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Pay no attention to the scorecard. Don't sweat that Tiger Woods shot a 4-over 76. What matters for now is that Tiger, one of the most mesmerizing and marvelous athletes of all time, is back. The test of exactly what his return means for the future can wait.

For 522 days, the PGA Tour went on without its most important player competing in a single round. And on Thursday, in the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines -- his driver awful, his play off the tee brutal, his bad shots adding up -- don't matter one iota.

What does matter is that he returned.

Golf is a beautiful and fantastic game, and even now boasts great, young players the tour hopes can push it forward. But it is not the same without Woods.

It does not matter that he hasn't won a major since 2008, the U.S. Open in a memorable playoff -- also at Torrey Pines. It does not matter he is hardly a real threat in any tournament he enters. What does matter is that when he does play, even badly like Thursday, there's an electricity and relevance the sport rarely enjoys without him.

That is not to say Tiger is finished as a real threat. I don't believe that for one moment. I believe, someday, he will be in the thick of things in a Masters or U.S. Open or PGA Championship or Open Championship and, if he comes out on top, a great weight will lift and glimmers of the old Tiger will at times spring up.

Thursday was merely Step One to that day. Golf, brutal and difficult as it can be, is a funny game, with a strange relationship with those who end up defining it. Jack Nicklaus won his final major, another Masters, at age 46 in 1986. It had been a majors drought for the aging Golden Bear six years in the making. And yet he broke it.

Tom Watson nearly won the British Open when he was 59, giving away another major long after anyone saw him as anything more than honorary piece of the furniture, on the final hole and the playoff that followed.

So there is time, despite a nine-year gap -- at least partially defined by a scandal of his own making -- since Woods' last major title. For Tiger and all of us longing to see him win at least one more. The issue is whether he can reclaim some of that mental toughness that once made him so historically formidable.

The first step is returning, so Tiger's first round in La Jolla is worth celebrating. The next is kicking the rust off and honing his game. On the down side, Woods was awful off the tee. But he also scrambled well, his short game salvaging what could have been a nightmare round, and a final birdie to finish at 18 and the day gives him after nearly two years a strong golf note on which to ruminate before he gets back to it Friday.

Vegas, too, has liked what it's seen. This past August, his odds to win the Masters in April were 60-1. They're now 20-1. Vegas gets it: Golf takes time, but the fact Tiger is back in the first place is a big, big step forward.

So while Tiger didn't play well Thursday, it doesn't matter. There will be a someday -- that moment when he does win a tournament that matters -- and Thursday's 4-over will be looked back at as the beginning of that.