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Five top crowded leaderboard

2001 tournament winners Phil Mickelson and Mark Calcavecchia each fired six-under-par 66s Thursday to join a five-way tie for the lead after one round of the Bay Hill Invitational.

Dennis Paulson, Steve Pate and New Zealand's Grant Waite also paced the field at six-under, while Scott McCarron, Jeff Sluman and Lee Janzen stand one shot back at minus-five.

1996 winner Paul Goydos and 1999 champ Tim Herron shot four-under 68s to finish the opening 18 alongside David Frost, Craig Barlow, Scott Hoch and Steve Lowery.

Defending champion Tiger Woods was at four-under through 16 holes when his approach to the par-four eighth got caught up in a gust of wind and fell short into a pond fronting the green.

Playing his fourth shot after the penalty, Woods knocked his ball into the back left bunker and left his sand shot in the rough short of the green. He got up and down from there for a triple-bogey seven, then went on to par his final hole to finish with a 71.

Woods, whose win here last year was his third of 2000, is still in search of the elusive first victory of 2001.

Woods is in pretty good company at one-under, as the top-10 ranked Lee Westwood, Vijay Singh and Tom Lehman also carded first- round 71s.

Mickelson worked his way to the top of the leaderboard despite starting his round with a bogey and dropping two more shots on the way home.

"The first half of the round for everybody was the easier half because we had very benign conditions," said the lefthander, who started on the back nine at Bay Hill. "The wind was down and the greens were soft and the pins were very accessible."

Mickelson put a three-putt bogey at the 10th hole behind him by birdieing the next three holes. He added a 20-foot chip in for birdie at the 15th and a 15-foot eagle putt at 16 to make the turn at five- under.

Although he canceled out birdies at the first and fourth holes with bogeys at the second and sixth, respectively, Mickelson managed to make it to six-under after he whacked a three-iron from 192 yards out to six feet for a closing birdie at the ninth.

Mickelson, the winner of last month's Buick Invitational, wasn't overly disappointed that the bogeys kept him from what may have been a special round.

"I played well," he said. "I made a lot of good putts, and two of the holes that I bogeyed I ended up missing putts that I thought I hit pretty good. They just didn't go in."

Calcavecchia, who posted a record-setting score of 256 in winning the Phoenix Open in late January, got off to a great start this week with with four birdies through the first six holes. Seven straight pars were followed by a bogey at 14, but Calcavecchia fashioned a strong finish with three birdies over the last four holes, including an approach to two feet at the par-four 18th.

Calcavecchia notched his third top-three finish of the season at last week's Honda Classic, although his three-putt on the 72nd hole cost him a shot at a playoff with Jesper Parnevik.

Paulson, who was part of a six-way playoff to decide the Nissan Open three weeks ago, recorded five birdies, an eagle and a bogey all on his front nine Thursday, while Waite made his way around without a bogey.

Like Woods, Pate found the water at the eighth, the most difficult hole at Bay Hill.

"Wasn't happy about that. I got up and down for a bogey," he said.

But Pate was in the first group out on Thursday, so he didn't have to wait around and think about his mistake.

"Stand up on the next tee, just get to go up there and hit it. Don't have to sit there and wait and think. I think it was great," said Pate. "I would rather play late if it's cold, but for nine holes, the greens didn't have a mark in them. It was the best time I could have gotten."

Tournament host Arnold Palmer, who shot his age, 71, in the fourth round of the Bob Hope Classic last month, struggled to an 85 on Thursday.

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