Woods & Singh take opening honours

There were no post-major letdowns from Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh on Thursday when the world's top two players carded matching four-under 66s at the $7.5 million WGC NEC Invitational.

The pair share the first round lead with unheralded Swede Henrik Stenson on the Firestone Country Club's classic South Course.

Building on the momentum from a strong fourth place finish at the U.S. PGA Championship, Woods launched his bid for a fourth title here with a flawless opening round.

Singh returned an almost equally tidy scorecard that included a single bogey but Stenson, playing in just his second event in the United States, had a more adventurous afternoon mixing seven birdies with three bogeys to get to his 66.

Only 12 players in the elite 72-player field managed to scrape in under par on a sun-bathed opening day.

Lurking one stroke back at three-under 67 are Briton Nick Dougherty and Americans Davis Love III and Chris DiMarco, who lost in a playoff to Woods at the Masters earlier this season.

Spain's Sergio Garcia and Australian Stuart Appleby and Nick O'Hern sit two shots adrift at two-under 68 while PGA champion Phil Mickelson, Chris Riley and Britain's Luke Donald all finished on one-under 69.

Playing the back nine first, Woods got his round off to a quiet start with one birdie on his outward nine.

The world number one, however, roared into the turn with back-to-back birdies on one and two then closed out his round in style with another birdie at the ninth to get to four-under.

Woods's blistering start was in sharp contrast to a week earlier at the PGA Championship when he stumbled to a five-over 75, his worst opening score at a major in relation to par since he turned professional in 1996.

"I had just a terrible start on Thursday and then played pretty well after that," said Woods, who lifted three consecutive NEC titles starting from 1999 and finished runner-up to Stewart Cink last year.

"At one point I was seven-over par and finished at two-under, so I had a good comeback

"I just like this gold course.

"We don't get a chance to play courses like this very often where it's an old school course, where it's right in front of you, no tricks, no hidden agendas, no elephant burial grounds.

"It's just a golf course that's right in front of you and it's difficult."

Having clinched his second career major on Monday after dangerous weather pushed the final round of the PGA Championship into an extra day, Mickelson only arrived in Akron on Wednesday evening following a whirlwind victory celebration.

The popular lefthander showed no signs of a hangover keeping himself in contention by producing a steady round that included three birdies and a pair of bogeys.

"What I like is I feel very confident with how I'm playing," said Mickelson. "I'm trying to take that momentum and carry it over here to Firestone and the reason I like playing here so much right after last week is it's a very similar set-up.

"The style of shots and the shot value and the quality and the level you have to play is very similar to last week at Baltusrol.

"I'm trying to take that momentum and very similar game plan and carry it over."

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