Vijay Singh takes opening honours with 64

Vijay Singh opened the defence of his Houston Open title in record style on Thursday, firing a flawless eight-under-par 64 to grab the first round lead at the Redstone Golf Club.

Playing his first event since the U.S. Masters, the world number two closed out his bogey-free round with birdies on three of his final four holes to match the course record and take a one-shot lead over Australians Gavin Coles and Brendan Jones.

"It sets up for longer hitters if you're hitting the ball straight," Singh said.

"Today was a great example. I drove the ball pretty straight and pretty long.

"When you do that, you have a lot of looks at the holes for birdies.

A winner at Houston in two of last three years, Singh's start was 10 shots better than his opening round of 12 months ago as he bids to become the first back-to-back winner of one of the PGA Tour's oldest events.

His two-stroke victory over Scott Hoch last year provided the spark that ignited one of the greatest seasons in golf history as Singh went on to claim nine titles, over $10 million and the number one world ranking from Tiger Woods.

It was an afternoon of celebration for Singh, who spent the day fielding congratulatory calls from fellow professionals and friends after it was announced on Wednesday that the Fijian had become the latest and youngest inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

"Things like that don't just sink in," he said.

"It's a great feeling to have, but I think in weeks and months from now, it's going to be a really big deal for me.

"People are going to look up to me. There are a few guys out there that are saying 'Hall of Famer', but things like this are going to happen more and more, although at the moment it hasn't sunk in."

Sitting three shots off the pace at five-under 67 is a pack of eight golfers, Americans Jeff Maggert, runner-up in Houston three times, Chris Smith, Ted Purdy, Tim Herron, Carl Paulson, Brett Quigley and Jimmy Walker along with Britain's Greg Owen.

Darren Clarke, trying to rebound from a shocking collapse at last week's Heritage Classic where he double-bogeyed the last hole to hand victory to Peter Lonard, also had a bogey-free start to the $5 million tournament.

However, the Northern Irishman never managed to build any momentum and completed his round with just one birdie against 17 pars to leave him tied for 44th place at one-under.

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