Mamaroneck, June 13 :

The US Open didn’t start on Monday, it only felt that way. Tiger Woods caught the gallery by surprise when he teed off for a practice round a half-hour late and on the other side of the golf course, but there was no mistaking the buzz that followed him through a corridor of fans and onto the first tee at Winged Foot.

“People were genuinely glad to see him, and so was I,” said Jeff Sluman, who played the front nine with Woods, Charles Howell III and Bo Van Pelt.

It was the first time Woods has been at any golf tournament since Sunday afternoon at the

Masters, where his putter failed him and he wound up in a tie for third. He returns from the longest layoff of his career — nine weeks — brought on by the May 3 death of his father, knowing what makes this major so special for all players is that it traditionally ends on Father’s Day.

There is big excitement whenever Woods is at a major, particularly the US Open and PGA Championship because they move around the country, and this was no different. Fans lined up from tee to green, most of them holding out digital cameras, and fans scurried after him as he went into the clubhouse and later to the parking lot.

Masters champion Phil Mickelson will have a say in that, coming into Winged Foot with a green jacket and high hopes of adding the second leg of the Grand Slam, not to mention his third straight major. Also emerging as a renewed threat is Vijay Singh after he won the Barclays Classic at nearby Westchester Country Club on Sunday.