Golf: Stewart's breeze in the wind: Woosnam's powers of recovery tested by the water

PAYNE STEWART began his second successive week of good play - once this would not have been news - with an opening round of two-under-par 70 at the Freeport-McMoRan Classic here yesterday.

Stewart, describing his five-birdie, three-bogey round, said: 'I was very patient. The wind is making the greens harder and faster, and two under is a very good score.'

One indication of how good Stewart's score was yesterday was the fact that he hit just one ball into the water. Ian Woosnam drowned three on the front nine. He shot an 80 yesterday, but he could not say how many of those shots were due to the wind, and how many just attributable to the unreliable state of his game. 'Funnily enough that's the best I've swung in a long time,' Woosnam said.

Woosnam's coach, Bob Torrance, was watching from outside the ropes, and said that Woosnam really was not hitting it that badly. In fact, on those three holes on the front side where he went in the water, Woosnam made three extremely good bogeys, pitching to a foot on the sixth hole after dropping, and sinking a 10-foot bogey putt on the par-five eighth.

Woosnam had plenty of company in the 80s yesterday, but not enough to remove the pressure of needing a good score in the second round. The average score from the morning group yesterday was half-way between 75 and 76.

Nick Faldo had an afternoon tee-time yesterday, and so went off in the worst of the wind. Through four holes he was holding up fairly well, having dropped just one shot with a bogey on his second hole.

Faldo ended with a round of 78 which put him alongside the Spaniard, Jose-Maria Olazabal. Faldo's round included just one birdie, on the par-five 15th, and six bogeys.

FREEPORT-McMORAN CLASSIC (English Turn, New Orleans, Louisiana) Leading first-round scores (US unless stated): 70 P Stewart. 71 M Standly; D Waldorf; E Fiori; B Kratzert. 72 V Singh (Fiji); J Mudd; N Lancaster; G Kraft; S Hoch. 73 H Sutton; S Elkington (Aus); M Brooks; J Adams; D Hart. Selected: 78 J-M Olazabal (Sp); N Faldo (GB). 80 I Woosnam (Wal).

Miller's birdie trail, page 35