Lee Westwood seizes early Players Championship lead but fellow Europeans fade

While Rory McIlroy, Padraig Harrington and Justin Rose all looked like missing the cut and Tiger Woods again produced a mixed bag – he did, though, make it through to the weekend – Westwood added a sparkling seven-under-par 65 to his opening 67 and held the early clubhouse lead in the Players Championship, golf's richest event, at Sawgrass.

On 12-under par, the European No1 – third, third and second in the last three majors – was only two short of the tournament's 36-hole record set by Greg Norman in 1994. He was, however, just one stroke in front of Japan's Ryuji Imada (66) and Francesco Molinari of Italy.

Molinari matched Westwood's round as he continued his bid to go one better than his brother Edoardo's runners-up finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational two months ago.

Rose, on the other hand, went in the water for a closing bogey that was likely to cost him his place on level par, Harrington got a ball stuck up a tree four holes from home, and McIlroy, also finishing on one over, failed to find the inspiration of last week's maiden US Tour triumph.

Woods made five birdies, but also two bogeys and a double bogey, for a one-under 71 and a three-under halfway aggregate. With half the field still on the course he was in a tie for 39th.

After taking six on the par-five 16th on the first day, Westwood eagled the same hole on his return after a brilliant 209-yard approach to four feet.

Having already birdied the 12th with a ten-foot putt, Westwood followed with a tee shot to six feet on 17th. He did bogey the last, but came straight back with a hat-trick of birdies at the start of the front nine and a putt of almost 20 feet brought him another on the seventh. "I played nicely all day," he said. "I'm hitting the ball well, which you have to round this course."

Woods hit wild drives on the 11th and 14th, the first into trees costing him a bogey six and the second a double bogey as it flew into water. But there were also four birdies in a bizarre six-hole stretch that took him to the turn in 35. After another dropped shot on the first he birdied the par five second, but seven successive pars completed his round.

"I wasn't quite as sharp," he said after what was only his eighth round since the sex scandal that sent him into hiding in November. "It's still a process. The three-wood on 14 I tried to stop, but I got to the point where I couldn't. I felt like I putted better, but unfortunately I was just a little bit too far away from the holes."

McIlroy missed the cut on his debut last year and said: "You can't see fairways when you are on the tee and I find it hard to line up." The event is held on the same course each year, and when reminded he had better get used to it now he is in the world's top ten, the 21-year-old from Northern Ireland replied: "If it wasn't a nine-and-a-half million dollar event I might not have to."

A double-bogey six on the tenth, where he moved his ball only a few feet from an awkward place in the bunker, left him with ground to make up.

Harrington's ball on the sixth was so far up in the palm tree that it could not be identified, and so he had to return to the bunker from where he had played the shot. That said, the Dubliner commented: "A three-putt on the 11th (for a par] cost me dearly. Things didn't really go my way, not that I played fantastic."

Last year's runner-up Ian Poulter was far from safe on one-under after a 71. McIlroy's compatriot Graeme McDowell had no such worries, on seven-under and joint sixth with one to play, while Luke Donald had yet to resume on five-under.

Just teeing off again was Phil Mickelson, on two-under.

To replace Woods as world number one, Mickelson had to win, and Westwood, the player he pushed into second spot at Augusta, had made that a tough task for him.