Ogilvy christens PGA season with 67 at Mercedes tourney

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Geoff Ogilvy felt his game was still sharp after winning in Australia last month. It must have been for him to play bogey-free Thursday and beat his best score at Kapalua by five shots.

Ogilvy opened the PGA Tour season by saving par on the last hole -- the only time he got in trouble all day -- for a 6-under 67 that gave him a one-shot lead in the Mercedes-Benz Championship, a score that only surprised him because of the location.

"I haven't shot very many good rounds around this course, so maybe that's a surprising thing," said Ogilvy, who had not broken 72 in his previous two trips to the winners-only tournament. "But the fact that I'm playing OK is not surprising."

Ogilvy won the Australian PGA Championship and tied for sixth in the Australian Open, and he was just as crisp with his game in taking the first-round lead over Ernie Els, Kenny Perry and fast-closing Johnson Wagner.

With only moderate wind on a Plantation course that Ogilvy refers to as "extreme golf," eight players broke 70 and 20 players in the 33-man field broke par.

FedEx Cup champion Vijay Singh, who will have knee surgery next week, was not among them. He made double bogey on the opening hole and rallied for a 73. Defending champion Daniel Chopra was headed for a round in the 80s until birdies on the two holes for a 79.

That Ogilvy was atop the leaderboard was surprising only because his average score in eight previous rounds was 73.875. But he kept practicing during his brief respite at home in Arizona, and it showed.

"We only finished Australian Open three weeks ago," Ogilvy said. "And three weeks isn't enough to get rusty."

Els arrived in Maui having played only once in the last six weeks, and that worked well for him. In his first time to Kapalua in four years, he made only one blunder -- a tee shot into the hazard on the par-5 15th -- to get his season off to a solid start.

Wagner, one of a dozen newcomers to the winners-only Mercedes with his victory in the Shell Houston Open, wasn't even in the picture until a birdie-birdie-eagle finish. Perry joined the group at 68 with a birdie on the last hole.

Davis Love III, who won the final event of 2008 at Disney, and Ryuji Imada were in the group at 69. Imada ran off seven straight birdies starting at No. 6 -- one short of the PGA Tour record -- but followed that streak with consecutive bogeys.

As for all the hype over the youngsters?

Anthony Kim wore an Oklahoma hat on the first hole while playing with Florida alum Camilo Villegas before taking it off, and it took awhile for his game to arrive. Kim had a 71, while Villegas had to rally for a 74.

It was an idyllic start, as often is the case at Kapalua, with manageable wind, occasional light showers, sunshine, rainbows and plenty of optimism.