CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Unwittingly, Tiger Woods might have found the best possible way to work his way back into the good graces of the public consciousness.

Meet a few hundred of them. Up close and personal.

The world No. 1 spent much of Thursday flitting among the fans, moving the gallery ropes out of the way, herding folks around to give him a look at the green and trying to keep from falling into dead last among the players in the morning wave at the Quail Hollow Championship.

Hey, he promised to be more humble, right?

Looking very much like a guy who hadn't fired many live rounds from the chamber over the past five months, Woods played a round so ugly, he was quick to add it to the litany of things he's done recently that he'd like us to forget about. His 2-over 74 was so ghastly, he didn't bother going to the driving range to straighten out what had masqueraded as his golf swing.

"Hell with it," he said, heading off to the locker room. The result was hellish enough, to be sure.

Making only his second start of the year, Woods was even more erratic than he was three weeks ago at the Masters, when he at least managed to bust par every day despite the residue from his self-imposed exile. His opening round in Charlotte was his sloppiest effort since he blew up 51 weeks ago in the final group Sunday at the Players Championship, when he shot 73, mostly with smoke and mirrors, and fell out of contention before 30 minutes had elapsed.

For much of the morning, Woods looked determined to do the same thing in reverse -- this time, he blew up at the beginning, not the end.

"It wasn't the driver, it was everything," he said. "I had a two-way miss going, which was great, all day."

That would be sarcasm, for those who are not fluent in self-deprecation. But it meant that fans lining either side of the fairway had a great chance of getting an eyeful of America's most-watched athlete, who again was well-received. Although, given the way Woods was suffering already, they could have heckled him mercilessly and he might not have noticed.

"Well, I had my head down struggling," Woods said. "I was dropping balls out of hazards and finding balls in trees, so I had my own issues out there."

To his credit, Woods has pledged to behave with more civility during and after his rounds, and Thursday gave him ample, multiple opportunities to blow his cork. Even after he whacked balls into the water on consecutive holes, he never uttered a word, profane or otherwise -- and bet your wallet plenty of eyes and ears were pointed his direction.

For a guy who has played golf at perhaps two degrees under the boiling point for the past three decades, it must have been hard to keep the steam from emanating from every orifice. Then again, maybe it was the unplanned baths that kept him cooled off.

He hit exactly one fairway in regulation on his front nine (beginning on No. 10), and as one wise guy noted, he dropped his first F-bomb of the day on the 16th when he yanked another drive dead left and screamed ... "Fore." Fans were dodging his sideways shots all day, including the 16th, where his yanked approach shot sailed over the greenside gallery, caromed off a steep slope behind them and bounced dead toward the green.

"It that had been me, it would have hit the cart path and bounced into the lake," said a middle-aged guy with a beer in hand, having survived the scramble as Woods' ball sailed over his noggin.

Alas, Woods soon began hitting balls in places where you can't get a lucky bounce. On the tricky 17th, his eighth hole of the day, Woods hit one of his poorest shots in recent memory, a horrid pull-hook into the water that missed the semi-island green by several yards. He had to take a drop and hit his third shot from the women's tee and made a double-bogey.

Worse, on his next swing, a driver on the 18th, he yanked a ball into the creek along the left side of the fairway and made another bogey, holing a testy 3-footer just to break 40. After 10 holes, Woods was 4 over and tied for 72nd place among the 78 guys on the course in the morning wave. Parker McLachlin, who shot 88 and had a 12 on the seventh hole, was keeping Woods from scraping the bottom of the scoreboard barrel.

To think that Woods actually began the day with a birdie, after a perfect drive in the fairway, too. Then an interminable two hours passed before Woods drove it in the short grass again.

"Yeah, it actually felt pretty good after that start," he said. "Fortunately, my second hole, I hit a quick hook, then the next hole I hit another hook off the tee, and I kind of stuck a couple in the ground after that, too."

More sarcasm. Not that there wasn't plenty to go around. On the 15th hole, Woods sliced his drive into some dense shrubbery, although the type of flora wasn't exactly clear. The following conversation actually took place as Woods executed a low-flying punch shot under the branches.

"What kind of tree is that?" one media guy asked.

"Holly bush," answered another.

"Isn't that the name of one of his girlfriends?" the first guy said.

Hey, the round was so ugly, we had to find sources of amusement somewhere.

A day earlier, after his pro-am round, Woods described his 4-under 68 as "Scratchy," with a nod to one of his favorite TV programs, The Simpsons. Then Thursday must have been "Itchy." After all, he kept hitting drives into trees and bushes and beating himself over the head about it.

Woods couldn't put the day behind him fast enough. After all, he's had enough misery in his life lately, so no there was need to dwell on an irredeemably crappy round by grinding out answers on the range.

An insurance company would have written it off as a total loss. He hit four fairways in regulation, exactly half the greens and had no idea where the ball was going. Woods, on the other hand, was headed in a straight line to somewhere else, in a hurry.

"I'm just going to go hang it up today," Woods said, "and come back out tomorrow."