"It is my hometown. All my friends and family are out here every year, so to see them is very special for me."
This will be Woods' eighth appearance in Los Angeles as a professional and 10th including his amateur days. His best showings were in 1998 and 1999 when he finished second.
Woods could also reclaim the world No 1 ranking from Vijay Singh by finishing fourth or better at the Riviera Country Club.
Woods took three weeks off after winning in San Diego to post his 41st PGA Tour victory.
He is ready to get back into the flow of playing regularly on the tour and let the rankings fall where they may.
"The No 1 ranking is really not that important to me. It is winning. Winning is how I got to be No 1 in the world.
"I have won three tournaments of late. Hopefully I can continue that trend."
During his time off, Woods went skiing, attended college basketball games at his Alma Mater Stanford and grew a beard.
"It's called boredom," he joked of the goatee.
Woods' change in appearance coincides with the much-discussed alterations to his golf swing. Woods says the swing changes are starting to pay off.
"It is a day-to-day thing," Woods said. "You know shot-by-shot. You do get on rolls but still each day is a little bit different than the others."
The six-time player of the year also talked Wednesday about wanting to become a father and start a family with his new wife, Elin. "I would like to be a father soon," he said. "I am going to be a young father. Age wise, I am not so young, but mentally I am.
"It is something that we would love to have happen. You know it is about the timing.
"I want a boy first then a girl," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It would be cool to have a son one day, and if he chooses to play and he's good enough to get out there. That stuff's pretty sweet, to play with your son, like Jack (Nicklaus) and Gary (Player) did on tour."
Two-time defending Los Angeles champion Mike Weir is the highest-ranked golfer (6th) in the competition behind Woods.
Weir is trying to do something that Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer couldn't and become the first in Los Angeles history to win the event three consecutive years.
"I have thought about this one (three straight)," Weir said. "This would be pretty cool to win three times in a row here.
"This course has a lot of history and looking down the list the number of guys that have won a couple of times in a row is pretty impressive."
Like Woods, Canada's Weir has also been fine-tuning his game and it showed last week where he made a impressive late charge on the final day to try and catch eventual winner Phil Mickelson at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
"Playing the last few weeks in a row helped me get into my rhythm with my putting. I just starting feeling it a little bit last week compared to other weeks," Weir said.
Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els have decided to skip the Los Angeles event and the ranks got even thinner on Wednesday when world No 5 Retief Goosen overslept and missed his Pro-Am tee time and was disqualified.