by KEN LAWRENCEAT , Daily Record

The defending champion dropped four shots over the last four holes and had to settle for a fourover 74.

But by the time Mike Weir teed off the course had started to dry out and the Canadian took full advantage to shoot an eight-birdie 64 - one of the great opening rounds in the tournament's history.

Woods bitched more about the conditions than himself, throwing some mud that he hopes sticks on the wall of the USGA's headquarters - except that by the end of that first round his outburst had made him look a little foolish given what Weir, Peter Hanson, David Duval Todd Hamilton and Ricky Barnes achieved.

Golf's ultimate sticklers for the rules have insisted they will not bend on the insistence that players will not be allowed to lift, clean and place despite playing on a Bethpage Black course saturated by the Thursday downpour, with another expected today.

Woods made it crystal clear what he thinks about that.

While many players started their second rounds late yesterday afternoon, he will not be back out until today. Asked if he would rather have gone back out yesterday he said:"As of the way I feel right now, no I wouldn't want to play again today.

"I don't want to go back out there right now and if I did I would probably be a few clubs short."

One of those he would take out of his bag would be his driver because it is off the tee that he, and plenty of others, had the biggest problems.

Problem

Woods said: "I hit one bad shot at the 15th then had two mud balls off my drives and suddenly I'm four over. It's going to get worse with the mud balls, too, unless we get more rain. If it dries out this is going to get interesting.

"You would think you would have to hit low tee shots and run it off but the problem is the fairways are so soft, it's not going to go anywhere.

"If you take the chance of carrying the ball out there, you then have the chance of picking up mud on the ball.

"They (the USGA) may allow lift, clean and place for the second round but who knows? It's pot luck but everyone has to deal with the same conditions."

Woods, aiming for a recordequalling fourth victory, explained exactly why its going to be "interesting".

He said: "With a mud ball, it depends on the side of ball the mud is on. It obviously goes in opposite directions.

"The one I hit on 16 was on the left side so you know it's going to go right so I tried to draw it and hit a big slice.

"Then the mud ball I hit on 13, it was on the back side of the ball so I never got it in the air. It was just tumbling but I actually got away with that one."

However, there was no mud on his ball when drove into the rough at the 15th then three-putted for a double bogey.

Yet he got strong support over his views about the conditions from Lee Westwood, who finished with a 72.

The Englishman said: "I think they (the USGA) like to see themselves as traditionalists. But they also mow the fairways very tight these days so the ball does get through the grass and into the earth very easily and we are playing in conditions that aren't normal.

"When you are talking about a Golf course that is well over 7000 yards long you are going in with a lot of three irons and four irons and it would be nice to be going in with maximum control.

"They are asking us to hit fairways so it would be nice to have a good lie when we do hit fairways and not have mud on the balls."

However, it became clear later that Woods got it wrong about things getting worse as under-par rounds stacked up. The course dried out in the afternoon and mud wasn't much of an issue for the men who began dominating the leaderboard, most of whom hadn't had to walk through a storm on Thursday.

Weir recovered from a three-putt double bogey at the sixth, his 15th of the round, by closing with consecutive birdies for the lowest score recorded at Bethpage Black in five rounds of US Open play, topping Nick Faldo's 66 in 2002.

Next best was Swede Hanson on 66 with Americans Duval, Hamilton and Barnes a further shot behind.

Mickelson, having announced he wanted to win for cancer-hit wife Amy, showed amazing inner strength in front of galleries that showed him fantastic support, applauding the world No.2 every step of the way to a 69.

But they were also applauding Duval who after dropping off the face of the earth was suddenly playing brilliantly again.

Duval won The 2001 Open at Royal Lytham but has not won a tournament since and hasn't had a top-10 finish since the following year.

But yesterday it was like he'd neverbeen away as he fought back from being two over after four to birdie his last for a 67 - he was five under for his last 14 holes.

Having finished at 3.45pm he was back out less than 80 minutes later but said: "I'm not complaining. I just want a tee time."

However, he couldn't continue where he left off, dropping two shots in the first three holes of his second round.

FIRST-ROUND LEADERBOARD

(USA unless stated)

64 - Mike Weir (Can)

66 - Peter Hanson (Swe)

67- David Duval, Todd Hamilton, Ricky Barnes

68 - Rocco Mediate 69 - Phil Mickelson, Sean O'Hair, Adam Scott (Aus), Graeme McDowell (NIrl), Lucas Glover, David Toms, Drew Weaver

70 - Ross Fisher, Kyle Stanley, David Smail (Nzl), Soren Hansen (Den), Ian Poulter (Eng), Oliver Wilson (Eng), Sergio Garcia (Spa), Fred Funk, Jeff Brehaut, Cameron Tringale, Johan Edfors (Swe), Ryan Moore

71 - Francesco Molinari (Ita), Kenny Perry, Anthony Kim, Justin Leonard, Michael Sim (Aus), Tom Lehman, Trevor Murphy, Kevin Sutherland, John Mallinger, Camilo Villegas (Col), Matt Kuchar, Brandt Snedeker, Andrew McLardy (Rsa)

72 - Dustin Johnson, Ben Martin, Vijay Singh (Fij), Rory Sabbatini (Rsa), Jim Furyk, K J Choi (Kor), Hunter Mahan, Ben Curtis, Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood (Eng), Rory McIlroy (NIrl), Azuma Yano (Jpn), Thomas Levet (Fra), Ryan Blaum

73 - Justin Rose (Eng), Nick Watney, Peter Tomasulo, Steve Stricker, John Merrick, Casey Wittenberg, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus), Nick Taylor, Alvaro Quiros (Spa), Ryan Spears, JJ Henry, JB Holmes, Andres Romero (Arg), Bo Van Pelt, Briny Baird, Steve Allan (Aus), Tim Clark (Rsa), Henrik Stenson (Swe), Retief Goosen (Rsa), Stewart Cink, Billy Mayfair, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra), Jean-Francois Lucquin (Fra), Brian Gay, Shawn Stefani, Tyson Alexander, Michael Welch (Eng)

74 - Martin Laird (Sco), Tiger Woods, Darren Clarke (NIrl), Luke Donald (Eng), Chris Kirk, Rodney Pampling (Aus), Gary Woodland, Sang-moon Bae (Kor), JP Hayes, Angel Cabrera (Arg), Bronson Burgoon, George McNeill, Andrew Parr (Can), Craig Bowden, Cameron Yancey, James Kamte (Rsa), Stephen Ames (Can)

75 - Charlie Wi (Kor), Zach Johnson, Robert Allenby (Aus), Paul Casey (Eng), Ryuji Imada (Jpn), Matt Bettencourt, Simon Khan (Eng), Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spa), Carl Pettersson (Swe)

76 - Ben Crane, Ken Duke, Martin Kaymer (Ger), Eduardo Romero (Arg), Heath Slocum, Padraig Harrington (Irl), Cameron Beckman, Vaughn Snyder, DJ Trahan, Stuart Appleby (Aus), Colby Beckstrom, Chris Stroud, Clark Klaasen.

77 - Kaname Yokoo (Jpn), Richard Bland (Eng), Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Michael Campbell (Nzl), Miguel Jimenez (Spa), Nathan Tyler, Angelo Que (Phi), Jose Manuel Lara (Spa), Scott Gutschewski

78 - Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), Kevin Silva, Clinton Jensen, Simon Dyson (Eng), Josh McCumber, David Erdy, Rickie Fowler, Mike Miles, James Nitties (Aus), Ernie Els (Rsa), Charlie Beljan, Matthew Jones (Aus)

79 - Eric Axley, Boo Weekley, Greg Kraft, Shintaro Kai (Jpn)

80 - Drew Kittleson, Chad Campbell, Steve Conway, Andrew Svoboda, Sean Farren

81 - David Horsey (Eng), Scott Lewis, Kyle Peterman

83 - Josh Brock

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