SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Fierce winds at the Phoenix Open were an advantage for Justin Leonard, who played half a round in calm conditions and then mastered the elements when they deteriorated.

"You have to play a little more strategically in the wind, and that's the way I like to play,'' he said after shooting a 4-under-par 67 today to take a one-stroke over Paul Azinger. "So I certainly wasn't upset to see it start blowing.''

Leonard used his accuracy around the greens to offset 25 mph winds and grab the first-round lead in a tournament that he almost won three years ago when Phil Mickelson beat him in a playoff.

Raucous fans on the TPC of Scottsdale stadium course were silent when Mickelson, a Scottsdale resident, was lining up shots down the stretch in 1996 and made noise for Leonard, and the experience still rankles.

"I expect the crowds to be about the same way they've been the last three, four years, and it's just part of the deal coming here,'' Leonard said.

Azinger, who won this event in 1987 -- the year it moved to Scottsdale after years at the Phoenix Country Club -- said offseason changes and longer rough made the course more demanding.

"The fairways should be a little narrower and the rough shouldn't be quite as high,'' Azinger said. "Two-and-a-half inches should be plenty because then you have flatter lies and you can judge it. When it's 4 inches deep, 5 inches deep like it is here, it's just chipping out.

"But that's what the U.S. Open does, and that's what everybody wants.''

The group of six at 69 included two other former champions: Bill Glasson (1994) and Lee Janzen (1993).

Because of a one-hour frost delay, 45 of the 132 players were stranded by darkness and must finish the round Friday.

The course also played tougher because of hundreds of new desert plants. Combined with the wind, the first round took a toll of some of the game's biggest names as only 15 of the 87 finishers broke par.

Steve Jones, whose 26-under 258 two years ago inspired the effort to make the 7,083-yard layout more stringent, had a 71.

But Mickelson and 1995 champion Vijay Singh shot 74s. Crowd-pleasing John Daly, the longest hitter on the tour, had a 77.

Tiger Woods, the top-ranked player in the world, was 2-over through 14 holes, and No. 2-ranked David Duval, coming off a record-tying 59 on Sunday in his victory at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, was 2-over through 16.

Defending champion Jesper Parnevik was 1-over with two holes to go when play was suspended.

But it was a good day for Leonard, who bogeyed the par-4 second hole in calm conditions after hooking his drive into water and finding a bunker with his 3-wood after a drop. He needed to sink a 10-foot putt to avoid a double bogey.

Leonard, who started on the back nine, rebounded with three birdies in a five-hole stretch before the turn. Then, as the gusts over the course reached 25 mph, he dropped to 3-under with a 15-foot birdie putt, his longest of the round, on the 11th hole.

He opened the gap between himself and Azinger on the next-to-last hole, a 470-yard par-4, with his fifth birdie -- the second 1-foot putt of his round.

Azinger teed off at the same time as Leonard but in a threesome on the first hole. He had more success after the weather roughened.

He bogeyed two of the first four holes to go 1-over, then birdied four of the last 11 and predicted that the course would yield lower scores soon.

"Someone will still shoot 20-under if the wind doesn't blow,'' Azinger said.