LEMONT, Ill. • Already having his best season, Matt Kuchar got off to his best start of the year Thursday in the BMW Championship. A mystery season for Tiger Woods took another unexpected turn.
Kuchar, who won the opening FedEx Cup playoff event to position himself for the $10 million bonus, wasted no time putting his name atop the leaderboard. He finished with an 18-foot birdie putt for a 7-under 64 and a one-shot lead over Ryan Moore.
Ian Poulter of England, who has finished in the top 10 only once since winning the Match Play Championship in February, had a 66 for the best round of the afternoon despite opening with a double bogey.
Woods also started with a double bogey, but he never got those shots back.
With one last bogey on the 18th hole, he wound up with a 73 to leave himself in a big hole as he tries to advance to the final stage of the playoffs in Atlanta. It was his highest round at Cog Hill since he opened with a 73 in the 2005 Western Open. It also ended a streak of 11 consecutive rounds in the 60s on the public course in the Chicago suburbs where he has won five times.
Woods should be used to rough starts by now. His scoring average in the first round this year is 71.08, compared with 68.9 a year ago in the same tournaments.
Even so, it was peculiar to hear him discuss how much ground he has to make up — not against Kuchar, but the finish he needs to get into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings and advance to the Tour Championship.
"As of right now, I'm only five shots back out of that spot," Woods said. "That's not bad."
Everything is good with Kuchar at the moment, except his voice. He is playing so well — a winner at The Barclays, a tour-high 10 finishes in the top 10 this year — that there's really nothing left for him to say.
Not that he had a choice. Kuchar has laryngitis and begged off a series of interviews, letting his score speak for itself. It was the second-best start of his career, and the 21st time in 23 events this year that he broke par in the opening round.
"Just keep playing," Kuchar said to one question he felt good enough to answer. "I was driving it well. I was actually doing everything well. It felt very good. Last week was a little bit suspect, and this week I kind of figured some stuff out."
Something clicked for Moore when he least expected it.
Dressed in a black sweater and white golf shirt, with a tie hung loosely around his neck, Moore was 1 over for the round and in a bunker on the 11th. He holed that out for birdie, hit 3-iron to 5 feet for birdie, and after a par, finished with five straight birdies.
"I certainly wasn't expecting to do that," Moore said. "... I don't know. Just got a little positive momentum going from there."
Retief Goosen and Charlie Wi were at 67, while the group at 68 included Dustin Johnson, Luke Donald and Justin Rose.
Phil Mickelson, not a fan of Cog Hill, ended with a bogey on the par-5 ninth hole for a 72.
