AKRON, Ohio — Ian Poulter was annoyed upon realizing he had never finished better than 13th at Firestone, so he took a step toward doing something about it Thursday with an 8-under 62 and a one-shot lead in the Bridgestone Invitational.

Tiger Woods found himself fighting his swing. He settled for a 66.

Such was the difference of two players with vastly different memories on the stout South course at Firestone.

Woods is an eight-time winner, already a PGA Tour record for most victories on one course. Back at this World Golf Championship for the first time in four years, he made a 50-foot birdie putt and two other long putts to offset some average iron play.

It was his best opening round of the year, and he needed it just to keep pace with everyone else on a soft and vulnerable course that led to 45 players in the 71-man field breaking par. The average score was 68.37, the lowest for the opening round at Firestone since it became a WGC in 1999 and the lowest for the first round of any PGA Tour event this season.

“I didn’t quite hit it as well as I wanted to,” Woods said. “But I fought out a score today, which was good.”

Poulter is playing Firestone for the 14th time, and he came across a sheet showing his yearly results. At least he hasn’t missed the cut, mainly because there is no cut at these tournaments. He tied for 13th his first year, 10 shots behind. It never got any better.

“Yeah, it fires me up,” Poulter said after saving par from a bunker on his last hole for a bogey-free round. “It’s frustrating to look at. I actually thought I had a better finish than that, so it really annoyed me. … I wrote them all down, they were that bad. I was like, ‘Seriously, how can you play a good golf course this many times and not really have a result?’ So not to even finish in the top 10 is pretty poor.”

It’s just a start, but it was a good one.

His 62 matched the lowest first-round score at Firestone, first set by Adam Scott in 2011, and it was one off the course record for any round.

Rickie Fowler and Kyle Stanley each had a 63, while Jon Rahm, Si Woo Kim and Patrick Cantlay were another shot behind. Seven players were in the group at 65, which included Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jason Day.

Poulter missed a 10-foot putt on No. 8, his second-to-last hole. He was in no mood to quibble.

“If you would have offered me this at the start of the day, I would have snapped your arm for it,” he said. “Yeah, we can be greedy and say I’d love to have holed that putt on 8 to have tied the record. But 8 under par’s a pretty decent round for me around this golf course.”

Woods seems to put together decent scores even when he feels his game is slightly off.

“It’s nice to shoot rounds like I did at the Open and like I did today, put together rounds where I may not feel the best, but I’m able to post a score,” Woods said. “That’s how you win golf tournaments. You’re not going to have your best all four days, and it’s a matter of that bad day being 2-, 3-under par instead of being 2, 3-over par. And then everyone has their hot days.”

Woods is coming off a tie for sixth at the British Open, where he had the lead for about 30 minutes in the middle of the final round until he fell back with a double bogey. He took a vacation in Switzerland and showed up at Firestone for nine holes of practice on Wednesday.

Minjee Lee shoots 7-under for British Open lead

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — The big thing missing for Minjee Lee in her impressive season is a strong performance at a major championship.

She might get it at the Women’s British Open.

The No. 8-ranked Australian shot a 7-under 65, including a right-to-left putt for eagle from 25 feet on the par-5 15th hole, to lead by one stroke after the first round at Royal Lytham on Thursday.

Mamiko Higa was a shot behind after a 66, while five players — Georgia Hall, Teresa Lu, Park Sung-hyun, Lee Mi-hyang and Pornanong Phatlum — were a further stroke back on a day that started with showers and a breeze before brightening up.

Top-ranked Ariya Jutanugarn bounced back from a double-bogey 6 at the second hole to shoot 71. Second-ranked Inbee Park dropped four shots in her first five holes in a 76.

Only a series of missed putts stopped Lee from winning the tuneup for the fourth major of the year, last weekend’s Ladies Scottish Open on the links at Gullane where Jutanugarn eventually prevailed by one shot.

Still, a closing 66 was another encouraging sign for Lee. She has had one win — at the Volvik Championship — two runner-ups and five top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour this season, is second on the tour’s points standings, and arrived at Lytham in a career-high No. 8 in the rankings.

After finishing 25th, 34th and 25th in the first three majors of 2018, Lee is finally in a good position to seriously challenge for a first major title, especially if she keeps up her impressive performance on the greens after needing only 26 putts in the first round.

She was 3 under at the turn after birdies at Nos. 4, 6 and 8, and reached 7-under with that curling eagle putt at No. 15. Another birdie at the next took her further clear, only for a bogey at the par-4 17th to spoil her card.

“I definitely holed a lot of putts from far away, so that really helped me today,” she said.

“I knew I was hitting it really well coming into this week so I went out there and played my game, which is all I can control. Just having fun out there was my main goal.”

Lee’s best result at a major is a tie for third at the ANA Inspiration last year.

Higa, ranked No. 51, also had just one bogey on a course where avoiding the 206 bunkers was the priority. That dropped shot came at the 8th hole but she recovered with three birdies in the following six holes.

Chinese player Yu Liu made the first charge of the day, with three straight birdies from No. 4 and back-to-back birdies on Nos. 14 and 15 moving her to 6 under and into a two-stroke lead at the time. The 18th hole proved her undoing after she pushed her drive into the thick rough, chipped out into a bunker then three-putted for a triple-bogey 7.

Liu’s 69 put her in a group on 3 under that also included Brooke Henderson of Canada, Moriya Jutanugarn and two-time major winner Ryu So-yeon. Helped by a hole-in-one at No. 9 with an 8-iron from 140 yards, England’s Florentyna Parker also shot a 69.

Michelle Wie withdrew midway through her first round because of a right hand injury. The American golfer was 7 over after 12 holes.

Wie, who is ranked No. 18, said in a post on Twitter she “gave it all” but “couldn’t handle the pain any longer.”

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press.