Padraig Harrington hits from the sand toward the sixth green during the first round of the Bridgestone Invitational Thursday at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. Harrington leads the tournament at 6-under par.

AKRON, Ohio — Padraig Harrington's round hung in the balance like so many before it in what has been a lost year.

Instead of going wrong yet again, however, everything seemed to work out — just like when he won the British Open and PGA Championship in the span of three weeks a year ago. The result was a glittering 6-under 64 Thursday at the Bridgestone Invitatinal for a two-stroke lead over Scott Verplank, Tim Clark and Praya Marksaeng.

The turning point came when he was behind the green at the par-4 13th, needing to get up and down to avoid a bogey.

"At that stage, I suppose I'm still wondering which way it's going to go," Harrington said.

After a 40-foot chip, he saved par with a 5-foot putt. From there, he floated to the top of the leaderboard.

"That was important," the Irishman said. "I felt like I was going forward from there, felt like I was looking to make birdies on every hole. If I hadn't gotten that up-and-down, I might have gotten back in the track I've been on the last six months of being very defensive and very cautious."

Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter and Zach Johnson were at 67 and Tiger Woods, who has won six times at Firestone Country Club, scrambled to a 68.

It's hard to imagine how fragile Harrington's game had become after his breakthrough last year when he charged from two shots back of Greg Norman at Royal Birkdale to win the Open by four strokes and then overcame a three-shot deficit to Ben Curtis heading into the last round of the PGA at Oakland Hills.

Harrington has virtually fallen off the competitive map since tinkering with his swing when he seemed to be atop the golf world. The numbers don't lie: no top 10s in 14 starts on the PGA Tour, six missed cuts in 14 starts on the European Tour and winless in official events since raising the Wanamaker Trophy 51 weeks ago.

Harrington refused to say that he had turned a corner in the span of 4Z\x hours. Yet he had difficulty concealing how pleased he was to finally get off to a good start in a round — he birdied the first two holes — or in a tournament, for a change.

"It does have an effect," he said. "I've seen many players start off, get a couple good breaks in the first couple of holes and play well for 72 holes. And vice versa. ... It is important that you get some momentum early in the tournament and you get a couple of good things going for you."