Darren Clarke was singing in the rain after shaking off his putting woes to sink eight birdies in the first round of the $1.65 million Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Miyazaki, Japan yesterday.

While world number one Tiger Woods, who shot 71, was battling to keep a grip on his clubs - and his score - amid occasional driving rain, Clarke relished the cool, damp conditions to fire a sizzling opening round seven-under-par 64. The 34-year-old Irishman leads by two shots from Japan's Tsukasa Watanabe, Kaname Yokoo and Britain's Justin Rose and attributed his return to putting form to shedding some tips from pal Tiger and reverting back to his old style.

"I've been struggling for consistency with my putting for the last couple of years. Tiger tried to help me a couple of years ago at Valderrama during the American Express tournament.

"He had a couple of suggestions which I worked on for a about nine months but I couldn't take what he had suggested. So it's taken a long time to come round and now I'm putting with the same style I grew up with."

Clarke fired six birdies in his opening nine holes, including five in a row from the sixth hole. He dropped his only shot on the 16th hole but hit back to finish in style with back-to-back birdies on 17th and the long par-five 18th hole.

Despite holding a healthy lead over Woods, Clarke added warily: "There is no such thing as a healthy lead over Tiger Woods."

(Jpn unless stated, Par 71): 64 - D Clarke; 66 - K Yokoo, J Rose (Brit), T Watanabe; 67 - S K Ho, H Miyase, M Ozaki, S Garcia (Spa), N Ozaki; 68 - M Kusakabe, H Fujita, T Nakajima, Z Moe (Myn), J Kim, T Ozaki, K Miyamoto, N Kawahara; 69 - S Nonaka, G McDowell, D Duval (US). Selected others: 71 - T Woods (USA), L Westwood (Brit), T Bjorn (Den).