Goosen shoots into early lead

Lurking behind the leaders is World Number One Tiger Woods, who double-bogeyed the par-three 17th, then birdied the 18th on his way to a three-under 68 that gave him a share of ninth place with 10 others. Last week’s hero, Rich Beem, who defeated Woods by one shot last week to win the PGA Championship, never recovered from bogeying his second and third holes of the day and finished with a three-over 74.

For Goosen, the key to his scoring was putting.

“I have been playing well, but over the last few months, I don’t really feel like I’ve been putting as well,” the 2001 US Open champion said.

“I’ve worked quite hard on my putting the last couple of days, trying to work something out, and today I seemed to stroke it a lot better. “I struck the ball a lot more on line than I did the last few weeks, and gave myself more chances of it going in.”

At one point in the PGA Championship, Goosen had been tied for the lead at six-under after opening with a pair of 69s, but faded over the last two rounds with a 79 and a 75 to finish in a tie for 23rd. After the disappointment of those final rounds, Goosen, who needed only 26 putts on Thursday, said it felt good to shoot a low score.

“I think pretty much to win at a tournament, it is the guy who putts the best,” he said. “There were a lot of birdie chances out there, so it was nice to shoot six-under, and it wasn’t like I really had to work hard for it. I knew I could have probably gone lower.”

Goosen, who started his round off the 10th tee, birdied the 10th, 13th and 17th holes to make the turn in three-under. He shot up the leaderboard with an eagle three on the second hole when he hit a four-iron approach to 10 feet and made the putt. He then drew level with Izawa with seven-foot birdie putt on the par-four seventh.

Izawa, who also began his round early in the day on the 10th hole, had a quiet two-under opening nine holes, with birdies on the 14th and 18th. He then birdied number one and two and bogeyed the third hole before collecting three more birdies.

“The golf course is very narrow, so I used a lot of irons and fairway woods, not many drivers,” said Izawa, who won five times on the Japan PGA Tour last season. “This year, I’ve not been playing tee shots well, but today, I had a lot of success with my tee shots.”

Izawa hit 10 of 14 fairways in the opening round and averaged 288.5 yards off the tee. Both of those numbers put him among the leaders in the tournament. Like Goosen, he also needed only 26 putts.

Despite making the cut in the majors he played this season, Izawa is winless in 2002 on the Japan Tour and is only 34th on that tour’s money list.

“I haven’t played well this year in the States and in Japan, so the first day of the tournament, where I am, I am very satisfied and I am very happy to be here,” Izawa said.

“What I would like to do is on the final day, to be in position that I can win the tournament maybe.”