14 August 2004	Saturday	27 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

KOHLER, Aug 13: Britain's Darren Clarke raced into an early lead in the U.S. PGA Championship first round on Thursday as Tiger Woods struggled to a three-over-par 75.

Clarke, who had described the 7,514-yard Whistling Straits layout as "brutally difficult", took advantage of relatively calm conditions to fire a course-record 65 for a one-shot lead.

The Northern Irishman reeled off birdies at the first four holes, and picked up two more on seven and eight before collecting his first bogey at the par-four ninth. Out in 31, the 35-year-old also dropped on 13 but further birdies at 10, 11 and 14 kept him clear of the chasing pack.

South African Els, who could replace Woods at the top of the global pecking order if he wins the tournament, mixed seven birdies with a bogey while Leonard finished in style, picking up five shots in the last nine holes.

But Woods, under pressure to end a run of nine majors without victory, battled for consistency and accuracy and struggled on the greens. Standing on the tee at the monster 618-yard par-five 11th, he was forced to abort his back swing after being disturbed by a photographer.

The eight-times major winner then pulled his drive into the left rough, from where he was unable to find the fairway with his second shot. He pushed his third into thick fescue on a mound to the right of the fairway and, after punching out to the left of the green, three-putted for an ugly double-bogey seven.

At the par-three 12th, he struck his tee shot 25 feet to the left of the pin and again three-putted, his par attempt from six feet horse-shoeing out of the cup.

The 28-year-old American collected another bogey at the 13th but recovered with a birdie after driving the green at the par-four 14th to get back to two over. However, the roller-coaster pattern to his round continued. Out in 38, he birdied two and four but stumbled with dropped shots on one, six and seven.

FIRST-ROUND SCORES:

65 Darren Clarke

66 Ernie Els, Justin Leonard

67 Vijay Singh, Scott Verplank, Briny Baird, Luke Donald

68 K.J. Choi, Chris DiMarco, Jay Haas, Padraig Harrington, Loren Roberts, Tim Petrovic, Stuart Appleby, Stephen Ames, Geoff Ogilvy

69 Paul McGinley, Chris Riley, Carlos Franco, Phil Mickelson, Duffy Waldorff

70 Brian Davis, Scott McCarron, Craig Parry, Patrick Sheehan, Charles Howell III, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ben Crane

71 Brad Faxon, Matt Gogel, Carl Pettersson, Adam Scott (Australia), Joey Sindelar, Robert Allenby, Scott Drummond, Bob Tway, John Huston, Michael Campbell, Joe Durant

72 Tom Byrum, Mark Calcavecchia, Harrison Frazar, Robert Gamez, David Howell, Brendan Jones, Skip Kendall, Shigeki Maruyama, Phillip Price, Eduardo Romero, Jeff Sluman, Chip Sullivan, S.K. Ho, Jean Francois Remesy, Fredrik Jacobson, David Toms, Tommy Armour III, Todd Hamilton, Nick Faldo, Hidemichi Tanaka (Japan), Zane Zwemke

73 Stewart Cink, Ben Curtis, Steve Flesch, Sergio Garcia, J.L. Lewis, Nick O'Hern, Ian Poulter, Ted Purdy, Craig Thomas, Roy Biancalana, Rod Pampling, Jonathan Byrd, Hale Irwin, Chad Campbell, Justin Rose, Mark Brooks, Hal Sutton, Colin Montgomerie, Brian Bateman, Mark O'Meara, Mike Weir, Arron Oberholser

74 Billy Andrade, Woody Austin, Paul Casey, Niclas Fasth, Raphael Jacquelin, Jonathan Kaye, Bernhard Langer, Stephen Leaney, Rocco Mediate, Heath Slocum, Bo Van Pelt, Mark Hensby, Brenden Pappas, Angel Cabrera, Kevin Sutherland, Brett Quigley, Paul Azinger, Shingo Katayama, Fred Funk, Peter Lonard, Thomas Levet

75 Alex Cejka, Timothy Clark, Bob Estes, Jim Furyk, Ricardo Gonzalez, Trevor Immelman, Joe Ogilvie, Mike Small, Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Tom Pernice Jr. Alan Schulte, Zach Johnson, Steve Schneiter, Sean English. -Agencies