LOS ANGELES >> Golf is really going to miss Tiger Woods when he’s gone.

But he’s not gone yet!

No, the man is still out here stockpiling triumphs. Still out here proving something even when we assume there isn’t a thing left to prove. Still hitting bombs so far down the fairway that members of the gallery kept having to ask one another Thursday: “Is that Tiger’s?”

Write it down: Woods’ latest achievement is Round 1 of the Genesis Invitational.

No, the tournament isn’t over yet, but it’s already had a happy ending: Woods’ three consecutive birdies to close the opening round with a 2-under-par 69, which left him beaming and tied for 26th, five shots behind co-leaders Max Homa and Keith Mitchell.

What the golf gods are saying is there’s a chance. Still a possibility that Woods might actually do what he said he’s come to do: “To get a W.”

Because it turns out the game’s greatest ambassador remains more than an ambassador. He’s still a great player, and maybe its greatest competitor — even at well-traveled 47 years old and less than 100% healthy, recovering from plantar fasciitis and the bad ankle injury he sustained in his February 2021 car crash on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

While his gait at times betrayed some discomfort, Woods remains a world-class clinician, and an incontrovertible fighter and that’s why a substantial surge of people tuned in — or showed up — to a golf tournament on a Thursday.

The diverse few-thousand-member army that traipsed around Riviera Country Club’s layout was there primarily to watch Woods – who was part of a supergroup that included Rory McIlroy (tied for seventh at 4 under) and Justin Thomas (tied for 14th at 3 under) — in action for the first time in seven months. It was also his first appearance at an “official” PGA Tour event since he played the 2022 British Open in July.

After following him and his enthusiastic welcome-back party for 18 holes at Riviera — where Woods is an uncharacteristic 0 for 11 — I’ll appreciate having those familiar variations of “Tiger” chants ringing in my ears for the next few days: “We love you, Tiger!” “You da man, Tiger!” “Tigerrrrr!” (Also: “Eldrick!” and “Big Cat!”)

Woods registered the commotion, but he tried not to, he said.

“I didn’t really look up as much. I probably should have, but I didn’t,” he said. “I was trying to calm myself down all day, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing out here because I haven’t played.”

He might have another few days to soak up the love, because he’s set himself up to make the cut. After icing and treatment Thursday night, Woods and his pals will start on the 10th tee at 7:24 a.m. today.

It’s hard to imagine he’ll actually catch the red-hot Homa; the Burbank native already won the Farmers Insurance Open (in La Jolla) and the Fortinet Championship (in Napa) and could become the first player to win three PGA Tour events in the state of California in the same season since Tom Watson in 1980. And the first to do it in any state since 2013 — when Woods won three in Florida.

Fans can’t count him all the way out, but they can count on seeing Woods put up a fight at the tournament that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, whether they’re watching it through the viewfinder of their cellphone or content to experience it in the moment, with just their own eyes.

(The number of cameras pointed at Woods on each swing Thursday was the most I’d seen in ... nine days, since it seemed everyone at Crypto.com Arena beside Nike founder Phil Knight had a device trained on LeBron James as he set the NBA record for most career points scored.)

However fans opt to relive the day, it was a doozy.

Woods went bunker-to-fairway-to-bunker before saving bogey with a gutsy 8-footer on No. 10 that left him even for the round.

And an errant tee shot on the 12th led to another bogey and it seemed as though Woods would have trouble making it out of the first couple of rounds, as if he might have to contemplate if battling uphill would be worth the trouble — especially if his body started barking.

But with temperatures starting to dip as the breeze picked up, something started to thaw with three consecutive pars before Woods hit his tee shot to within 5 feet to set up a birdie on the par-3 16th, his birdie there evoking a heartfelt chorus of “Thank you, Tiger!” from the gallery.

When he sank a birdie from 25 feet on the par-5 17th, his game face gave way to a grin. And then after he outdrove McIlroy on No. 18 to set up the 7-foot birdie putt to close the round, his smile took on some of the shape of Michael Jordan’s iconic shrug, as if to ask: “Can you believe this stuff?”

Whether it was that or a sense of relief — “I didn’t want to be the idiot host to miss it right in front of everybody after I just went birdie-birdie,” he said — it was a grand finale, for a first round. For Woods’ first round in a seven-month span during which he was missed mightily.