Golf: Heavy rain late on Wednesday provided the opportunity for low scoring at the Riviera Country Club in yesterday's opening round of the Nissan Open, and US PGA champion Shaun Micheel and Shigeki Maruyama took full advantage of the benign conditions to shoot seven-under-par 64s to take the early clubhouse lead.

England's Luke Donald, who lost in a play-off to John Daly in last week's Buck Invitational fired a three-under 68, continuing a fine run of form that has seen him win over half-a-million dollars already this season.

Two-time European Open winner Lee Westwood, out in the first threeball from the 10th tee, looked to be en route to a two-under 69, only to finish on 73.

Disaster had struck at the eighth, where a pulled tee-shot got the Englishman into all sorts of trouble, and he eventually staggered off the green with a triple bogey seven on his card.

Another drive went way left at his final hole, and after making a great recovery from the rough Westwood completely fluffed his chip shot to drop another stroke.

Westwood's stablemate Darren Clarke, who was out late, got off to a dreadful start. He failed to birdie the par five first, and went on to experience a disaster of his own at the second, where his tee-shot bounced off one of Riviera's many trees to finish up 50 yards right of the fairway. A double bogey six was the result.

He remained at two-over in spite of missing the fairway at the next, but when he finally hit a straight drive at the fifth he left his second shot short of the green, failed to get up and down and dropped back to three-over.