Watts Recovers Well, Ties Estes for Lead

Standing on the 13th tee box, already four over par after only three holes in The Players Championship at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Brian Watts figured the worst was behind him.

It was, which is one reason he wound up in a tie for the lead at the end of a wild first round Thursday in which so many others fizzled down the stretch.

“I never believed it would be this big of a comeback,” Watts said after making eight birdies in 11 holes for a four-under 68, tied with Bob Estes.

For Watts, getting the damage out of the way early was much better than what happened to so many others late in the round.

Davis Love III had a chance to take the lead until bogeys on the last two holes left him at 70. Greg Norman was one stroke back until he dumped one in the water on the famous island-green 17th and took a triple bogey.

Nick Faldo, a rare sight on the leaderboard these days, finished bogey-bogey, as did Jesper Parnevik.

Watts’ trip around the Stadium Course turned out to be just as bizarre as his career path, which featured a six-year detour to Japan.

How often does a first-round leader have an eight on his card?

“I can’t think of anything like this since college,” he said.

Playing for the first time in a month, David Duval showed rust with the putter but still got around in three-under 69, tied with Hal Sutton and Joe Ozaki. Tiger Woods and Love were among those at 70, and Faldo had to settle for a 71.

Only 29 players in the third-toughest field in golf this decade managed to break par on the TPC at Sawgrass, which played 2 1/2 strokes above par.

“It was a very difficult day--kind of like a combination between the U.S. Open and Augusta [during the Masters],” Colin Montgomerie said after a 72.

With four-inch rough and pins cut in difficult places on glassy greens, no one managed to get to five under for the day.

That Watts was at 68 was a minor miracle.

Shellshocked by a triple bogey on the par-five 11th, his second hole of the day, Watts chopped his way to a bogey on the next hole, the easiest par four on the Stadium Course at 358 yards.

“I was like, ‘Wow, what a great start this is going to be,’ ” he said. “Then the miracle happened.”

It wasn’t quite like the miracle he pulled off at Royal Birkdale last summer, when he forced a playoff with eventual winner Mark O’Meara with a spectacular bunker shot on the 72nd hole. But it was still momentous.

After a birdie putt from 12 feet on No. 13, he chipped in for birdie from 50 feet on No. 14 and was on the road to recovery.

“That’s probably the shot right there that really got me believing it could be a bit of a comeback,” Watts said. “I never believed it would be this big of a comeback.”

He made three more putts of 20 feet or longer, hit two shots to four feet for birdie and avoided the lapses that cost so many others.

Estes, whose only victory came in the 1994 Texas Open, had a slight recovery of his own.

At four under going to the par-five 16th, the easiest hole of the day, he had 204 yards to the hole but blocked his long iron shot into the water and took a bogey.

But Estes makes his living with the short game. He took only 24 putts on the day, two on the final two holes. He made a 10-foot birdie putt on the island green, then saved par from about 20 feet on No. 18.

Putting kept Duval from putting a scare into the rest of the field. After taking a month off, he was in position to birdie the first five holes. He missed birdie putts of 10 feet, three feet and six feet on the first three holes before converting from three and 10 feet.

Golf Notes

Joey Sindelar became the fourth player to ace No. 17, the par-three island hole, since The Players Championship moved to the Stadium Course in 1982. And Fred Couples had a dramatic moment at No. 17 too. After his tee shot went in the water, he elected to re-hit from the tee box and holed the shot. Even with the “hole in three,” Couples struggled to a 77. . . . Senior PGA Tour player Jerry McGee, 55, was resting in a Pittsburgh hospital after surgery to remove a malignant tumor in his neck and another from his throat.