TIGER WOODS’ ascent back to No. 1 took a 248-spot jump in the latest world golf rankings after his first tournament in more than 15 months.

    Woods struggled at times at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas over the weekend and finished 15th out of 17 golfers. That was still enough to move Woods to 650th in official world golf rankings released Monday.

    He has held the No. 1 ranking for a record 683 weeks in his career and was last atop the rankings in March 2014. He was ranked 257th in his final tournament, the Wyndham Championship in August 2015, before his layoff that included two back procedures.

    Woods made 24 birdies to go along with six double bogeys and eight bogeys as he finished four-under par at the Hero World Challenge.

    “Getting back to this point is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime,” Woods said after the tournament. “The pain issues that I had, it was rough. … Quite frankly there were some pretty dire times where I just couldn’t move.”

    (SD-Agencies)