Tiger Woods and 15-year-old son Charlie ran off five straight birdies on the back nine as a 13-under 59 gave them a share of the lead in the PNC Championship in Woods’ first competition since back surgery in September.

Woods said he scheduled that surgery – the sixth on his lower back in the last 10 years – to be sure he recovered in time to play with his son for the fifth straight year.

This is the first time they have shared the lead after the opening round, joined by the last two champions – Bernhard Langer and son Jason, and Vijay Singh and son Qass.

READ: Tiger Woods’ immediate goal: Keep his son from beating him in golf for 18 holes

Woods hit an array of good shots, including a wedge to inches on the short par-four seventh, but otherwise downplayed his game by suggesting he still had a lot of rust.

This was more about spending a brisk day at the Ritz-Carlton Club Orlando with his son, a sophomore at Benjamin School in North Palm Beach.

His daughter, Sam, caddied for her father for the second straight year, while their mother, Elin, was among those in the gallery in a tournament that is all about family.

“We’re trying to pull off each and every shot for each other, and to ham-and-egg,” Woods said. “And I think we did that great pretty much the entire day.

“We picked each other up, which was great, and Charlie made pretty much most of the putts today.”

It helped playing in the same group with former British Open champion Justin Leonard and his son, Luke, a senior and team-mate with Charlie at Benjamin School.

Langer extended his astonishing record on the PGA Tour Champions this year by winning for an 18th consecutive season. He and his son made eight birdies in a nine-hole stretch in the middle of the round, and they had an eagle on the 14th hole.

Singh and his son, who won this event in 2022, shot 28 on the back nine.

“There’s so many teams in the hunt,” Langer said. “It’s anybody’s game that is within three or four shots of the leaders, which is most of the field.”

Padraig Harrington and son Paddy, and Tom Lehman and son Sean, were at 12-under 60. The Lehmans looked to be leading when they were around the green on the par-five 18th, but then it took them four shots to get down in the scramble format, taking bogey.

Tiger Woods turns 49 at the end of the month and he has one pressing goal that relates to his golf. He wants to prolong that inevitable day when his son beats him over 18 holes.

They will be playing with — not against — each other this week for the fifth straight year at the PNC Championship, a 36-hole tournament so meaningful to them and everyone else in the field that Woods was determined to play for the first time since a sixth back surgery in September.

Word got out, however, that 15-year-old Charlie finally beat his 15-time major champion dad.

JUST IN: Tiger Woods walks 18 holes in PNC Championship pro-am

“He beat me for nine holes,” Woods said, an important clarification to him. “He has yet to beat me for 18 holes. That day is coming. I’m just prolonging it as long as I possibly can.”

As for the details, Woods talked about the typical banter between them and how much fun they have. It was clear he was not going to share the hole-by-hole of the loss.

Winning is a goal, but not the priority, at the PNC Championship. It’s a happy end of the year for all 20 teams at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando, an event that pairs the winners of majors or The Players Championship with a family member.

Woods played five tournaments this year and completed only one of them, making the cut at the Masters for a record 24th consecutive year. He had to play 23 holes on Friday at Augusta National in a raging wind, posting a 72 for his best round of the year. He followed that with an 82, an example of ups and downs from a player whose body has been wracked with injury.

“I’m not going to feel what I’m used to feeling,” Woods said. “The recovery has gotten to be the hardest part. But over the course of rounds, weeks, months, it gets harder.”

He missed the cut in the next three majors and then had surgery on his lower back in September to alleviate some of the spasms he had been feeling. The timing of the surgery was related to the PNC Championship.

Woods chose not to play the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas two weeks ago, saying he wasn’t competitively sharp enough to handle Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas among a 20-man field of players from the top 40 in the world.

This might as well be his fifth major because he plays with his son.

“That was one of the reasons why I had the surgery done earlier, so that hopefully I could give myself the best chance to be with Charlie and be able to play,” Woods said. “I’m not competitive right now, but I just want to be able to have the experience again. This has always been one of the bigger highlights of the year for us as a family, and now we get to have that moment together again.”

The surgery was on his back, but Woods said his right leg, which was mangled in a February 2021 car crash outside Los Angeles, remains the biggest physical obstacle.

Even so, he chose to walk the pro-am on Friday instead of riding a cart, which is allowed for players because the tournament is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour Champions.

Team Woods has yet to win since they began playing in 2020. They finished second the following year by two shots to John Daly and his college son, when Charlie was 12. He is adding inches to his height every year, filling out and pounding the golf ball. Woods plans to rely on his son’s tee shots in the scramble format.

They will play the opening round Saturday with Justin Leonard and son Luke, who goes to The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach with Charlie and is going to Villanova next year.

Charlie Woods went through U.S. Open qualifying for the first time this year and failed to advance out of the first stage. He qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills but didn’t come close to making it to match play.

Woods appreciated that his son is under a spotlight few others his age face.

“I was always reminding him, ‘Just be you.’ Charlie is Charlie. Yes, he’s my son. He’s going to have my last name and it’s going to be part of his core. But I just want him to be just himself and be his own person. That’s what we can only do,” Woods said.

“I always encourage it, for him to carve his own name, carve his own path and have his own journey,” he said. “I think he’s doing a great job. In this day and age where everyone is basically media, with all the phones, being constantly filmed and constantly people watching, that’s just part of his generation, and that’s part of the world that he has to maneuver through.”