Woods slips, competition slides ahead

GULLANE, Scotland -- All week, players here have been saying they hoped to step forward if Tiger Woods stepped back.

Woods stepped back Thursday in the first round of the 131st British Open at Muirfield, and 22 golfers sprinted ahead of him, eager for the opportunity to create some positive space between themselves and the world's No. 1 player.

On a summer kind of day when fans replaced their London Fogs with SPF-30 sunblock, Duffy Waldorf, David Toms and Sweden's Carl Pettersson fired four-under-par 67s to take a one-shot lead over a group of 12 players that includes Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose and 45-year-olds Nick Price and Sandy Lyle.

Two shots off the lead was another group of seven golfers, led by Corey Pavin and Woods' buddy, 45-year-old Mark O'Meara, who birdied three of the last four holes.

Woods is in a group of 15 at 70 that includes 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie, Ernie Els, Brad Faxon, Lee Janzen and Tom Lehman.

Add it all up and the leaderboard is more crowded than a free Bruce Springsteen concert in Staples Center. Thirty-seven players are under par, and a total of 86 players in the 156-player field are at 72 or better, within five shots of the lead.

Players went at the course conservatively, most hitting their drivers only three or four times during the round, planning to set themselves up to hit the greens with mid-irons.

"A lot of guys are getting away to good starts but are playing within themselves," Els said of the pressures accompanying the first round of a major championship. "I think the guys are trying to just keep it tight and not make any mistakes."

Woods ran into trouble on his first swing and struggled all day with his putting on the 7,034-yard links layout. He backed off his tee shot on No. 1 when a photographer clicked his camera during Woods' address. Woods hit into the deep rough, then backed off on his second shot when photographers were jostling behind him.

Woods chastised the photographer, muscled a wedge out of the rough to the fairway and made an 8-foot par putt, about the only putt he made all day despite hitting most fairways and greens in regulation.

"It was frustrating that I was hitting beautiful putts and they were lipping out," said Woods, trying to become the only golfer other than Ben Hogan in 1953 to win the first three legs of the Grand Slam.

Woods needed 34 putts, but still, he is under par in the first round of a major.

"I got where I need to be," he said.

Waldorf qualified for the Open only by virtue of his fifth-place finish at the Western Open, then withdrew from the Greater Milwaukee Open after one poor round last week because of a bad back. He played without making serious mistakes or a bogey Thursday.

"I wasn't hitting it solid," Waldorf said, "but I was hitting it straight in the middle of the green."

Waldorf, who earned his last PGA Tour victory when he shot past Woods in the final round of the 2000 Disney, played conservatively off the tees to avoid the deep bunkers and deeper rough.

"If you'd seen me play the bunkers a couple of days ago, you'd try finding the middle of the fairway too," he said.

Toms, winner of last year's PGA, was happy to be back at a major championship that rewards precision rather than distance, as the Masters and U.S. Open did this year.

"Those first two were not made for me at all," said Toms, who is 96th in driving distance on the PGA Tour. "But here, I can win on this golf course."

Pettersson, who turned professional in 2000 after an All-American career at North Carolina State, would have had the outright lead had he not bogeyed 18 in one of the final groups of the day.

Shigeki Maruyama of Japan and Rose played in Woods' group, and both outplayed him. Maruyama was the outright leader of the tournament at four under after 12 holes but bogeyed 14 to fall back to three under, where he finished.

Rose also finished at 68, making two delicate sand saves at 15 and 16.

"I was pretty nervous on the first tee, more nervous than I've been all year," said Rose, 21. "But I nailed a two-iron down the fairway, which settled the nerves pretty quickly."

Rose turned pro at 17 after his surprising fourth-place finish in the 1998 British Open at Royal Birkdale. He proceeded to miss 21 consecutive cuts on the PGA European Tour, but has won twice this year.

"I am one of the youngest," he said of players in the field. "I feel a bit battle hardened, to be honest."

Rose is also confident. He placed a legal wager with British bookmakers that he would beat Woods on Thursday.

"I made a couple of quid on the 18 holes today," he said. "I think I got 5-to-2 odds."

The rest of the group at 68 is former British Open and Masters champion Sandy Lyle, 43; two-time U.S. Open winner Steve Jones, Len Mattiace, Thomas Bjorn and Soren Hansen of Denmark, Stephen Ames of Trinidad, 48-year-old Des Smyth of Ireland and Jean Francois Remesy of France.

Joining Pavin and O'Meara at 69 are Steve Stricker, Padraig Harrington of Ireland, Ian Garbutt and Ian Poulter of England and Taichi Teshima of Japan.

The real British Open is expected to return today, with rain expected. Increasing winds are predicted for the weekend.