Furyk takes slow route to lead

HARRISON, N.Y. -- Vijay Singh's temper was a lot shorter than his round.

After taking more than five hours to complete his Thursday morning round in the Barclays Classic, the second-ranked Singh blasted PGA Tour rules officials for allowing slow players to reduce the pace to a crawl.

"It's slow. It's always slow here. It's ridiculous," Singh said. "I mean you play a round of golf in five hours and wait on every shot. It's just like the officials are just blind. You don't see one out there. It ruins the rhythm of the play."

The big Fijian had little to say about the 3-under 68 that left him three strokes behind first-round leader Jim Furyk, choosing instead to rant about the slow play on the hilly, tree-lined Westchester Country Club course.

"Every shot out there on the front nine, you had to wait," Singh said. "You get fed up with it. If don't know if anybody ever withdrew after nine holes for slow play ..."

Furyk birdied the final two holes for a back-nine 30 after three-putting the par-5 ninth for the lone bogey in his round of 65.

"Today was one of the slow rounds of the year. It seemed to work for me for some reason," said Furyk.

Singh, the 1993 and 1995 Westchester champion, was tied with Kenny Perry, John Rollins, Ian Leggatt, Brian Bateman and Hidemichi Tanaka.