Tiger Woods takes opening round honours

World number one Tiger Woods carried over his sizzling form to the Deutsche Bank Championship on Friday carding a flawless six-under 65 to grab a one shot first round lead at the $5.5 million event.

Playing the back nine first at the Tournament Players Club of Boston in Norton, Massachusetts, Woods got his round off to a modest start with two birdies through his first 11 holes.

He then surged to the top of the leaderboard picking up shots on three, four, six and seven.

"I hit the ball decent today," said Woods, seeing his first action since the WGC NEC Invitational. "I didn't hit it great but I hit it good enough and really hit my irons well today.

"Just stayed patient, missed a couple putts early in the round, but finally got it going on the back nine.

"I made some nice putts on the back nine for birdie, as well as for par and it turned out to be a really nice day.

"I'm very surprised. I didn't think I would be at six, I thought seven or eight-under would be leading, especially when those guys were so low so early."

Sitting one shot back of Woods at five-under 66 are compatriots Briny Baird, Billy Andrade and Steve Lowery and Carlos Franco of Paraguay, who had an up and down start to his tournament mixing eight birdies with three bogeys.

Dean Wilson, Steve Flesch, Mark Wilson, Scott Gutschewski, Will MacKenzie, Joey Sindelar, Jonathan Byrd and Australia's Stephen Leaney are all another shot further adrift at 67.

Woods has two wins (British Open and WGC NEC Invitational), three seconds, a third and a fourth in his last seven starts but despite his record and impressive play insisted following his round that he is not on a roll.

"I don't feel like I'm on a roll at all," said Woods, who lost his number one world ranking last year at the Deutsche Bank after finishing runner-up to Vijay Singh. "I feel like this is the way should I play every day.

"That's why I made the changes in my golf swing so I would be consistent day in and day out.

"So it's not like I go out there and I hit the ball just unbelievable and putt unbelievable to shoot these scores. I'm just playing solid golf.

"This is the way I feel I can play every day.

"If you would look at how I've played, I've just played solid and I've putted bad.

"What if I would have putted well...what would have happened?"

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