OLYMPIA FIELDS, ILL. -- Tiger Woods left it up to Tom Watson to provide the spark for this U.S. Open. On a day when Olympia Fields was there for the taking, Woods came out early and cautious, determined not to shoot his way out of a second straight Open title in the opening round.

He succeeded, but he didn't give the masses who followed his every shot much to cheer about along the way.

The best player in the world didn't try to fire at pins tucked in scary places on slick greens. He didn't try to outmuscle a golf course in a tournament where banging the ball usually doesn't pay off.

From his opening tee shot he kept just one thought in mind: Patience, patience, and more patience.

"In a major championship, you have to be that way," Woods said. "You have to keep plugging along."

Those aren't exactly words to warm the hearts of fans who came out to see Woods slashing his way around the course. What they saw instead was Woods hitting to the middle of greens and just trying to make pars.

He did just that, making par after par and a lone eagle almost by mistake. Fittingly, when the day was over, he had an opening round of even-par 70 that did nothing to hurt his chances of winning his third Open in four years and left him five shots behind co-leaders Watson and Brett Quigley.

"I feel very good how I managed my game today," Woods said. "I got it around and I kept myself in the tournament."

Woods left the final green with a closing bogey and a smile, secure in the knowledge he played well enough to hit 14 greens and would have been among the leaders if he hadn't taken 33 putts.

He was a handful of shots off the lead and happy with the results.

"I wish I could have finished up better, obviously," Woods said. "But this golf course is so difficult. You guys may think it's easy because you see scores under par. Believe me, it's not."

In a tournament where grinders often find themselves edging up the leaderboard, Woods was the ultimate grinder for the day. Pars are cherished in the U.S. Open, and Woods spent much of the day trying to make them.

He ended up doing just that, stringing together 15 pars around a lone eagle and allowing bogeys on Nos. 9 and 18 to keep him from a sub-par round.