Holmes and Allenby share lead at Sawgrass

Associated Press

Ponte Verda Beach, FLA.

Tiger Woods hit one tee shot that went 190 yards and barely reached the fairway. He hit another shot smack into the middle of a sawgrass plant, the ball only seen by standing over it and suspended a few inches off the ground.

Both times, he scratched out a par and wound up with a 2-under 70 in The Players Championship.

That’s usually not a bad score to start out this tournament.

Just not on Thursday.

J.B. Holmes and Robert Allenby shared the lead at 66, which didn’t give them much separation. Twenty players were separated by two shots at the top of the leaderboard.

Conditions were so benign, and greens were so soft, that more than half the field broke par on the Stadium Course. And that’s not all. The 36 players who shot in the 60s were the most for the opening round since 1994, and the average score (71.1) was the lowest in 17 years in the first round.

“I only made three birdies today,” said Woods, who didn’t make a bogey until the final hole when his 5-wood took a hard hop into the water. “I had myself a few chances in there to make some putts, make some birdies, and didn’t really do it.”

Masters champion Phil Mickelson shot the same score, in much more conventional fashion.

He felt about the same way.

“Two under is not what I wanted today,” Mickelson said. “But there is a round in the mid 60s. If I can shoot that tomorrow, I’ll get right back in it.”

Holmes played bogey-free for his 66. The only time he came close to a bogey was at No. 10, when he hit over the green and did well to chip to 15 feet before making the par putt.

“It was a fun day, one of those rounds where everything was going pretty good,” Holmes said. “It’s kind of one of those rounds where it’s not easy, but it felt pretty easy.”

Allenby played in the afternoon, when the breeze kicked up, and only had one lapse with a three-putt on the par-3 eighth.

“Greens were a bit slow out there, definitely quite soft after the rain that we’ve had the last couple of days,” Allenby said. “It definitely made it very accessible, some of those flags.”