PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Sergio Garcia put together his third straight impressive round at The Players Championship. The first two gave him a runner-up finish last year. The 6-under 66 yesterday was only a great start.

With growing confidence in his balky putting stroke and superb ball striking that has become his hallmark, Garcia birdied all the par 5s and picked up a bonus birdie with a 50-foot putt on the 14th hole to build a 2-shot lead on the frightening Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

It was a good step toward ending an 0-for-53 drought on the PGA Tour, the longest of his career.

"At the end of the day, the only thing I can do is keep working on it, keep giving myself chances, and it's going to happen," Garcia said. "I feel like I'm getting closer and closer. At least now I feel like I can do it and it's just a matter of being able to do it."

Kenny Perry and Paul Goydos each had a 68 in the mild morning breeze on a perfectly conditioned golf course.

Masters champion Trevor Immelman withdrew yesterday morning because of an illness, leaving the PGA Tour's flagship event without the last two major champions.

Immelman's agent, Jon Wagner, said the player woke up vomiting and had an upset stomach.

Since winning the Masters by 3 shots over Tiger Woods, Immelman has had a tough time. He has failed to break par in his last two tournaments, missing the cut at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship and the Wachovia Championship.

Woods, the PGA champion, is recovering from knee surgery.

LPGA Tour

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - The booming drives were there, but more often than not, Michelle Wie didn't know where they were going in her first round on the LPGA Tour since February.

The best scores, as usual, belonged to just about everyone else - a course record-tying 63 by Scotland's Mhairi McKay, and a potential battle looming between Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam in the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill.

Once the most-heralded young player in the women's game, Wie managed just one birdie in a zig-zagging 4-over 75 on a soggy day, even as the River Course yielded its fourth 8-under 63 in six years, 64s to Sorenstam and Sun Young Yoo, and 65s to Ochoa and Diana D'Alessio.

European Tour

MILAN, Italy - John Daly shot a 5-under 67 to trail co-leaders Ross McGowan and Marco Ruiz by 3 strokes after the first round of the Italian Open.

The 609th-ranked Daly, who hasn't finished in the top 10 of a tournament in three years, had seven birdies and two bogeys at Castello di Tolcinasco Golf and Country Club.