Azinger’s 63 Leaves Him 3 Strokes Up

Paul Azinger, still trying to recover from the tragic deaths of close friend Payne Stewart and two associates, shot a seven-under-par 63 on Thursday for a three-stroke lead after the first round of the Sony Open at Honolulu.

Starting on the back nine of the 7,060-yard Waialae Country Club course, Azinger birdied three of the four par-fours and then used a seven-wood and a three-wood on the longest hole on the seaside course, the 551-yard 18th, to get within three feet to set up an eagle to make the turn at five-under 30.

His bogey-free round also included a birdie on No. 5.

Seven players were tied for second at four-under 66: Jim Furyk, who won this tournament in 1996 when it was known as the Hawaiian Open; John Cook, another Hawaiian Open titlist; John Huston, who set the PGA Tour record of 26 under in winning the final Hawaiian Open two years ago; Stuart Appleby; Vijay Singh; Fred Funk; and 1999 qualifying school graduate Ben Bates.

“I had a pretty tough off-season,” said Azinger, who himself faced adversity when he was stricken with lymphoma in his right shoulder in 1993. “I didn’t play for awhile and just wanted to make sure I would come back focused.

“Today, starting out, I just wanted to make a good score. I just wanted to get focused on getting those distractions out of the way.”

Azinger was referring to the deaths last October of Stewart and his managers, Robert Fraley and Van Ardan. All were killed in a plane crash in South Dakota.

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Karrie Webb made a birdie on her first hole of the 2000 season, wound up with a seven-under 65 for the first-round lead in The Office Depot pro-am at West Palm Beach, Fla., and showed that she could be up for an encore to last year’s record-setting season.

Webb had eight birdie putts inside 15 feet on the Heritage course at Ibis Country Club to take a two-stroke lead over Juli Inkster and Liselotte Neumann.