Vijay Still Hot at Mercedes

Vijay Singh leads by one after the first round of the Mercedes Championships.

Some things never change. Or at least it doesn’t look like things are changing yet. After Vijay Singh’s record setting year in 2004, he continues his hot play by firing a bogey-free 7-under 66 in the first round at the season-opening Mercedes Championships. After birdies at holes 3 and 5, Vijay shot up the leaderboard thanks to short birdie putts on 10, 11 and 12, then added two more at 15 and 16 to take a one-shot lead over Craig Parry.

Just behind those two standouts lurks groups of people at -5 (Stewart Cink, Tiger Woods, Jonathan Kaye) and an even larger group at -4 (Bart Bryant, Vaughn Taylor, Woody Austin, Steve Flesch, Chad Campbell, Adam Scott, Health Slocum and Ernie Els).

In the news that almost everyone wanted to hear, Tiger Woods was tied for the lead on the back nine, but his putter held him back from totally dominating.

“I made nothing today,” said Woods, who missed eight birdie putts inside 18 feet. “I had a hard time getting the speed. You rely so much on memory, and this time it messed me up a little bit.”

Imagine if just half those putts went down. Yeesh. Putting aside, the first drive of the year for Woods was an unfortunate missed fairway. Not a good start, you think? He only missed because he hit it so long and straight that it ran through the end of the fairway, 367 yards from the tee. He continued to be exceptionally accurate off the tee, connecting with 80% of fairways and then using that to get 94% greens in regulation. Look out, field.

Musey notes that Ryan Palmer teed it up alone this year. It’s possible the alone time wasn’t good for his game as he shot a good-enough-for-last-place 3-over 76. Also, Musey has a great Hawaiian Standard Time (HST) clock on her web page for handy dandy tee-time conversions.

The second round is now underway. Check the leaderboard here.

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