Colin Montgomerie, Europe's best golfer for much of the last decade, had a six-under-par 66 in the first round of the Deutsche Bank SAP Open here - and then revealed he relied on painkilling tablets to play.

The Scot, who won seven successive Orders of Merit, lies two shots behind Alex Cejka of Germany and one behind Greg Turner of New Zealand after a round that contained only one bogey.

Montgomerie pulled out of Thursday's pro-am with a twinge in his back.

"That was a good decision," he said yesterday, "because if I'd gone on I might not have been able to play the tournament. I have to take two painkillers in the morning and two more every evening, otherwise I couldn't carry on.

"It's very worrying as far as the golf goes and I never thought it would get to this stage. It's just wear and tear and thank goodness I haven't practised as much as some do or things might be even worse.

"I mean, I'm 38 and look at Martina Hingis - she's only 21. I don't know the name of the tablets - it's some Latin tag - but I'm not worried about taking them so long as they're not addictive or a banned substance."

The Scot said that this week's ambition was to finish ahead of Tiger Woods. "If you do that," he remarked, "you usually make the speech."

He is three ahead of the American, whose only bogey yesterday came when he was buried under the lip of a bunker.

Woods was happy with his 69.

"Any time you are in the 60s on a course like this it's a job well done."

Cejka played defensive golf and was rewarded with eight birdies in his eight-under-par 64.

Yesterday afternoon, had you been able to get into his hotel bedroom, you would have seen a 48-year-old professional golfer sitting on the floor, in the lotus position, staring fixedly ahead at a point in space. It would have been Eduardo Romero, engaging in his own particular form of yoga, which is designed to improve all aspects of his game, but particularly his concentration.

Yesterday the Argentinian was positive that these floor exercises were responsible for his vastly improved focus on the game and for reversing the results of a round he played last year of which, he says, he is ashamed.

Twelve months ago in this event the Argentinian led after three rounds with a 54-hole total of 199. On 200 and playing alongside him in the final round was Woods, and what happened next still haunts Romero.

"I did not concentrate on my game," he said yesterday. "My concentration, it was on what Tiger did."

The result was a round of 77, five over par, for Romero, and a 66, six under par, for Woods, who won the tournament by four. Romero finished a distant 14th, 10 behind.

Romero had tinkered with yoga before, but that result persuaded him to concentrate on the exercises.

"I sit on the floor, legs crossed," he said, "relax my arms, my body, my neck and I think: 'Let power come to me, power come to my body.'

"Then I think of some of the good shots I have played, some of the perfect ones. I think of the seven-iron I hit at the 18th in a match against Greg Norman. It was from 178 yards and it finished two feet away. It meant we went into a play-off and I won."

When he went back to his room yesterday perhaps he was able to add to his memory store the three-wood he hit at the third, a long hole of some 536 yards.

He hit a three-wood second of around 240 yards that from the moment it was struck was always going to be on the green and was described, in mid-flight, by a former Scottish international as "majestic".

It finished only 30 feet away and deserved an eagle rather than the birdie he got. It was all very different from a year ago.

"Today," said Romero, "I didn't see Tiger. I made my swing and I went after the ball. I blocked him out of my mind. Last year I was very interested to see what Tiger did, but not this year."