Tiger Woods has poor start to Players Championship

TIGER Woods may miss consecutive cuts for the first time after finishing two-over in the opening round of the Players Championship.

Tiger WOODS

TIGER Woods is in danger of missing consecutive cuts for the first time in his career after carding a two-over-par 74 in the opening round of the Players Championship.

Woods, who missed the cut at last week's Wells Fargo Championship, began with a bogey on his first hole at TPC Sawgrass.

"It certainly wasn't the most positive start," Woods said.

"Any kind of momentum that I would build, I would shoot myself in the foot on the very next hole. Just one of those days.

"I hit three decent shots in there and got some of the worst lies. The best shot I hit all day was on 3 and I ended up in a spot where I really couldn't play from.

"It was frustrating in the sense that my good shots ended up in bad spots and obviously my bad shots ended up in worse spots."

Tiger WOODS

Of the Australians, Adam Scott fired a four-under par 68 to be just three off the lead in what is regarded as golf's fifth major.

Scott sits in a tie for sixth after the opening day, three behind Englishman Ian Poulter and Scotland's Martin Laird who shot seven-under 65's to lead the pack.

Scott tore apart the difficult lay out early with three consecutive birdies from the second hole onwards.

His 42-foot eagle putt on the second just missed the cup leaving a tap in birdie before he coaxed in a 14-foot effort on the third and a 10-footer on the fourth to be three under through just four holes.

After just missing another birdie attempt on the fifth Scott could have easily been rattled by his tee shot on the short par four sixth.

Looking to play a low iron shot off the tee Scott knifed the ball and it barely stayed in the air long enough to clear a creek not often in play before settling in a waste bunker.

But rather than be taken out of the zone he hit a great recovery shot to the green to ensure a par save and then birdied the seventh to go four deep.

Adam Scott

His first blemish came on the par-three eighth hole when he found a greenside bunker and despite watching the ball lip out from his sand splash he was unable to make the tricky eight-foot comebacker and took bogey.

After a neat par save on the 10th Scott made a further jump up the leaderboard with a long 35-foot bomb for eagle on the 11th and then backed it up with a seven-foot birdie on the 12th to be just one off the lead.

But the Queenslander faced another speed bump when he three-putted the 13th green for bogey to drop back to five under and when his drive on the 15th went well left he dropped another shot to settle in at four-under.

"Overall I am very happy with the start,'' Scott said.

"The greens were quite spicy and while I dropped a couple of shots coming in, which was unfortunate, four-under is a good spot to be.''

Geoff Ogilvy (70) tied his best ever start in the event in his 11th start and finds himself comfortably placed in a tie for 28th.

Rod Pampling (71) is the only other Australian under par, six shots of the pace after the first round and tied 37th.
Greg Chalmers (72), Robert Allenby (72), Marc Leishman (73) and Jason Day (73) sit around the middle of the field while Nick O'Hern (74), John Senden (74) and Aaron Baddeley (78) have plenty of work to do to make the cut.