Camilo Villegas made an eagle on the final hole to take a one-shot lead after the first round of the Honda Classic on Thursday.
He was still 263 yards from the hole when he drove his approach shot over the water to leave him with an eight-foot putt that turned a solid round at PGA National into his lowest start in more than a year.
South African youngster was in fine form at the "Bear's Trap", birdying all three holes on the notoriously difficult stretch of holes on the back nine, and added a birdie on the 18th to end the day on five-under, one shot behind the Colombian in a tie for second alongside Rickie Fowler, Graham DeLaet of Canada and Robert Streb.
Defending champion Rory McIlroy, and Tiger Woods, both carded rounds of 70 but walked away from the course feeling very different about their rounds.
Woods played in cool cloudy conditions and was in danger of ending his round with a big number, when he decided to take off his shoes and socks and stepped into the creek to play a shot with his ball half submerged in the water, rather than take a drop which would have led to a double bogey at least.
Instead, he made the shot as well as par on the hole.
"I wasn't trying to advance it very far, just make sure I got it back in the fairway and give myself some kind of wedge shot in there, which I did," Woods said.
McIlroy, on the other hand, went into the par-five final hole on one-under with ambitions of shooting up the leader board, but chipped over from 105 yards to take a bogey instead. What made it worse was that it is arguably the easiest hole on the course and played about half a shot below par last year.
Villegas is in the middle of a slump that saw him lose his Tour card and miss out on qualification via the Q-school, and is currently playing on sponsor's exemptions.
"This game is great when you're playing good," Villegas said after his round.
"When you're out here missing cuts and missing cuts, I don't care what people say. Yes, we're blessed to have this job, but it's not that much fun."
