TIGER AND RORY WARM UP WITH 62s!

AS IF the appetite wasn’t whetted enough for the forthcoming Ryder Cup, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy opened with fabulous rounds of 62 in the third FedEx Cup play-off event — the BMW Championship — last night. It was Woods’s lowest opening round on the PGA Tour for 12 years as he celebrated his wildcard pick in dazzling fashion. McIlroy matched him but still left the course feeling a twinge of what might have been. He had a golden opportunity to become the first European to shoot 59 on either of the game’s two main circuits. Six birdies in a row took McIlroy to the brink of that mythical score. He was nine under par for 15 holes on storied Aronimink, Pennsylvania — par 70 — with the shortest par four on the course and a par five to come. But a bogey at the first of those holes took the wind from his sails and he followed it with another at the difficult 8th. At least the birdie on offer at his last hole, the 9th, restored some of the gloss to what had been a superlative show. Woods (right) had struggled on Thursdays at events this year. In 14 tournaments he was an aggregate two over for the first round and 66 under for the other 54 holes but put that right in some style with his course recordequalling score here. The 14-time major champion wasted no time electrifying another enormous gallery by reaching the turn in only 29 shots — the first time he had done that since the 2007 Tour Championship. Some of Woods’ shotmaking recalled his great years while the decision to go back to his Scotty Cameron putter, with which he won most of his majors, worked a treat. Woods is the only member of America’s Ryder Cup team who hasn’t won an event over the past 12 months but he certainly started like a man hellbent on putting that right. His next win will also represent another landmark because it will be the 80th on the PGA Tour of his incredible career. To achieve it, however, he might have to win a shootout against McIlroy. Wouldn’t that be something just before the Ryder Cup? Among the other players Parisbound for Europe, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Alex Noren shot 66s.