SAMMAMISH (Washington), Aug 23: South Africa’s Retief Goosen fired a bogey-free, six-under-par 65 on Thursday to join Japan’s Toshi Izawa at the top of the leaderboard in the World Golf Championships-NEC Invitational after the opening round.

Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson and Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke are tied for third, one shot off the leaders’ pace, while England’s Justin Rose, Steve Lowery and Kenny Perry are in sixth place at four-under.

Lurking behind the leaders is world number one Tiger Woods, who double-bogeyed the par-three 17th, then birdied the 18th on his way to a three-under 68 that gave him a share of ninth place with 10 others. Last week’s hero, Rich Beem, who defeated Woods by one shot last week to win the PGA Championship, never recovered from bogeying his second and third holes of the day and finished with a three-over 74.

For Goosen, the key to his scoring was putting.

At one point in the PGA Championship, Goosen had been tied for the lead at six-under after opening with a pair of 69s, but faded over the last two rounds with a 79 and a 75 to finish in a tie for 23rd.

After the disappointment of those final rounds, Goosen, who needed only 26 putts on Thursday, said it felt good to shoot a low score.

Goosen, who started his round off the 10th tee, birdied the 10th, 13th and 17th holes to make the turn in three-under.

He shot up the leaderboard with an eagle three on the second hole when he hit a four-iron approach to 10 feet and made the putt.

He then drew level with Izawa with seven-foot birdie putt on the par-four seventh.

Izawa, who also began his round early in the day on the 10th hole, had a quiet two-under opening nine holes, with birdies on the 14th and 18th.

He then birdied number one and two and bogeyed the third hole before collecting three more birdies.

Izawa hit 10 of 14 fairways in the opening round and averaged 288.5 yards off the tee.

Both of those numbers put him among the leaders in the tournament.

Like Goosen, he also needed only 26 putts.

Despite making the cut in the majors he played this season, Izawa is winless in 2002 on the Japan Tour and is only 34th on that tour’s money list.

First round results

65 Toshi Izawa (Japan), Retief Goosen (South Africa)

66 Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson, Darren Clarke (Britain)

67 Justin Rose (Britain), Steve Lowery, Kenny Perry

68 Fred Funk, Thomas Bjorn (Denmark), Rocco Mediate, Lee Westwood (Britain), Chris DiMarco, Sergio Garcia (Spain), Vijay Singh (Fiji), Matt Gogel, Craig Perks (New Zealand), Paul Azinger, Tiger Woods

69 Greg Norman (Australia), David Toms, Mike Weir (Canada), Shigeki Maruyama (Japan), Jose Coceres (Argentina), Len Mattiace, Robert Allenby (Australia), Pierre Fulke (Sweden)

70 Michael Campbell (New Zealand), Stuart Appleby (Australia), Bernhard Langer (Germany), Peter Lonard (Australia).