''More than anything I needed a little time to clear my head,'' Furyk said. ''It wasn't anything that was going wrong, (but) why I wasn't playing better. I just felt like I needed to come in here and quit concentrating on trying to be so mechanically sound and just go play some golf and try to score and get the ball in the hole a little bit. It worked today. I did a lot better job of scoring.

''It's been a while since I made seven birdies and an eagle in a round,'' he said. ''So it was a lot of fun.''

The average score was 70.33, which is on the low side for Firestone.

Defending champion Adam Scott, in his first tournament since making four straight bogeys to lose the British Open, had a four-putt from just inside 10 feet early in his round and shot 71. So did Phil Mickelson, while British Open champion Ernie Els had a 73.

This is a course where players can smash it off the tee, and most of them did. Watson said he hit driver on all but three of the long holes. When he was asked how many fairways he missed, Watson replied, ''I don't know. I shot 4 under. That's all I know.''

That ultimately was all that mattered.

Grace, who along with Woods is the only player with three wins this year, crushed a tee shot into the speed slot on the 656-yard 16th hole that left him only 222 yards to the hole. One problem.

''It was a reasonable opportunity,'' Grace said. ''But I was right between clubs. I could either thump a 3-iron or hit my rescue, and going just over the back of that green and chipping back is not the best.''

So he laid up with a gap wedge, and then hit another gap wedge just over the back of the green, the very place where he feared his hybrid might go. He settled for par.

''Tiger and I were talking about it going up the 17th,'' Grace said. ''It's a pity you hit a great drive and go gap wedge, gap wedge. It doesn't make sense.''

Grace had one of three drives that traveled over 400 yards, and there were 58 drives of at least 350 yards. Firestone always allows for extra distance when it's dry and the fairways are running fast. But it reached the point that when Furyk was told he hit seven drives over 300 yards, he said, ''That's it?''