Players wear yellow to honor fallen friend

Of course, Rickie Fowler would've given the world to have worn the blue shirt he'd laid out for Thursday's opening round of the PGA Championship.

Instead, he put on bright yellow — a shirt that matched the color hat his buddy Jarrod Lyle liked to wear when he played.

The Aussie golfer died Wednesday night after a long bout with leukemia. Tributes to him were everywhere at Bellerive Country Club, mainly in the form of yellow ribbons that many players pinned to their hats.

Fellow Aussie Jason Day lived across the street from Lyle in Orlando during their early playing days.

"It's hard because you sit there and you know him and he's a buddy of yours, and he's not there anymore," said Day, who choked up discussing the former PGA Tour player, who died at age 36.

Fowler wore a yellow pin on his hat last week, after Lyle announced he was ending treatment.

He wanted to do something more this time.

"You think about it as far as, Jarrod wouldn't want us out here feeling sorry for him or feeling bad or anything," Fowler said. "(He'd) probably come out here and kick us in the butt and tell us to man up and go have some fun."

Tiger Woods gets off to bad start

What Tiger Woods really needed after two holes at the PGA Championship was a fresh start.

A change of shirts helped do the trick.

Too bad he couldn't do something about those ugly numbers already stacked up on the scorecard.

A bogey-double bogey start left Woods scrambling to stay close Thursday. After having his caddie grab his backup shirt from the bag, Woods popped into a restroom near the 12th tee box, put on the dry shirt and shot 3 under the rest of the way to finish at even-par 70. That kept him within six shots of the firstround leader, Gary Woodland.

It kept me in the golf tournament," Woods said. "It could have easily gone the other way, being 3 over through two. A lot of things could've happened, and not a lot of them are positive."

No back problems for Justin Rose

Justin Rose says the back injury that forced him to withdraw from last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational

didn't cause him any problems during an opening-round 67 at the PGA Championship.

The Englishman did have a few hiccups midway through his round, but he said they didn't have anything to do with his back. It was more a function of having not played much competitive golf the last few weeks, and trying to get back into the swing of a major championship.

If anything, the back injury that led to Rose skipping the practice rounds was a good thing.

"I kind of went out there today and had a very clear intent on what I wanted to do on every hole," he said. "Often you can be biased how you play in practice at times, and that can influence the clubs you want to hit off the tee and what you're comfortable doing."

Spieth digs himself a hole

Jordan Spieth spent most of his day play catch-up after a double-bogey at the first, and his 1-over 71 in the opening round of the PGA Championship left him seven shots off the pace.

Spieth arrived at Bellerive trying to complete the career grand slam, but he never seemed to get his round going. He fought back to even par after a birdie at the 15th, but a pair of wayward shots led to another bogey at the par-5 17th and a bitter taste in his mouth.

Spieth won't have much time to figure out what went wrong. He goes off at 8:12 a.m. on Friday.

Johnson's round could have been better

Dustin Johnson shot 3-under 67 in the first round of the PGA Championship, a solid start for the world's topranked player but one that could have been even better.

Johnson had it to 5 under on the back nine before a couple of bogeys heading in dropped him back.

Johnson said that Bellerive is playing difficult despite its wide fairways and generous greens, and that the key to getting around it in good shape is to hit those fairways off the tee.

"If you mishit it you're not going to be in the fairway," he said, "and if you miss the fairway you're really going to struggle."