Ireland's Darren Clarke fired a 71 to sit on one-under par after his first round of the Players Championship in Florida today.
Clarke finished the round with a 15-foot par putt at the ninth.
"It was the longest putt I made all day," he said. "I had so many makeable putts for birdie and didn't make any of them.
"I would have been very disappointed with level par, so it was important to close like that. This is one of the most mentally challenging courses we play - one poor shot and you are staring at a double bogey straight away.
"My patience was very good. I waited for things to happen, which I've not always been very good at."
His 71 was matched by Scot Paul Lawrie and Spaniard Sergio Garcia, while of the late starters Colin Montgomerie was also one under, but only after five holes.
Clarke was up at 5 a.m. watching a spectacular thunder and lightning storm which dumped an estimated three inches of rain on parts of the Jacksonville area in just one hour.
The Tournament Players Course escaped the worst of it, though, and the start was delayed for a mere 30 minutes.
Clarke parred his first six holes, then birdied the 507-yard 16th and 532-yard second.
A three-putt bogey immediately followed, but he hit a 107-yard pitch to two feet for another birdie at the sixth and thought he had made another on the difficult short eighth, only to see the ball horseshoe out.
World number one Tiger Woods spent much of his day down the leaderboard.
But birdies at the 16th and 17th rescued a level par 72 for him and with none of the early starters managing better than the 68s of American quartet Skip Kendall, Jay Haas, Bob Tway and Rocco Mediate, the damage was not severe.
"I kept myself in the ball game," said Woods. "I could easily have shot 77 to 79 the way I hit the ball and even par was a heck of an accomplishment.
"I didn't get off to the greatest of starts, that's for sure. I hit a couple of blocks, a couple of pulls and had some funny bounces too. But that's the way golf is - everybody knows it's very fickle."
Woods was two over at the turn and in danger of going three over on the 424-yard 10th, but made an eight-footer for par before converting his 10-foot birdie chance on the 16th and stuck it to four feet at the 17th.