PONTE VEDRA BEACH – Tiger Woods knew exactly where his round was headed yesterday.

Woods was in danger of careening to a place he generally avoids better than anyone in the world – posting a score big enough to eliminate himself from tournament contention after only one round.

“It could easily have been 77, 78, 79, somewhere in there,” Woods said of his opening-round, even-par 72 at The Players Championship.

Two-over-par through five holes, which is where Woods stood yesterday morning, will often alarm most players and lead to big numbers.

But Woods, of course, does not reside in the most players fraternity. He simply doesn’t shoot 77s, 78s or 79s these days. He’s too mentally tough, too prideful, too good.

By the end of today’s second round, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. after a 7:30 a.m. restart of yesterday’s weather-shortened opening round, Woods will be headed toward making his 101st consecutive cut – by far the longest current streak on the PGA Tour.

That’s a testament to how consistent Woods is and how rare it is for him to stamp a big number in a single round.

Yesterday, Woods staved off the big number and survived, staying well within striking distance of the lead when he rallied to even-par thanks to a number of knee-knocker par putts and key birdies on 16 and 17.

Woods is four shots off the lead, which is shared by Skip Kendall, Jay Haas, Bob Tway, Rocco Mediate and Kevin Sutherland (through 16 holes before the 5 p.m. lightning post ponement) and he’s delighted.

“On a day like this, where I didn’t really have it, getting to even par was a lot of hard work and I’m very happy,” Woods said. “You can never win the tournament on the first day, but you definitely can lose it. I kept myself in the ballgame.”

Woods was hardly sharp, hitting only six of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens and making 31 putts. It was remarkable to see him struggle when you recall that just days ago he was running away from the field with ease at Bay Hill while battling food poisoning.

“That’s the way golf is; everyone knows it’s very fickle,” Woods said.

For the rest of the field, Woods’ round presented somewhat of a double-edged sword. It has to be encouraging that Woods is not completely immune to the fickle golf gods, however, it must be discouraging that, even without his best stuff, he stays in contention.

Fred Couples, a two-time winner of this tournament (1984 and 1996), looked as if he might upstage the rest of the field with a torrid start, shooting 5-under through his first 10 holes.

But three putts on Nos. 2 and 3 (his 11th and 12th holes of the round after a start on No. 10) dropped him back to 3-under through 14 holes when the weather stopped play.

Among the leaders, Mediate has fared best here, having finished third last year and with six top-15 finishes. Haas, who hasn’t won since 1993 and, at 49, is readying for the Champions Tour, has missed three of the last four cuts here.