Tiger Woods said Wednesday during his pre-tournament press conference at the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational that he's ... trending. It might be the most overused word in golf, but in this case and with this player, it's actually true.

Woods shot a 4-under 66 on Thursday in his return to Firestone Country Club after a four-year absence from playing this event. It's his lowest opening round at a PGA Tour event in three years, a stat that makes plenty of sense considering he's won here eight times.

Woods started on the back nine on Thursday and went out in 3-under 32 after pouring in putts from 4 feet, 10 feet and 50 feet, a monstrous bomb on the par-4 18th. Perhaps even more incredibly, Woods hit six of seven fairways (!) and eight of nine greens in regulation. He actually gained strokes against the field off the tee and looked like he had not, you know, been away from this tournament for four years because of injury.

The back nine was much of the same but in a different way. Woods was far more wild off the tee, but he hit strong recovery shots and kept his round together with a suddenly-smoking putter. Over the first few holes he played on the day, Woods did not putt it that well. His misses were bad, and he didn't lag the ball particularly well.

The opposite was true over his final nine holes -- the front nine on the course. Woods poured in a pair of birdies from distance and gained nearly two strokes on the field with his putter. He also hit myriad recovery shots that belong on YouTube among the innumerable vintage recovery shot highlights. He kind of had to given that he hit one fairway on his back nine.

It wasn't among his handful of birdies on the day, but after hanging a drive way out to the right on the par-4 eighth hole, Woods hit a swerving, cut iron onto the green and easily two-putted for par. We talk a lot about whatever "vintage Tiger" means; to me, that is vintage Tiger.

"I kind of fought out a score today, which was good," Woods told Golf Channel. "I didn't really have it today with my ball-striking, but I hung in there, missed the ball in the proper spots all day and made a couple of putts. I putted well today."

His only bogey came at the par-4 ninth to close out what was an otherwise terrific round.

So Tiger ends his first day back at Firestone T8 at the time he finished, three back of leader Kyle Stanley, who shot 63 on Thursday.

It wasn't a perfect performance, but it didn't need to be. There are still 54 holes left. The most encouraging part of the round was that when it went sideways -- and it often did on his second nine -- Woods was able to scrape together pars. He's probably the best that's ever lived at that, and it's likely the path to win No. 80.

A 66 at Firestone wasn't exactly unexpected given that Woods currently ranks No. 6 on the PGA Tour in strokes gained overall, is coming off that top 10 at The Open and has owned this tournament over the years. The question is whether he can string together four days of this. It's odd to say that consistency (of all things) is Woods' biggest deterrent to winning after he built a career on that very characteristic. But that's where we're at right now.

Woods knows that, and he also knows that the next three days will present probably the best chance he's had all season to grab his first victory in five years.