Tiger Woods lurks at one under par

Tiger Woods can be a little rough on the spectators and volunteers when his high-octane driver acts up.

Woods was belting his big stick all over the property at Hazeltine National on Thursday, much to the detriment of a few innocent bystanders. At one point, Woods actually whacked a course marshal on the leg with a whistling one-hop bounce as he began play on the back nine of the 84th PGA Championship.

The ball caromed harmlessly into the rough. Well, harmlessly enough for Woods, who was unaware that he'd given a dimpled Nike tattoo to anyone.

"Did it hit the marshal?" he said. "Well, that will leave a nice little imprint. At least he could have kicked it out a little further than that."

Woods would love to kick his game up a notch today after opening with an eventful 1-under-par 71, which left him three shots off the lead as he searches for his third major championship of the year.

Still, other than the feisty crankiness of his driver and a couple of muffed chip shots, Woods was pretty darn pleased with his play. And why not? For three hours, he was the PGA frontrunner, sort of.

Thanks to a rainstorm that halted play for 2 hours and 52 minutes, Woods was the leader in the clubhouse for most of the morning. After all, the score doesn't get any lower than one, which is how many shots Woods had hit when the thunderstorm sneaked up on his threesome as he stood in his first fairway of the day.

"I'll be perfectly honest with you, I didn't see it coming," Woods said. "They blew the horn and I had not looked back to see how the weather was. I had not looked in that direction."

Spectators were looking in all directions when Woods pulled out his driver, which he wrestled into the fairway only twice in seven swipes. The entire round almost got away from Woods, too, whose biggest stoke of the day was a par-saving 15-footer on his 11th hole of the day. Had it missed, he would have stumbled to 1-over. It also would have been his third bogey in succession.

"That was huge," he said. "It was nice not to go over par. It was one of those things that just happened so quickly and you just say, 'Bear down, make this putt and get out of here and try to stay in the round.'"

The bogeys on his ninth and 10th holes of the day were uncharacteristic, too. Woods missed both greens, landing in the grass. On both holes, Woods admitted that he "flubbed" his wedge recovery shots, which barely dribbled onto the green.

Maybe he had some bacon grease on his hands or something, since during the 3-hour rain delay, Woods said he did little else but graze from the clubhouse buffet trough.

"I ate breakfast three times," he cracked. "Lunch wasn't out yet."

If the delay bothered him, it didn't show. He birdied his second and third holes, though since he was continually recovering from wayward drives, he couldn't sustain the momentum.

Woods headed off to the range to iron out the error of his ways in terms of the driver. He had the malady diagnosed on the course, but just couldn't seem to rectify it.

"I swung the club well, except for that [driver]," he said. "So, yeah, that is a little frustrating. But I'll fix it this afternoon."

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