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Luke Donald’s opening round in The Honda Classic was far from perfect. He missed five greens and seven fairways, including five straight on the back nine.

And conditions at windy, cool PGA National were hardly optimal for scoring.

Yet somehow, Donald found a way to post the Honda’s best score in three years.

A bogey-free 64 Thursday gave Donald a one-shot lead over Brian Davis and a two-shot edge on Matt Jones after the first round of the Honda – an event Donald won two years ago when it was at nearby Mirasol, a considerably easier track.

“I did a lot of good things around the greens and when I had my chances I took them,” Donald said. “I didn’t drive it particularly well. I need to improve that. I probably hit only half the fairways, which is not quite good enough. Apart from that, everything was very good.”

Donald posted the lowest round at a Honda since Padraig Harrington shot a final-round 63 to win in 2005 at Mirasol, and the 64 was the best in 571 tournament rounds since the event moved to PGA National – where Mark Wilson’s winning score a year ago was 5 under. Wilson shot a 73 on Thursday.

“Golf is just a tough game sometimes,” Donald said. “It sometimes gets you down, and we’ve all been there before, but luckily right now I feel pretty confident about my game. I feel confident about where I’m heading, and I’m definitely going the right direction.”

He wasn’t alone in feeling that way.

Matt Jones (66) was alone in third, two shots off the pace, with a slew of others – including Ernie Els, the world’s No. 4 player – three shots back. Els was one of only 10 players to make birdie at the arduous, 508-yard, par-4 10th, which was his first hole of the day.

“This is really my first full event, so to speak, of the year over here, so I needed to get off to a good start,” said Els, whose PGA Tour campaign for 2008 began with a first-round exit last week in the Accenture Match Play. “I was a little nervy this morning to force myself to get off to a good start, and I’ve had that now, so I can start building on that.”

Jose Coceres, who lost to Wilson in a four-man playoff last year, and Jesper Parnevik were in a group within four shots of Donald at 68.

“You’ve almost got to have a major mentality here,” Parnevik said.

He already overcame a major problem here this week.

Parnevik fell ill playing in Mexico last weekend; a dirty drinking glass, he said, was the culprit that left him unable to eat any solid food since Saturday and took 11 pounds off his already-slim frame.

His preparation on Wednesday consisted primarily of getting intravenous fluids in the tour’s medical trailer. But even with a 6:50 a.m. tee time, Parnevik – who, like Donald and a bunch of other South Florida residents, only lives a few minutes from the course – battled his way to a 68.

“Everybody that lives here knows that this can happen,” Parnevik said. “But how it goes from almost 90 (32 C) to 43 (6 C) here in a couple days is hard for a lot of people to understand.”

Much like the Florida temperatures the last few days, Jimmy Walker’s game went from hot to cold in a real hurry.

Walker was ninth alternate at the start of the week and only got in the field because another alternate – Michael Sim, who replaced Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger – withdrew.

For a while, Walker took full advantage of the chance. He was within one stroke of Donald as he went to the par-4 15th, but double-bogey there derailed his run at the lead and he finished with a 67.

Mike Weir of Bright’s Grive, Ont., and Jon Mills of Oshawa, Ont. each finished 3-over 73.

Donald gets introduced as a former Honda champion, but he doesn’t really feel like one, since being at a different venue gives the tournament a decidedly different feel. After winning in ’06 at Mirasol, Donald’s debut at the Honda’s new home last year was forgettable – a first-round 77 doomed his repeat chances.

This time, he’s back in the ideal position.

“If you get a strong wind, constant wind, it’s still not an easy golf course,” Donald said. “Anything under par is a good score.”

Divots: Tadd Fujikawa hasn’t made a cut since turning pro last summer, and that streak looks safe. The 17-year-old from Honolulu shot 78. ..Joe Ogilvie (80) made a quadruple-bogey and triple-bogey within a five-hole span, but still beat Kevin Stadler by a shot. .. Chris DiMarco (75) took a quadruple-bogey on the par-3 15th after hitting two tee balls in the water. .. Tommy Armour III withdrew after nine holes, citing illness and elbow pain. He made two bogeys and two double-bogeys before departing.

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He won every major championship he played in 1953, and every official tournament he entered except for the Seminole Pro-Am Invitational, where he tied for second. Then again, Hogan only played six times that year because of battered legs from a bus accident.

Tiger Woods will play no more than 17 events on the PGA Tour this year, so a 2-0 start might be a little early for anyone to get excited.

Even so, expectations were as high as the desert sun at noon when Woods left Arizona with yet another victory. It was his fourth in a row on tour since early September, all done in record fashion.

He set a 72-hole scoring record at Cog Hill outside Chicago and won by eight shots at the Tour Championship and the Buick Invitational, both record margins. On Sunday, he smoked Stewart Cink 8 and 7 in the Accenture Match Play Championship, the biggest blowout in the final in 10 years of a tournament that Woods considers the toughest to win this side of a major.

“I think this certainly is the best stretch I’ve ever played,” Woods said.

Strong words – downright scary – considering that Woods won nine times, including three straight majors, in 2000 and that he won six consecutive PGA Tour events at the end of 2006, a streak that reached seven until losing in the Match Play the following year.

Woods, who also won in Dubai earlier this month, has never before started a season with three straight victories, and it is hard not to speculate how long he can keep winning given his history at some of the tournaments coming up.

Next is the Arnold Palmer Invitational March 13-16 at Bay Hill, where Woods won four straight times from 2000 to 2003. The week after that is the CA Championship at Doral, where he has won the last three years.

Then the Masters April 10-13.

“He just morphs his game into the courses,” Cink said. “So I don’t think there’s a course that’s going to present him with a real obstacle as far as him not being a favourite.”

Woods did little to squash the notion of a perfect season when someone asked him if winning them all was within reason.

“That’s my intent. That’s why you play,” Woods said after collecting his 63rd career tour victory and his 15th title in the World Golf Championships. “If you don’t believe you can win an event, don’t show up.”

But it also is his intent to make every putt and hit every shot just how he wants. No one does that, of course. No one wins every tournament. Byron Nelson holds the record with 11 straight victories during a year in which he won 18 times in 30 events. That means he lost 12 times that year.

A perfect season in golf?

“I do find that laughable,” Hal Sutton said Monday. “Anybody who knows golf knows that ain’t going to happen. You can only own this game for a certain period of time. Even if your name is Tiger Woods, you don’t own it forever.”

Sutton was among those who beat Woods during a time when the world’s No. 1 player looked unbeatable, going head-to-head with him at The Players Championship in 2000 and winning by one shot.

He watched part of the championship match Sunday “until I got bored.”

“Tiger is definitely more dominating,” Sutton said.

Curtis Strange is among those who played in the prime years of Woods and Jack Nicklaus, and he said it is pointless to compare generations. But he also found speculation of a perfect season to be “a little over the top.”

“He is by far and away the best player,” Strange said. “We’ve never had a player this much better than the second-best player. He’s unbelievable, really. But he’s not unbeatable. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just because he beat Stewart Cink 8 and 7.”

As usual, the best comparisons are to Woods himself.

Most consider his best golf to be from late 1999 through the 2001 Masters, when he won 16 of 32 times on the PGA Tour and four consecutive majors. Dating to the 2006 British Open, Woods has won 15 of his last 24 events, a 63 per cent clip.

“He just has this strong sense of belief in himself that he’s just never out of it,” Cink said. “He’s never going to mess up. He’s just always in control. He never loses his composure.”

The more he talked, the more Cink made Woods out to be a machine.

“I think maybe we ought to slice him open to see what’s inside there,” Cink said. “Maybe nuts and bolts.”

Not many thought Woods could ever produce better results than 2000, the benchmark of greatness in his era. Woods, however, has been saying all along that his plan was to get better. And with each victory, what seemed impossible is not unthinkable.

Woods knows he was fortunate to win the Match Play. In the first round, he rallied from three down with five holes to play against J.B. Holmes by winning four straight holes with three birdies and a 35-foot eagle. In the third round, Aaron Baddeley twice stood over putts inside 12 feet to win the match before Woods prevailed on the 20th hole.

“I played 117 holes this week,” Woods said. “I could have easily played 16 and then been home. That’s the fickleness of match play.”

And such is the fickle nature of golf.

Odds are, Woods won’t win them all.

But if he were to even win three of his next six on the PGA Tour, that would give him 18 wins in his last 30 starts, essentially matching Nelson’s golden year in 1945.

And even that might not be enough to satisfy him.

“You can always get better,” Woods said. “You can always keep improving.”

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Stewart Cink barely put up a fight Sunday in the Accenture Match Play Championship, where Woods broke a scoring record for the fourth straight tournament, collected his fifth straight victory worldwide and didn’t so much as crack a smile when someone asked him if a perfect season was within reach.

“That’s my intent,” he said. “That’s why you play. It you don’t believe you can win an event, don’t show up.”

Relentless as ever, Woods made 14 birdies in 29 holes in the high desert of Dove Mountain to overwhelm Stewart Cink for an 8-and-7 victory, the largest margin in the final match in the 10-year history of this fickle event.

Woods captured his 15th World Golf Championship, holding all three world titles for the first time.

And his 63rd career victory moved him past Arnold Palmer and into fourth place alone on the PGA Tour’s career list. His next victory will tie him with Ben Hogan.

Golf is not a fair fight at the moment.

“I think maybe we ought to slice him open to see what’s inside,” Cink said. “Maybe nuts and bolts.”

Cink was only the latest victim in a winning streak that dates to Sept. 3, 2007, a date worth remembering.

Woods won the BMW Championship the following week at 262, breaking the tournament scoring record by five shots. He won the Tour Championship by a record eight shots, and the Buick Invitational by the same margin, another tournament record.

This is the third time Woods has won at least four straight PGA Tour events. He also won in Dubai three weeks ago on the European tour by coming back from a four-shot deficit.

“I think this is the best stretch I’ve ever played,” Woods said.

He has won six of his last seven PGA Tour events, 16 of his last 30 over the last two years.

The confidence in his game is so high that Woods started this season by saying the Grand Slam was “easily within reason.” For now, he has a Triple Crown of the World Golf Championships, a sweep that included an eight-shot victory in the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone and a two-shot victory in the CA Championship at Doral.

Woods’ tour winning streak was at seven last year when Nick O’Hern beat him in the third round of the Match Play. Given the fickle nature of this format, even Woods said it was the toughest tournament to win this side of a major.

Turns out the hard part was just getting to the final match.

Woods rallied from three down with five holes to play in the opening round against J.B. Holmes by winning four straight holes with three birdies and a 35-foot eagle. He twice watched Aaron Baddeley putt from inside 12 feet to win a third-round match, beating the Australian in 20 holes. And he was stretched to 18 holes in the semifinal against defending champion Henrik Stenson.

“I played 117 holes this week,” Woods said. “I could have easily played 16 and then been home. That’s the fickleness of match play.”

But the final was no contest.

He built a 4-up lead after the morning round of 66, and Cink never got any closer.

Cink didn’t win a hole until No. 12, and the only hole he won in the afternoon came at the par-5 10th when he rolled in a 36-foot eagle putt. Woods had an eagle putt from 35 feet, and the ball spun around the cup.

“Even the minuscule amount that I upstaged him there – him being 8 up – I still thought he was going to make it,” Cink said. “He lipped it out, and I thought, ‘Hey, come on. At least give me a moment to shine here.’ And he said, ‘Sorry, dude.”‘

The next stop for Woods is the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“Anytime you’re associated with Arnold and what he’s done with the game of golf, it’s always a positive thing,” Woods said about going 1-up in career victories over the King. “I could never have foreseen my victory total being this high, my game improvement being as much as it has been, my knowledge of the game.”

Woods’ record in the WGCs is simply ridiculous. This is the 10th year of this series, which was designed to bring together the best players in the world. Identifying the best? That was never a serious question.

Woods is a staggering 15-of-26 in official WGC events, three of those in the Match Play Championship. Darren Clarke (Match Play, Bridgestone) is the only other player with multiple WGC victories.

The world’s No. 1 player has built a career on these events alone:

-Woods earned US$1.35 million Sunday, giving him over $19.8 million in these elite events. That’s roughly 25 per cent of Woods’ career PGA Tour earnings, and more thanTom Lehman has earned in more than 430 tour starts.

-He was won 15 times in WGC events, as many victories as Fred Couples has in his entire PGA Tour career.

“It says about the same thing that just about any other stat you can pull up of him says,” Cink said. “It says he’s the best that’s ever played.”

Stenson won the first four holes and defeated Justin Leonard in the consolation match, 3 and 2. Leonard should earn enough world ranking points to move into the top 40, boosting his chances of getting into the Masters.

Cink earned $800,000 and will look back on a week in which he beat British Open champion Padraig Harrington and U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera before running out of magic against the reigning PGA champion.

“I’m a little disappointed I didn’t throw a little more at Tiger, put some pressure on him,” Cink said.

Woods already was 4 up after eight holes in the morning when he mentioned that a rules official had just warned them that they were close to being put on the clock for slow play.

“Who are we holding up?” Woods whispered with a bemused grin, noting they were the only match on the course.

Truth is, he might as well have been playing alone.

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 Getting on track with a chip-in eagle and easing pastK.J. Choi, 3 and 2.

Woods had time for lunch and a quick session on the practice range before playing defending champion Henrik Stenson, who won his 10th consecutive match when Woody Austin gave away consecutive holes to lose momentum and eventually the match on the 18th hole.

Stewart Cink took out U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera, 3 and 2, to reach the semifinals for the first time, where he will play Justin Leonard, at No. 50 the lowest seeds still around at Dove Mountain.

“Bracket buster,” Leonard said as he walked off the 18th green after beating Vijay Singh, who narrowly pulled off another escape.

Woods made 12 birdies in 20 holes and needed them all to beat Aaron Baddeley in the third round, a match of the highest calibre. Choi, meanwhile, had advanced over Paul Casey despite making nothing better than par over the final 11 holes.

Their quarter-final match was of the par variety.

Woods again hit an opening tee shot into the desert and gave away the opening hole, only to square the match with a 15-foot birdie. They halved the next seven holes, although this is where Choi essentially lost his chance to beat the world’s No. 1 player.

He had a putt to win the hole six straight times and missed them all, three of those putts from inside 12 feet. Woods was scrapping along with pars, throwing his club at the bag on a few occasions.

But it all changed at the turn.

Woods came up just short of the par-5 10th green, but chipped in for birdie and lightly pumped his fist. Choi was still 15 feet away for par on the 12th when Woods dropped a 30-foot birdie to go 2-up, and he had control the rest of the way.

“K.J. put a lot of pressure on me with his ball-striking,” Woods said. “I just had to hang in there.”

So did Leonard in the most fascinating match of the quarter-finals.

For much of the back nine, Leonard had a 1-up lead, Singh failed to hit a single shot that put pressure on Leonard, yet the Texan appeared to be under enormous pressure.

“It wasn’t a clean match,” Leonard said.

But when he holed an eight-foot birdie putt on the 11th to win his second consecutive hole, Leonard went to 3 up and looked strong. Even after Singh drove onto the par-4 12th green, Leonard was determined to beat him with his wedge, and hit a beautiful pitch to four feet.

But his birdie putt lipped out, and that one short miss went a long way in affecting the mood of the match.

With Singh in the bunker on the 13th, Leonard misjudged the wind, came out of his shot and had 80 feet for birdie. He three-putted for bogey to lose another hole.

Singh looked like Houdini for the second straight match. He was 2 down with two holes to play against Pampling in the third round, won the last two holes, then in 25 holes. This was headed in the same direction.

Singh’s approach on the 15th bounced hard off the left side of the green and appeared headed into the desert when it hung up in the lush green grass with only a foot to spare. Singh hit a poor chip and was lucky to stay on the green, then holed a 12-foot par putt to halve the hole. On the par-3 16th, Singh went after a sucker pin and landed in the right rough, the toughest spot from which to save par.

But that’s what he did, chipping six feet by and making it.

Singh finally squared the match with his power advantage, hitting seven-wood to 20 feet for a two-putt birdie.

Leonard played the 18th hole for the first time all week, and he played it to near perfection. Leonard hit his approach to 10 feet, and Singh hit his a foot outside him.

Singh missed – he didn’t have a single one-putt birdie all round – and Leonard’s winning up curled in the right side.

“I deserved that one,” he said.

Cabrera made it through the week as the only player not to reach the 18th green, which was bad news Saturday morning for the Argentine. He couldn’t keep up with Cink’s birdies, and Cink closed him out with a birdie on the 16th.

Stenson, meanwhile, is the marathon man of Dove Mountain. All four of his matches have gone the distance, and he played 25 holes Thursday to beat Trevor Immelman. He made sure his match against Austin didn’t get past the 18th hole, hitting an approach to two feet for his 2-up victory.

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Tiger Woods was at his best. It almost wasn’t enough.

He was firing at every flag he could, making birdie on every other hole, and still feeling enormous pressure from Aaron Baddeley, who held his own Friday in the Accenture Match Play Championship and twice had putts that would have sent Woods home.

“I just figured I had to make birdie to win the hole,” Woods said. “If I didn’t, I was going to lose the hole. It was just that simple.”

Woods made his 12th birdie on the 20th hole of an electrifying match at Dove Mountain, a 13-foot putt that was so true Woods began removing his cap when the ball was a foot from going into the centre of the cup.

It wasn’t the first time Woods has made so many birdies, but those matches usually end quickly. This one stretched 20 holes, his longest match in nine years of this tournament.

He was relieved, satisfied, thrilled to reach the quarter-finals.

“All of the above,” Woods said wearily. “All of the above.”

It was devastating to Baddeley, playing head-to-head with Woods for the first time since the U.S. Open at Oakmont, when Baddeley had a two-shot lead and shot 80. That was a distant memory on a cloudy afternoon, for Baddeley recovered from a shaky start by making eight birdies in a nine-hole stretch, one of them conceded when Woods journeyed through the desert.

He stood over a 10-foot birdie on the 18th, a tough putt that swung sharply from right-to-left, and missed it under the hole. He had 12 feet for eagle and the victory on the 19th hole, and was stunned to see it turn left and burn the edge.

Woods seized his first chance with his birdie putt on the 20th hole to win the match, reaching the quarter-finals for the fifth time.

“I played great, you know?” Baddeley said. “I made him have to win it.”

Next up for Woods is K.J. Choi, a 1-up winner over Paul Casey of England. Typical of this tournament, those two matches could not have been any different. While Woods and Baddeley combined for 22 birdies and had a best-ball score of 58 in regulation, Choi cooled after opening with three birdies, finishing with 11 straight pars. That was good enough to advance.

The World Golf Championship again has an American flavour. They began this week with a record-low 20 players, but there is still one American alive in each bracket.

Woody Austin easily handled Boo Weekley, 3 and 2, to advance to play defending champion Henrik Stenson, who hung on to beat Jonathan Byrd. Stenson won his ninth straight match, the third-longest streak in the Match Play Championship.

Stewart Cink took advantage of sloppy play by Colin Montgomerie to deny the Scot valuable world ranking points, winning 4 and 2. Cink will play U.S. Open championAngel Cabrera, who made six birdies on the front nine and beat Steve Stricker, 4 and 3.

Justin Leonard reached the quarter-finals for the first time and joined Cabrera as the only players to have not played the 18th hole after three rounds. Leonard dispatched ofStuart Appleby, 3 and 2, after running off five straight birdies at the turn.

Leonard will face Vijay Singh, who rallied from 2-down with two holes to play, then beat Rod Pampling on the 25th hole.

After a furious rally to survive the first round, and a far more comfortable win in the second round, Woods looked like he would have another short day of work when he won the first two holes with birdies against Baddeley.

What followed was match play at its finest, with both players giving away a few holes, then an explosion of birdies that kept the gallery hustling along the desert to see what they would do next.

There were a few ugly moments.

Woods hooked his tee shot into the base of a chollo cactus on No. 4 and tried to play out left-handed with an inverted wedge, but it was so far off line that it bounced off a knee-high wooden stake. One hole later, Baddeley returned the favour by pulling his second shot on the par 5 into a prickly pear bush, proving match play indeed can be dangerous.

Taking an unplayable lie, he tried to drop onto the flat cactus bush and have it roll into the desert sand. But when it stayed there, he stepped gingerly into the bush, and his shot hit the cactus.

Woods plunked a marshal in the head with his errant drive on the 13th, with caromed into the desert and led to a penalty drop. Then came a nerve-jangling finish.

“It was quality shot after quality shot,” Woods said. “Matches like that are fun to be a part of.”

Baddeley took his first lead with a 12-foot birdie on the 14th, after Woods missed from 15 feet. From there, the Aussie played away from the dangerous slopes to the centre of the green, making Woods beat him.

“He did all the things you were supposed to do when you have the lead,” Woods said.

And Woods did what he usually does, starting with an eight-iron into two feet for birdie on the 16th to tie the match. And on they went, both reaching the par-5 17th in two for a putt at eagle, both finding the 18th fairway for a decent look at birdie on the 18th.

Woods could only think of one other match he played at such a high level, when he went the 36-hole distance with Mark O’Meara in the final of the World Match Play Championship in England in 1998.

He lost that match. Thanks to a 12th and final birdie, he now gets to keep playing.

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MARANA, Ariz. – Tiger Woods barely broke a sweat. Steve Stricker went into overtime for the second straight day. They had only one thing in common Thursday in the Accenture Match Play Championship, which ultimately was all that mattered.

Both are still playing.

One day after a stunning comeback to survive the opening round, Woods built a quick lead against Arron Oberholser and never gave him much hope in a 3-and-2 victory. Oberholser advanced to the second round with a victory over Bright’s Grove, Ont., nativeMike Weir on Wednesday.

The thrills belonged to Steve Stricker, who made a Steve Stricker on the 19th hole to extend the match, then beat Presidents Cup teammate Hunter Mahan with a birdie putt just inside 50 feet. It was the second straight day Stricker won in 20 holes.

And it was the second consecutive year that Phil Mickelson was given a long weekend off.

Fresh of a victory at Riviera, he couldn’t make enough birdies to keep up with Stuart Appleby, who couldn’t miss. Appleby’s ninth birdie came on the 17th hole, and it was enough to send Lefty packing with a 2-and-1 loss.

“It was a good match, but unfortunately, I just didn’t shoot low enough,” said Mickelson, who has never made it past the quarter-final in this tournament. “I wanted a chance on 18, but unfortunately, I didn’t get it.”

David Toms didn’t have any chance at all.

His back flared up late in his first-round victory over Masters champion Zach Johnson, and the pain was such that he had to withdraw before facing Aaron Baddeley, giving the Australian a day off.

Next up for Baddeley is a third-round date with Woods.

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In the wake of his win at Riviera on Sunday, Phil Mickelson trimmed Tiger Woods’ lead at the top of the world rankings to single digits.

Woods led Mickelson by 11.06 average points a week ago — Mickelson had only 9.01 points total — but that advantage was trimmed to 9.53 points this week: 19.71 for Woods to 10.18 for the second-ranked Mickelson.

Steve Stricker, Ernie Els and Adam Scott rounded out the top five in the same positions they held a week ago, while Justin Rose moved up one spot to sixth, bumping Jim Furyk to seventh.

That pattern repeated itself a few more times: K.J. Choi bumped Rory Sabbatini from the eighth spot, Padraig Harrington knocked Vijay Singh out of the 10th spot and Henrik Stenson replaced Sergio Garcia at 12th.

Angel Cabrera and Geoff Ogilvy remained 14th and 15th, while Luke Donald was up three spots to 16th. That knocked Zach Johnson, Aaron Baddeley and Lee Westwood down one spot apiece, while Trevor Immelman rounded out the top 20.

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