Woods on the up in USPGA

Tiger enjoys early surge at PGA Championship

Tiger Woods emerged from the fog ufffd in the air and perhaps in his head too ufffd to give his battered confidence a much-needed boost when the final major of the season began yesterday.

Bad visibility delayed the start of the USPGA Championship for over three hours at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

But, when conditions eventually cleared beside Lake Michigan, the world number one ufffd a shocking joint 78th out of 80 in last week's world championship ufffd scored a one-under-par 71.

It left him only three behind early pacesetters Bubba Watson and Italian Francesco Molinari.

A week ago Woods trailed by 10 after day one, so there was the measure of the improvement. Yet the round looked as if it was going to be much, much better.

Woods, needing a top-15 finish to have a chance of qualifying automatically for the Ryder Cup, birdied three of his first four holes and shared the lead at that point.

Dropping back to level par with bogeys on the 15th - his sixth ufffd the long second and short seventh was a big disappointment, but he raised his morale again with a closing birdie.

That left him feeling far better about things than Padraig Harrington, who looks likely now to require one of Colin Montgomerie's three wild cards after managing only a three-over 75.

"I was very confident going out, but was a little bit too aggressive," said the Dubliner, who now concedes that in terms of the Ryder Cup he made some mistakes with his schedule earlier in the season.

"But I'm still trying to win the tournament. Eight under won here last time (that was Vijay Singh in 2004) and I don't see why it won't be again ufffd but the cut will be an issue tomorrow."

Harrington's biggest error came on the short 17th, his eighth, where he pulled a four-iron onto the rocks by the water and double-bogeyed.

Woods commented: "I hit the ball pretty good and I felt like I had control ufffd my trajectory was nice and I've not had in a while.

"I just need to keep improving every day."