgery, but because I'm fat and lazy. So I guess Tiger is one up on me there. Make that two up.

At any rate, Tiger Woods played a practice round at Torrey Pines yesterday, his first  round of golf since the knee surgery. He didn't complete the 18th hole because camera-toting fans and/or media were waiting around the green, according to the AP report.

Torrey Pines has been closed since May 21 in advance of next week's U.S. Open, so Woods and coach Hank Haney were the only people on the course.

“It went well,” Haney said in a telephone interview. “He hit the ball really well. It was definitely a positive day.”

There's been talk that Torrey Pines has been set up to be a little easier - or a little less punitive - than some other recent U.S. Open venues. Haney's comments may call that into question:

“In the deep stuff, it's a sand wedge, maybe a 9-iron at the most,” Haney said. “We were messing around on No. 10 and he tried to hit a 5-wood. Even when the grass is deep, if you open the face and hit a cut, you might scoot it 150 yards. It's quite a sight to see Tiger 165 yards from the pin with a 5-wood.”

The U.S. Open now uses graduated depths of rough from the fairway, and Haney said Woods could reach the green from the lower cuts. But anything in the rough above the hole was virtually impossible to get close.

“The greens were so fast,” he said. “In the 30 years of being on tour and teaching players, that was the fastest I've ever seen greens this far out. They were putting beautifully.”