Couples is booming, Woods struggling

Fred Couples’ booming tree shots has helped him to build a one-shot lead.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Fred Couples made four birdies in his opening six holes, shot 5-under 65, and golf finally felt fun.

Tiger Woods couldn’t hit the green with a wedge, struggled to shoot even par, and he finally looked human.

The Arnold Palmer Invitational delivered a few surprises Thursday, none bigger than the 48-year-old Couples booming tee shots and making a risky escape from the trees the one time he found trouble.

He was atop the leaderboard among early starters, one shot ahead of 49-year-old Tom Lehman. Jim Furyk and Ken Duke were another shot behind, while Pebble Beach winner Steve Lowery was in the group at 69.

“This doesn’t make me the guy to beat,” Couples said. “If I can play like that, it makes it a lot easier. When you birdie four out of the first six holes, there’s not much that can bother you.”

He wound up with his best score at Bay Hill since a 63 in 1992, the year he won this tournament and was No. 1 in the world.

Woods is the world’s No. 1 player now, having won every tournament he has played since September. It sure didn’t look that way after a birdie on the opening hole. He missed one green with a pitching wedge, another green with a sand wedge, and settled for a 70 that left him five shots behind, but not in awful shape.

He didn’t make a lot of putts, and Woods attributed that to each green having a different speed.

But he took some of the blame.

“You had to make adjustments on the fly,” he said. “It would have helped if I hit more greens. I never gave myself a chance to make putts. I missed two greens with a pitching wedge and a sand wedge. I don’t ever do that.”

Couples woke up early Thursday and began visualizing his round, figuring out where would be his best chances at birdie. He didn’t see too many of those holes in his head, but it was a different story on the golf course.

Playing aggressively with a driver he could trust, Couples rarely had more than wedge into the green, and the suspect condition of the putting surfaces — they are recovering from a worm disease — didn’t bother him in the least.

“I’m not saying they’re bad,” Couples said. “But I think I’m a good putter when they’re not ideal.”

After hitting some 30 yards over the green on the par-3 14th and saving par, the guy once known as “Boom Boom” ripped another tee shot over the corner on the 15th for a wedge into about 10 feet for his fourth birdie. His only bogey came on the par-3 17th with a shot into the bleachers.

And he almost dropped one at the end of his round.

Surrounded by trees right of the eighth fairway, where a pond guards the front of the green, Couples looked cool as ever. He studied the top of the trees, looked to the right of them, under them and out to the fairway, the whole time studying his options as if he were admiring a piece of art.