GOLF/US PGA Championship: So, what do you know? On this day of contradictions, we discovered that Tiger Woods wasn't infallible; and that short-hitters - supposedly the forgotten men of the modern era - could play this game, regardless of how far back they manage to push the tee boxes. Philip Reid reports from  Baltusrol

In truth, it wasn't supposed to be like this.

But, as the 87th US PGA Championship yesterday unfurled at Baltusrol Golf Club in the leafy district of Springfield, New Jersey, the lie was given to the assertion that this was a course tailor-made for the so-called "bombers," those with gargantuan drives.

Instead, it was proven - principally by Trevor Immelman and Ben Curtis, who shared the early clubhouse lead on three-under-par 67s - that length wasn't everything, and that accuracy and the ability to get the ball in the hole were attributes every bit as important.

For Tiger Woods, it was a day when his frailty was exposed. In shooting an opening round of 75, the world's number one wasn't alone in struggling to cope with a course that baked under a merciless sun that changed the conditions of soft greens and fairways that prevailed throughout the practice rounds and instead gave players rock-hard greens - that needed to be hosed from an early part of the day - to contend with.

Woods, who has gone 1st-2nd-1st in the three majors already played this season, laboured off the tee and paid a price. "I've got to stay patient and build on it each and every day and just kind of make sure I keep chipping away towards (getting to) under par for the tournament," Woods remarked after the highest opening round to par that he has recorded in a major.

He added: "Today was a grinding day. It took a lot of mental energy out of me to try and stay that patient, that calm and that focused. I could easily have lost it and packed it in and gone home, but I stayed focused and I did what I needed to do. I'm still in it." As if to underline to Woods that it was indeed just one of those days, his play of the par-five 18th - his ninth hole - adequately summed up his misfortunes. His drive hit a tree and ricocheted towards the water hazard that diagonally crosses the fairway. As streams of camera men and marshals searched for the ball before it was found, it seemed to Woods that it had embedded in the hazard and the only way for that to have happened was for someone to have walked on it.

"It was totally unplayable," said Woods.

But the first referee decreed that the player couldn't get relief; and, when Woods asked for a second opinion, the second referee backed up that assertion.

On a par five eminently reachable in two, Woods had to settle for a bogey. It was one of those days. "You know, when I did hit it well off the tees, I didn't hit my irons close and, then, when I did hit it close, I didn't make a putt. It was just every hole I did something wrong not to make birdie, and that was frustrating," said Woods, who hasn't missed a cut in a major as a professional.

While Woods wasn't throwing in the towel, or anything remotely like it, he could still look across to the giant scoreboard by the 18th green and see a somewhat unexpected group of pace-setters that featured Immelman - competing in his third US PGA - and Curtis, the surprise winner of the British Open in 2003 but who has since struggled to live up to that status as a major champion.

"Golf is a funny game, it can come and go at any time," remarked Curtis. "I'm just trying to stay patient, work hard and just stay positive and not really worry about those problems I've had in the past couple of years." In a bogey-free round, Curtis birdied the fifth where he hit a six-iron approach out of a fairway bunker to four feet, then holed from 14 feet on the 14th after playing a nine-iron approach and secured his last birdie on the 16th with a three-iron approach in to a foot.

South African Immelman enjoyed his moment in the sun too, but has no plans to go into the shade. Earlier this season, he finished fifth in the US Masters. He believes he has the temperament for playing the majors. "I've a few majors under my belt now and I know what to expect," remarked Immelman.

Meanwhile, of the Irish, Paul McGinley was faring best, producing back-to-back birdies on the 17th and 18th - having started on the 10th - to reach the turn in one-under.