Four Tied for Lead at Old-Look Doral

Toned down from a controversial redesign that kept top players from coming back, the Doral-Ryder Open had a familiar look to it Thursday--low scores on a day of virtually no wind, and some familiar faces at the top of the leaderboard at Miami.

Bruce Lietzke had eight birdies in a round of seven-under 65 that left him tied after the first round with Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk and Harrison Frazar.

Phil Mickelson, Nick Price and Bernhard Langer were among the six players another stroke back.

“A real friendly day,” Lietzke said.

“It’s back to playing like it did. On a day like this, we’re always going to shoot low rounds.”

Then again, it was calm in the first round a year ago and only 23 players managed to break 70. Now that Doral has refilled or reshaped 70 of the cavernous bunkers put in by Raymond Floyd, the number of rounds in the 60s was nearly doubled Thursday.

“The golf course doesn’t look quite as intimidating anymore,” Frazar said. “You can actually see some land where you are trying to hit it. In the past couple of years, all you saw was the wall of a bunker, or you tried to hit it over one trap and leave it short of the others.”

Erik Compton, the first heart-transplant recipient to play the PGA Tour, had a 72.

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England’s Lee Westwood and Argentina’s Jose Coceres shot course-record 64s to share the first round lead in the Dubai Desert Classic at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland, coming off last week’s victory over Tiger Woods at the Match Play Championship, finished at one-under 71.

Justin Leonard shot par 72, while Mark O’Meara was at one-over 73.