Players master Augusta

A funny thing happened on the way through the first round of the Masters. There were birdies galore, making it downright scary seeing all the red numbers.

"Yeah, they must have felt sorry for us," said leader Chad Campbell, who fired a 7 under 65 yesterday to grab the lead heading into the second round.

Campbell was alluding to the hard course setups that along with plenty of bad weather had made the tournament a grinding affair the last several years. With the course setup shorter than usual and pins accessible the players were able to attack at will, and did just that.

Adding to the birdiefest were softer greens. Campbell birdied his first five holes and was on cruise control for most of the round. He was even thinking about the course record of 63 at one point, but bogeys on 17 and 18 brought him back down to earth.

"I was pretty excited," said Campbell, a low-key Texan who led after the second round in 2006, when he wound up tying for third.

Campbell wasn't the only one excited to see the benign conditions.

There were 50 players out of 96 in the field who shot par or better, the most since 52 players did it in 1991. With 19 players shooting in the 60s, it was a tournament record for the first round.

Sitting one shot behind Campbell are Jim Furyk and Hunter Mahan, who are 6 under, while Shingo Katayama and Larry Mize -- yes that Larry Mize -- are tied for fourth at 5 under. Mize, 50, won his only major by winning the Masters in 1987 and turned back the clock yesterday in a big way.

Maybe tournament officials slipped while setting up the course and used the senior tees instead.

"It's still a hard golf course, but the setup was such where if you played well you could shoot a good number," said Mize, an Augusta native.

Mize, who is playing mostly on the Champions Tour these days, has made the cut here just once in the last eight years.

Furyk, who won the U.S. Open in 2003 and is one of the steadiest players around, had his career-best round in a major. He got on a birdie binge on the back nine with four straight from Nos. 14 through 17. On 17 he made a 20-footer.

He said that getting a feel for the course is something you do once the round gets going and he felt comfortable. While he did see all the red numbers on the scoreboards, it wasn't something he thought much about.

"Still, you can't get greedy here, ever," Furyk said. "You have to be patient and put the ball in the right spots and let the ball feed to the pin."

Tiger Woods, who had a late tee time and also saw all the red numbers, bogeyed 18 to shoot 70 but wasn't too disappointed.

When he was reminded he's never shot in the 60s in the first round in his 14 previous Masters, he had good comeback. "Yeah, but I've won four of these," he said smiling.

With the tees up on many holes, including 1, 7, 10 and 11, Woods said that was part of the reason why scores were so low.

"Overall you get warm conditions like this, the ball is flying and the guys can get it down there," he said.

Not everybody enjoyed the day. Phil Mickelson, who struggled and shot a 1-over-par 73, missed out on what many were calling the best scoring day at Augusta National since the major changes were done earlier this decade.

"I don't want to say it was easy to score low, but if you played well you could shoot a low number today," Mickelson said. "I drove it terrible, I played terrible, putted terrible. I drove it to spots on critical holes where I couldn't go for it, like on 13 and 15.… I just put it in terrible spots all day and let a potential good round get away."

Mickelson is tied for 51st after making just one birdie.

Campbell, 34, who years ago was on the cover of Sports Illustrated touting him as the next big thing, hasn't won a major yet. He's in very good position, but knows all too well that it's too early to start celebrating.

He pointed to par saves on 10 and 11, where he made 10 foot putts that kept his round going.

It was on the back nine, after Campbell birdied 12, 13 and 14 to get to 8 under, when he started to think about the course record of 63. And when he wasn't thinking about that, fans reminded him.

"They were yelling everything," Campbell said. "… I heard it all, but it was good, though. I was glad to see them behind me."

■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.

Leaderboard

Chad Campbell 31-34 — 65
Hunter Mahan 32-34 — 66
Jim Furyk 34-32 — 66
Shingo Katayama 34-33 — 67
Larry Mize 34-33 — 67
Kenny Perry 35-33 — 68
Tim Clark 35-33 — 68
Angel Cabrera 33-35 — 68
Mike Weir 36-32 — 68
John Merrick 35-33 — 68
Todd Hamilton 34-34 — 68
Aaron Baddeley 35-33 — 68
Sean O'Hair 34-34 — 68
Kevin Sutherland 36-33 — 69
Ross Fisher 33-36 — 69
Padraig Harrington 35-34 — 69
Graeme McDowell 34-35 — 69
Andres Romero 35-34 — 69
Stewart Cink 35-34 — 69
Tiger Woods 36-34 — 70
Zach Johnson 33-37 — 70
Prayad Marksaeng 36-34 — 70
Nick Watney 34-36 — 70
Miguel Jimenez 35-35 — 70
Bernhard Langer 34-36 — 70
Greg Norman 34-36 — 70
Lee Westwood 35-35 — 70