Charlie Wi, Dustin Johnson, and Danny Lee are currently tied atop the leaderboard after day one at -9 overall, with Tiger Woods five shots back after shooting a solid first round score of 68.
Woods was fantastic with his driver on Thursday, with a driving accuracy of over 85%. Combine that with over 70% of greens hit in regulation, and you would have thought he would be much higher up the scoreboard, but two mistakes and some misread putts hurt him the most. The two mistakes came on par 4's (holes 4 and 13), the one on 4 being a mishit iron over the green and the other being a bad chip. Other than that though Tiger had a pretty solid day and if he can make a few more putts on Friday he should definitely be in contention heading into the weekend.
Even though Dustin Johnson has played well at this event over the past few years with two wins, he hasn't been playing very solidly to begin the 2012 season. That all changed on Thursday as Johnson had a great round that included two eagles (one on a par 4) and six birdies to go along with one bogey. What is amazing about Johnson's day is that he had over 90% driving accuracy while driving the ball 300 yards on average. If he can stay anywhere near that mark for the rest of the tournament and take advantage of the short courses and ideal playing conditions we could be seeing win number three for Dustin at this event.
Among the other notables, Vijay Singh shot a first round 68, which included five birdies and one bogey. It's great to see Singh back on the leaderboard as he has been struggling of late. Jim Furyk began his 2012 PGA Tour season with a 69; he just couldn't get anything going with the putter. Lastly, Phil Mickelson had an up-and-down day of 70 with two bogeys and four birdies. A lot of it had to do with his driving, as he only hit about a third of the fairways for his round.
Ryan Kekoufski is a scratch golfer who has both played and watched the sport for over a decade. He covers sports for the Yahoo! Contributor Network, and currently resides in Virginia.
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