DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Tiger Woods withdrew from the Dubai Desert Classic on Friday, citing back spasms.

The withdrawal followed an opening-round 77 in what likely would have been his second consecutive tournament missing the cut. Last week he failed to advance at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.

“Tiger Woods went into a spasm in his lower back fairly late (Thursday) night, got treatment done early (Friday) morning for 31/2 hours but can’t get it out,” said Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg. “He says it’s not the nerve but back spasms, and he can’t get the spasms to calm down. He can move around but he can’t make a full rotation in his swing.”

Steinberg, speaking with tigerwoods.com, indicated this was possibly a short-term problem.

“The fact that he feels that it’s not the nerve pain, that’s very encouraging for him,” Steinberg said.

After a first round without a birdie, Woods said he was fine even though he appeared to be uncomfortable at times.

“I wasn’t in pain at all. I was just trying to hit shots and I wasn’t doing a very good job,” Woods said.

The optimism surrounding his return after nearly 18 months was soon replaced by reality when he shot an opening-round 76 at Torrey Pines and followed with a par 72.

Woods seemed to have trouble hitting fairways and consistently missed putts that used to be routine. But his short game seemed to be fairly sharp.

After the Genesis tournament in two weeks in Los Angeles, Woods is scheduled to compete in the Honda Classic, the start of the Florida stretch of the PGA Tour schedule. The Honda in Palm Beach Gardens is about 30 minutes from Woods’ homed.

• Shortly after Tiger Woods withdrew, the Dubai Desert Classic was hit by strong winds that brought down trees and forced the second round to be suspended.

Martin Kaymer and Rafael Cabrera-Bello, tied at 4 under after both shooting 69s, had the lowest scores after two full rounds. But George Coetzee was at 9 under after eight holes and the overnight leader, Sergio Garcia, was at 8 under.

PGA: Brendan Steele and Byeong Hun An shared the lead in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, while Justin Thomas cooled off in the desert.

An made a 35-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th for a 5-under 66, matching Steele at 10-under 132 at TPC Scottsdale. Steele had a 67.

Thomas had a 73 to miss the cut by a stroke. He was coming off a two-week break after sweeping the Hawaii events – and shooting 59 at Waialae – for his second and third victories of the season.

Defending champion Hideki Matsuyama was a stroke back at 9 under along with first-round leader Matt Kuchar, Martin Laird and Sung Kang.

The crowd of 169,004 broke the Friday record of 160,415 set last year.