Things don't bounce Tiger's way in first round of U.S. Open

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - When Tiger Woods won by 15 shots here in 2000, he opened with a 65.

That was then.

This time, his first-round score in the fifth U.S. Open to be held at Pebble Beach Golf Links was 3-over-par 74, which left him five back with 54 holes remaining.

But he didn't play that badly. He hit 10 fairways and a dozen greens. He just didn't make anything happen.

And hey, he's still one ahead of Phil Mickelson.

"The greens were awful, just awful," Woods said. "[Balls] were bouncing all over the place. That's just the way it is. It's a U.S. Open. It's supposed to be difficult. It's just tough out there."

Woods started by making eight straight pars. He bogeyed No. 9, via the dreaded 3-putt. He would do the same thing at No. 16, this time from the fringe, after stringing together another six pars. He gave another stroke back at the 18th, after he put a layup shot into the sand.

So he's still looking for his first birdie. As is Mickelson.

You know what they say about misery.

"Guys aren't going to go low here," Woods noted. "If I hadn't 3-putted twice and laid up in a bunker, I'd be right where I should have been. I was very consistent all day. I felt like I hit a lot of good shots. But it's playing very tricky. The way the greens are right now, you can't leave yourself a second putt. But everyone's got to deal with it.

"I just made a few mistakes you can't afford to make."

You can get away with that some weeks. This is not some week. And nobody gets that any more than the guy who did the unthinkable the last time the staunchest of the majors landed here.

"There's a long way to go," Tiger said. "Just be patient, just keep plugging along and see where I come Sunday afternoon."

We've heard that before. But the owner of 14 majors has yet to win one when he's not ahead heading into the final 18.

Edoardo Molinari, who won the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion, shot a 75. But he made three double bogeys in his last five holes . . . West Chester's Sean O'Hair closed with three of his seven bogeys, for a 76 . . . Jim Furyk, the 2003 champion, is at 72 after playing the significantly-easier front side in 37 . . . Ryan Moore flew his tee shot at 17, with a wood, over the green all the way to the 18th tee, where a bench probably stopped it from going over the cliff. He got a drop, hit it back over the green into a bunker and got up-and-down from there for a bogey en route to a 75 that was lowlighted by a 40 on that back nine . . . Lucas Glover, trying to become just the second person to repeat in this event since Ben Hogan some 60 years ago, opened with a 73 . . . Stewart Cink, the reigning British Open champ, had a 76 . . . Y.E. Yang, the reigning PGA winner, shot 73 . . . Tom Watson, who won his only U.S. Open here in 1982 on that infamous chip shot on the 71st hole and is the only one in the field who has played in all five Opens at Pebble, shot 78 . . . Ricky Barnes, who led much of the way last year at Bethpage, went 3-2-3 on 4-5-6, which is an eagle and two birdies, but shot 39 on the back for a 72 . . . Hudson Swafford, a 22-year-old amateur, was 1-under until he double-bogeyed his next-to-last hole, the 8th, and took a quadruple snowman at the 9th. *