Calm and comparatively soft conditions welcomed the players into the opening round of the 40th Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. And they certainly made the most of it.

Scores were extremely low throughout the day, but particularly amongst the morning wave of the field, who made the most of the unusually receptive greens and low winds. Roberto Castro was the surprising name to take the biggest advantage over the course, and his opening round was absolutely scintillating. Starting on the 10th, he completed the back nine in just 31 shots, before playing the front nine in 32, with an eagle at the second being the obvious highlight. Such a run took Castro into a potentially historic position, as he found himself on the ninth, his final hole, with a putt for birdie that would have broken the course-record held by Fred Couples and Greg Norman. Ultimately, the 27-year-old missed, and made par, but course-record-equalling round of 63 set a tremendous benchmark for the entire day, that wasn’t matched.

This gave Castro a three-shot-lead that remained intact all day. What was even more impressive about his round was the manner in which he compiled it. Often, when producing such a low round, players will have made a number of long putts, but not today. The longest putt he made was under 10-feet at the 16th. His ball striking was sensational. He hit five approaches to within four feet, include three to within two feet. This was a man playing golf of the utmost quality, and is certainly one of the most impressive rounds we have seen in 2013.

But who exactly is Roberto Castro? Well, even among seasoned followers of the game, he is a somewhat unknown quantity. But there are so many fantastically talented upcoming players in the game these days, that any one of them can produce a performance of this magnitude.

As Castro himself noted after the round: "Derek Ernst won last week in his eighth event and no one ever heard of him There are a lot of good players out here."

There certainly are.

Castro will take a three-shot-lead into Friday over two major champions. Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, and Rory McIlroy, who shot under-par for the first time in seven attempts at TPC Sawgrass. With such a disappointing record comes less expectation, and with it, less pressure, which the world number two McIlroy acknowledged himself: "I feel a lot more relaxed here," The 24-year-old said. "Part of that is I know whatever I do this week, it will be the best thing I've ever done here."

Like Castro, McIlroy and Johnson posted their scores in the morning. In the afternoon, scoring remained excellent, with all eyes on Tiger Woods, to see whether he can produce a performance at Sawgrass that we haven’t see for over a decade. And, he largely delivered. After a solid start on the front nine, Tiger produced a run of four consecutive birdies around the turn, which will took him well inside the top ten. Another birdie followed on the 16th, before a disappointing bogey on the 18th put a slight cloud over what was an excellent opening round of 67. (The first time Tiger has shot an opening round below 70 at Sawgrass.)

A nice achievement for Tiger at Sawgrass, but one that he deemed necessary given the scores posted by the leading players earlier in the day: "I felt like I had to go out and shoot something in the 60s today. Most of the guys were under par in that morning session."

Tiger, who has just one win at the Players Championship (2001), is four-shots-back of the lead going into Friday morning, where he himself will enjoy the privilege of playing on fresh greens early in the day.

67 players broke par today, with 33 of them posting rounds under 70. Conditions were favourable, but the course does remain a significant challenge, and will become firmer and more difficult as the week progresses. But it was a thrilling opening round, with play of the highest quality being produced consistency throughout the day. Unfortunately the attire of many of the players didn’t quite match the standard of their play, so lets hope they’re all better dressed on Friday as they attempt to keep up with the pace set by Roberto Castro’s course-record-equalling round of 63.

Leaderboard
63: Roberto Castro
66: Zach Johnson, Rory McIlroy
67: Casey Wittenberg, Hunter Mahan, Steve Stricker, Ryan Palmer, Webb Simpson, Tiger Woods
68: Henrik Stenson, David Lingmerth, Greg Chalmers, Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Sang-Moon-Bae