Schwartzel in front at Doral

South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel continued his fine start to 2010 by taking the first round lead in the WGC-CA Championship at TPC Blue Monster, Doral.

On a relatively calm day Schwartzel, who has two wins in his homeland in 2010, finished as the leader on 5-under par, one shot ahead of Robert Allenby and veterans Vijay Singh and Ernie Els.

Schwartzel’s round was the only bogey-free round of the first day but could perhaps consider himself fortunate that the wheels came off Allenby’s round in such a spectacular fashion. Allenby had threatened to burn up the course after reaching the turn six-under par courtesy of four birdies and an eagle. He then continued to rack the birdies up with a further two at the 10th and 12th before inexplicably giving four shots back to the course as he bogeyed in from the 15th hole.

Both Ernie Els and Vijay Singh fell foul of the tough 18th hole with both men finding the water; going on to card bogey and double bogey respectively. The hole recorded an average score of 4.647 making it the toughest on the course.

England’s Paul Casey lays in a tie for fifth place with New Zealand’s John Senden, World Cup winner Francesco Molinari of Italy, Denmark’s Soren Hansen and American duo JB Holmes and Dustin Johnson all of whom carded three-under par rounds of 69.

A further six players tie for eleventh place, after carding rounds of 70, including Martin Kaymer, Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald while Henrik Stenson – playing his first round since conceding his opening match in the WGC Accenture started off with a one-under par 71. Defending champion and world number three Phil Mickelson also opened with a one-under round of 71 as did Honda Classic runner up Anthony Kim

World number two Steve Stricker opened with a one-over par round of 73 while last week’s Honda Classic winner Camilo Villegas went one better with a level-par 72. Also finishing level for the day were WGC-Accenture World Match Play champion Ian Poulter, Phoenix Open winner Hunter Mahan and New Zealand’s Geoff Ogilvy.

Some heavy rain has been forecast for Friday’s second round and PGA officials have elected to move forward today’s tee times by three hours in a bid to defy the weather.