Woods one back from trio of leaders

Tiger Woods began the drive to win his fifth straight Bay Hill Invitational by shooting a five-under-par 67 on Thursday to stand a stroke off the lead after the first round.

Britain's Darren Clarke, American Chad Campbell and Japan's Shigeki Maruyama all shot 66 for the one-stroke lead over Woods, American tour rookie Zach Johnson, Australian Stuart Appleby and another American Jerry Kelly.

Australians Aaron Baddeley and Adam Scott shot four-under-par 68s and were joined in a tie for eighth by Fiji's Vijay Singh along with Americans Brad Faxon, Brian Gay, Scott Verplank, John Daly and Todd Fischer.

Playing in his 26th Bay Hill Invitational, host Arnold Palmer shot a 16-over-par 88.

Woods was pleased with his round of seven birdies and two bogeys. He stayed near the top of the leaderboard all day and made no critical mistakes.

"I just played well," Woods said. "If you were out there, you would see that I really hit some good shots today. I drove it well and controlled my irons going to the greens.

"I hit some really good golf shots today."

Clarke has had a difficult time making cuts in full-field tournaments since joining the PGA Tour this year.

He failed to play on the weekend in three tournaments but finished third in both the restricted-field Mercedes Championships -- which had no cut -- and the WGC-Match Play Championship.

"It's just getting used to golf courses," Clarke said.

"It's easy to keep going back to the same ones in Europe because you get to know them well.

"I didn't really see myself getting around this one."

However, Clarke "got around" very well in the opening 18 holes.

Clarke ended the day with a bogey-free 66, highlighted by six birdies spread out amongst a bunch of par saves.

"It was pretty good," Clarke said. "I had some poor shots, but had a lot of good shots to make up for them. I think six-under is a little bit flattering.

"I think I putted very nicely today. I was fortunate to hit the poor shots on the right holes, if there is such a thing, and managed to get away with them and made a couple of really good saves and then made the most of my good shots."

Campbell, who made the 2003 Tour Championship his maiden PGA Tour victory, joined Clarke at the top of the leaderboard from the morning tee times.

Similar to the Briton, Campbell has had an up-and-down season so far and matched Clarke with a bogey-free, six birdie round.

After a tie for 15th at the Mercedes Championships, Campbell missed the cut at the Sony Open and could not finish better than a tie for 39th in his next four events.

Campbell found his game at the Match Play, finishing tied for ninth and then followed with a tie for ninth at the Honda Classic.

"I wasn't happy with the way I played the first part of the year," Campbell said.

"Played pretty good the last two weeks. I was really excited about today and came out and hit a lot golf shots.

"Didn't give myself any trouble and made some putts when I needed to."

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