HAVEN, Wis. - Whistling Straits didn't put up much of a fight against the world's best players.

Fact is, it welcomed them with a flock of birdies.

An opening round brimming with anticipation brought some real surprises - not the players atop the leaderboard, but the scores next to their names.

Darren Clarke, Ernie Els, Justin Leonard and a long list of others hammered the links-style course on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Clarke, from Northern Ireland, led the way with a 7-under 65. Els and Leonard shot 66s, and Vijay Singh, a four-time winner this year and the tour's leading money winner, was in a four-player group at 67.

Masters champion Phil Mickelson was poised to make a run at another major win with an opening 69. He finished second in the U.S. Open and third in the British Open, putting him in position to become the first player to finish in the top three in all four majors in one year.

"Without wind, all that trouble - all those bunkers you see - aren't really in play for us," Mickelson said. "The course played very susceptible to low scores, to birdies."

"I think they kind of went a little too easy," Singh said of the accomodating pin placements and shorter tees. "I think it's going to get tougher from here in."

That could be bad news for Tiger Woods, who shot a 75 and John Daly, whose 81 was his worst score of the year. Both were in danger of missing the cut.

Woods has made a record 127 consecutive cuts, and has never had the weekend off in a major since turning pro.

Clarke, Leonard and K.J. Choi, who shot a 68, had one of the early tee times and quickly put to rest the hype that Whistling Straits might be the toughest test ever in a major.

Choi started with five straight birdies, Clarke birdied the first four and Leonard had five birdies on his back nine. Clarke said earlier in the week that the links-style course reminded him of the courses in Ireland and Scotland and he played as though he was on home turf.

He finished with nine birdies and the 65 was the lowest score in relation to par in the first round of a major since Chris DiMarco had a 7-under 65 in the 2001 Masters.

"We got fortunate with the conditions," Clarke said. "The greens were holding. We were able to fire at flags that we were not able to do earlier in the week."

Those weren't the only favorable conditions.

The whipping wind during the practice rounds was more of a gentle breeze, and it shifted directions about an hour into the first round. That eliminated the crosswind that tends to blow any shot slightly off line into some of the 1,400 bunkers and over the bluffs along Lake Michigan.

If that wasn't enough, the PGA of America - perhaps itself fearful of the unknown on a 6-year-old course never tested in competition - decided to move up the tees on three holes. That knocked 145 yards off the longest course in major history, so it played only 7,369 yards. Plus, all the par 3s had pins at the front of the greens.

"I think they were pretty nice to us with the tee markers," 50-year-old Jay Haas said after a 68 that enhanced his bid to become the oldest man to qualify for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Woods putted miserably and opened the door a little wider for Els' bid to dethrone him as the world's No. 1 player.

Nothing seems to help Woods, who once dominated the majors but is in an 0-for-9 slump. But as he has all year, Woods offered a positive spin.

"You can get it going here, there's no doubt about that," he said. "The greens are soft, the balls are holding and if you're hitting the ball well, you can get the ball in there close."

"I didn't hit the ball all that poorly, but I sure putted bad."

Daly's chances of making the Ryder Cup team are probably now gone and he knows only a monster second round can save them after a round that included three double bogeys and an 8 on the par-4 18th.

"I've got to play some incredible golf tomorrow just to make the cut," Daly said. "I've been through worse challenges. Hopefully, I'm up for this one."

The winner of the PGA has been under par 41 times in the 46 years since the tournament switched to stroke play, and most everyone figured Whistling Straits would be one of those exceptions. The wind can be wicked off Lake Michigan, the greens are enormous with severe slopes and it's not easy to get the ball close to the hole.

But it didn't take long to realize this wasn't the scary, ball-gobbling course that had been predicted.

At least not yet.

AP-ES-08-13-04 0138EDT