Justin Rose and Tiger Woods opened with rounds of 66 to hold a one shot lead after the first round of the Tour Championship.
Woods: Off to a strong start
The duo ended the day on four-under, leaving Woods well placed in what is the last tournament in the FedEx Cup play-offs. Should the former number one beat Rory McIlroy, Nick Watney, Phil Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker to the win, he'll pocket a cool £6.1million for his efforts.
Scott Piercy, Bo Van Pelt, Matt Kuchar and Steve Stricker find themselves one shot back after carding 67s while Hunter Mahan, Zach Johnson, Robert Garrigus, Adam Scott, Brandt Snedeker are a further shot adrift.
After taking the turn on one-under, Rose made his move on the back nine, producing three birdies, including one at the 18th that came courtesy of a curling put from 50 feet away.
Woods too finished strongly, bouncing back from a bogey on the 14th to birdie the 15th and 16th and he nearly had another one on the last when he narrowly missed a putt from 11 feet out.
"As a whole, I played well today," Woods told the official PGA website of his round.
"I hit a lot of good shots. Made a few putts out there, but actually I had a couple of good up‑and‑downs, which is nice. This golf course was, I think it was probably gettable today. Because it was playing so hot the ball was flying forever."
Piercy will be left wondering what could have been as he looked set for at least a share of the lead before a double bogey at the last saw him drop back to three-under.
World number one McIlroy is sitting ready to pounce on one under. The Northern Irishman, who is 142nd in driving accuracy on the Tour, was made to pay for failing to find the fairway on many occasions.
"If you don't hit fairways, it's hard," he said. "If you hit the ball in the rough here, it's very, very difficult to get any control on your ball. Obviously, putting the ball on the fairway is a premium, and for the most part today I did that. But any time you don't hit a fairway, you're making life difficult for yourself."
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