Woods Paired With Johnson, Day at Farmers Insurance Open

By ESPN

Tiger Woods will get to see how his game measures up off the tee against two of golf's longest hitters when he plays the first two rounds of the Farmers Insurance Open with Dustin Johnson and Jason Day.

Woods, 41, who will make his first official start on the PGA Tour in 17 months, will begin play Thursday on Torrey Pines' tougher South Course -- where he won the 2008 U.S. Open -- at 1:40 p.m. ET (10:40 a.m. local). The trio will play Torrey's North course on Friday for the second round, starting on the 10th tee at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Johnson is the reigning U.S. Open champion and ranked third in the world. Day, who won the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open, is ranked No. 1.

Woods is No. 663 after missing most of the last 18 months following two back surgeries.

After the 36-hole cut, the entire field plays the South Course on the weekend.

"I'm excited about getting started with the season,'' Woods said. "I've missed playing. I've missed competing.''

Woods, who has won at Torrey Pines eight times as a pro, has played just last month's Hero World Challenge since 2015. He finished 15th in the 18-player field in the Bahamas.

Torrey will offer a much tougher test than the Albany course, where he led the field in birdies.

"I know that he's very motivated to come out and play well,'' Day said. "I think he's excited. Who wouldn't be excited to play after 17 months off? That's a long time.''

Phil Mickelson will play the first two rounds with Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker.

McIlroy Won't Return Until March

Rory McIlroy is set to spend the next month recovering from a rib injury that saw him withdraw from events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The world No. 2 revealed on Shane Bacon's The Clubhouse podcast that he's targeting a return to competition at the WGC-Mexico Championship in the first weekend of March.

"I'd like to sort of ease my way in gently, so Mexico is the perfect time to return," McIlroy said.

"It's four rounds, there's no cut, I can see how everything feels. I have a week off after that, so Mexico, all signs point toward Mexico being the one where I could come back to and be 100 percent comfortable at. Hopefully it works out that way."

McIlroy was originally scheduled to play the Genesis Open in California and the Honda Classic in Florida.

"I can't even run at the minute because if my feet hit the ground hard at all, the vibration in my rib cage sort of hurts," McIlroy said.

The Northern Irishman thinks he may have injured his rib in December as he tried new equipment and made adjustments to his swing.

"I think the combination of trying to make that small tweak in my swing and obviously hitting a lot of balls, and hitting a lot of drivers as well, making a lot of hard swings testing drivers," McIlroy said.

"The muscles said basically, 'All right, we're tired, we don't want to work anymore.' And then that puts stress on the joints, and the joint was like, 'I don't like this, either,' and then the rib took the brunt of it."