LA JOLLA, Calif. - There were no guarantees. The last of the six doctors J.B. Holmes saw told him brain surgery probably would help him. Probably.

"Difficulty-wise, he said for brain surgery, it was only about a 1 out of 10,'' Holmes said. "That made me feel better. But it was still brain surgery. Scary at first."

Scary at first? Scary anytime.

The symptoms began last spring. John Bradley Holmes, the longest hitter on the PGA Tour, was so dizzy he had trouble simply standing. The diagnosis finally was Chiari malformation, which restricts the flow of spinal fluids.

Dr. George Jallo operated in September at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. On a beautiful Thursday alongside the Pacific, Holmes, happy but at the same time unhappy, played his first competitive golf in more than five months.

"It was nice to be back,'' said Holmes, who shot a 4-over-par 76 Thursday in the opening round of the $6 million Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. "But it wasn't a whole lot of fun to be playing bad."

Even though he said he would appreciate returning after the worry and the recovery?

"I'm really competitive,'' he said. "Yeah, I'm glad to be here, but I'm out here trying to win and play well, so it's very frustrating. I'm not going to be jumping around smiling and everything."

Then, standing there in his orange golf shirt with his sponsor, Yum - the KFC and Kentucky Derby people - on the front, 29-year-old J.B. Holmes stopped talking and reflected for just a moment.

"Like I said, I'm glad to be out here,'' he said. "It's just frustrating not to hit the ball a little bit better. But that's part of golf, and I'll improve and I'll work on it, and I'll be all right."

They took out a small part of Holmes' skull, an area smaller than a golf ball but larger than a quarter. They put in a small titanium plate. He's storing a chunk of the part of the skull that was removed in a closet at home.

"It's just a reminder that I'm very fortunate to be able to go through something like that and be able to come back and play,'' he said. "Just very fortunate to have this job and be able to play a game for a living. I never really thought I wasn't going to come back, but when you go through a big surgery like that, there's always a possibility that everything doesn't go right and I don't get back out here."

For a while after the operation, everything didn't go right.

Fluid began to seep around the scar. He was allergic to the glue used as a sealer, and a stitch came loose. A second surgery was required, and he was airlifted from Kentucky, where his parents live, to Johns Hopkins.

"After that,'' said Holmes, "everything's gone pretty much to plan. I'm about 85 percent on the rotation in the neck. It just takes a little longer than you would want. Four or five months I couldn't do a whole lot. I never had to sit still that long in my life."

He played in 16 events last year and won more than $1.3 million. The problems started at The Players Championship in May.

"I was standing over a putt and almost felt I was falling,'' he said.

Maybe the problems started even earlier. Sometimes, he recalls, his hands shook when he played basketball as a teen.

After surgery, Holmes did not take a full swing with a club until Dec. 1. A month later, the start of January, he began practicing on a course.

"I really haven't gotten enough rounds in,'' Holmes said. "Haven't been able to play as much as I wanted. I'm just trying to get in tournament mode."

There were four bogeys and no birdies. It would have been worse, Holmes said, had he not putted well. He made an 8-footer to save par after hitting his second shot on the 554-yard 18th into a pond that fronts the green.

"This is not the round I wanted,'' said Holmes. "I thought I would play a little bit better, but I'm not totally shocked."

Holmes began well enough, with a drive down the middle. After that, he hit tee balls and iron shots in varying directions.

As he walked the fairways and through the rough, spectators who knew about his medical difficulties offered shouts of welcome, met by waves from Holmes.

"It's been hard,'' said Holmes. "I'm just glad to have that behind me and start anew. Hopefully I'll get it going and play well this year."

Others have the same hope.