Jeev one stroke ahead
of Tiger Woods

India's Jeev Milkha Singh was lying tied for 22nd place with a card of one-under 70 after the first round of $1.8 million Dunlop Phoenix tournament of the Japanese PGA Tour, at Miyazaki’s Phoenix Country Club.

Jeev, sponsored by Hero Honda Motors, is trailing first round leader Darren Clarke by six strokes.

Clarke shot an opening round of seven-under 64 and is two strokes clear of the second pack.

World No. 1 Tiger Woods struggled on the tough course, as he shot a par round of 71 and is lying tied for 32nd place.

Two strokes behind Clarke are Justin Rose, Yokoo Kaname and Tsukasa Watanabe, all at five-under 66. Sergio Garcia of Spain is at four-under 67, while David Duval brought home a two-under 69 in the star-studded tournament.

Only two more events remain this season in the highly lucrative Japanese tour.

Jeev, who is trying to hold onto his Japanese card needs a good finish here. He had birdies on the 13 and 18th holes and his sole bogey came on the 11th. He parred all nine holes on the front nine. For the first ten holes of the day, he was level par before encountering a bogey on the 11th. He made up for that and ended the day at one-under 70.

Tiger Woods had four birdies on the fourth, seventh, 16th and 17th holes, while he had four bogeys on the second, third, 12th and 13th holes on a roller-coaster day.