Dredge leads as Woods keeps up pressure

Tiger Woods made a flying start to his bid to claim an 11th win in 21 World Golf Championships events in San Francisco.

But it was Wales’ Bradley Dredge who upstaged some of the world’s best players to move into the early lead at Harding Park.

Showing no signs of the rib injury he suffered during the Presidents Cup a fortnight ago, Woods birdied his opening hole in the £4.2million American Express Championship today.

The world number one laid up short of the green on the 562-yard par five 10th, but played a superb pitch which span back to within two feet of the hole.

Another birdie from 10ft on the 13th took Woods to two under par but that was two shots behind pacesetter Dredge.

The 32-year-old from Cardiff, also starting on the back nine, opened with a hat-trick of birdies and picked up another shot on the 15th to lie four under.

That was one shot ahead of Sweden’s Henrik Stenson – third in the Dunhill Links championship on Sunday – and former US Open champion Jim Furyk.

Alongside Woods on two under were Phil Mickelson, John Daly and Colin Montgomerie, the Scot also continuing where he left off on Sunday after his victory at St Andrews.

Montgomerie’s win, his first for 19 months, lifted him into second on the Order of Merit and his main rival for an eighth title, New Zealand’s Michael Campbell, was one under par after eight.

Woods had predicted the extensively-renovated municipal course could yield some low scores if the wind did not blow and that looked like being the case.

Australian Richard Green showed what was was possible with a birdie on the 10th followed by a hole-in-one on the 11th, the left-hander holing a 5-iron from 194 yards.

It was not proving so easy for Sheffield’s Neil Cheetham however, who was five over par after eight holes.

Cheetham, ranked 430 places below playing partner and world number three Mickelson, needs a good finish here to try to keep his European Tour card – he currently lies 138th on the Order of Merit.

But after opening with two pars, and out-driving Mickelson on the first, a double bogey on the third was followed by three more dropped shots to lie dead last of the 71-strong field.