For Woods, Prospects Darken for PGA Title

SPRINGFIELD, N.J., Aug. 11 -- Tiger Woods began the first round of the PGA Championship on Thursday morning wearing a light brown shirt and ended it wearing a dark brown one. Over the course of 18 grueling, sweltering holes at Baltusrol Golf Club, the sweat stain on his back morphed, in an unmistakably westward trend, from the shape of the state of New Jersey, to that of Illinois, to Texas, to -- by the time he was finished -- the Pacific Ocean.

If the darkening of Woods's shirt was quite obvious, it was nothing compared to that of his mood, as he slashed, slopped and seethed his way to a 5-over-par 75 that marks the worst opening round, in relation to par, of his major championship career. You cannot win a tournament Thursday, the cliche goes, but you can lose it. And Woods nearly did.

For rivals such as Phil Mickelson and the rest of the field, however, the effect of Woods's stumble was just the opposite, a light emerging from the dark cloud of Woods's dominance.

"If you're looking for me to shed a tear" about Woods, Mickelson said with a straight face, "it's not going to happen."

On a 90-degree day that soaked shirts and hardened Baltusrol's greens, a total of 39 players, most of them notorious straight-shooters, navigated the Lower Course's monstrous layout and gnarly rough with scores of even-par 70 or better, led by six players -- Mickelson, Stuart Appleby, Stephen Ames, Rory Sabbatini, Ben Curtis and Trevor Immelman -- at 3-under 67.

Eleven players were a shot back at 68, including Davis Love III, Retief Goosen, Steve Elkington, Bernhard Langer and Jesper Parnevik.

Two things jump out immediately from the leader board: First, it is full of past major winners -- from Mickelson (2004 Masters) and Curtis (2003 British Open) at 3 under, to Love (1997 PGA), Elkington (1995 PGA), Goosen (2001 and 2004 U.S. Opens) and Langer (1985, 1993 Masters) at 2 under, to Justin Leonard (1997 British Open) and Hal Sutton (1983 PGA) at 1 under.

And second, with a handful of exceptions -- such as Mickelson and Love -- it is nearly devoid of long drivers.

Check out these stats from the 2005 PGA Tour: Curtis ranks 164th on tour in driving distance (at 278.1 yards). Elkington ranks 130th. Parnevik, 106th. Heath Slocum (68), 148th. Langer, 78th. Leonard, 120th. Immelman plays primarily on the European Tour, but his driving distance of 290.3 yards in his 22 official PGA Tour rounds would rank him 63rd.

Woods? He ranks second at 313 yards.

"It's the great equalizer -- a course like this, where you have to [drive] it in the fairway," said Leonard, referring to Baltusrol's high rough. "You can hit it as far as you want, but if you don't hit it in the fairway, it's not going to matter where you are."

Even Mickelson, one of the tour's longest hitters, made a conscious effort to scale back his drives -- hitting some 3-woods off the tee, and hitting high fades with his driver -- in an effort to hit fairways. By doing that, he said, "I'm able to be much more aggressive [hitting] into the greens."