Tiger Woods took two unplayable-lie penalties. Phil Mickelson hit it so far left on No.10 he never found his ball. Luke Donald, ranked No.1 in the world, worried that he would be disqualified over a scorecard snafu.

Henrik Stenson made an ignominious 8 on the final hole when leading the tournament.

The first round at the 76th Masters was a wild and crazy affair on Thursday, with mud balls, foul balls and lost balls ruling the day.

Deluged by rain earlier in the week, Augusta National was soft in the turf and hard on the scorecard. Drives landing in fairways left golf balls coated with mud, and tucked pins left players muttering.

Who said a golf course can’t play defence?

In the end, Lee Westwood of England emerged from the pack with a five-under-par 67 to take the lead going into the second round.

“I played well today and I’ve been playing well all year and I just tried to continue with that,” the 38-year-old Westwood said.

“This is a golf course that I love playing. It seems to suit my game.”

Westwood hit 16 greens in regulation in tying his lowest-ever Masters round. He also opened with a 67 in 2010, when he finished second, and shot a second-round 67 last year, when he tied for 11th.

He held a one-shot lead over 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Peter Hanson of Sweden, each of whom shot 33 on the back nine en route to 68s.

Bubba Watson led a group of six players in at 69.

The pre-tournament favourites all struggled in varying degrees.

Woods had a case of the hooks early, hit the ball poorly for much of the round and had to take unplayable-lie penalties on Nos.2 and 18. The four-time Masters champion bogeyed the final two holes and shot a 72.

“I had some of the worse golf swings I’ve ever had today,” he said. “I just hung in there and grinded my way around the golf course.”

Woods ended a 30-month drought when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the strength of impeccable ball-striking two weeks ago but reverted to his “same old motor patterns” and hit just six of 14 fairways on Thursday.

He got in a not-so-subtle dig at former swing coach Hank Haney, whose book about his time with Woods, entitled The Big Miss, was released last week.

“It was the Hank backswing and the new downswing,” Woods said.

Mickelson hit the ball as poorly as did Woods. The three-time Masters champion hit only eight greens in regulation and shot a 2-over 74. His tee shot on the 10th hole was shockingly bad and led to a triple-bogey 7.

“I’ve never had a lost ball at the Masters,” Mickelson said. “I didn’t even know they had jungle like that here at Augusta.”

Rory McIlroy, the reigning US Open champion and No.2-ranked player in the world, double-bogeyed the first hole and had to birdie the final two to get in under par with a 71. He hit only six fairways.

“I struggled on a couple of tee shots, to be honest,” he said.

“There were a couple of tees I stood on I wasn’t quite that comfortable with, the first as an example. I still feel like I’ve got enough good shots in me to make birdies around here.”

Stenson came to the 18th earlier in the day leading the tournament at 5-under but made a quadruple-bogey 8. The 36-year-old Swede finished with a 71.

Donald shot a 75 and signed a correct scorecard, but an “administrative” error led to tournament officials believing he had signed for a 73. If that had been the case, he would have been disqualified. After a review, the error was caught and Donald was cleared.

Westwood, in search of his first major championship title, has six top-three finishes in his last 14 major starts.

He finished third at the 2011 US Open, second at the 2010 British Open and 2010 Masters, tied for third at the 2009 PGA and 2009 British Open and was third at the 2008 US Open.

Much of the pre-tournament hype centred around Woods and McIlroy but Westwood insisted the Masters was not a “two-horse race.”

“I was just trying to be a voice of common sense,” he said.

“There’s a lot of world-class players here and a lot of them are playing well and majors are hard to win as it is.”

Among the first-round disappointments were Australians Adam Scott (75) and Jason Day (76), who tied for second place last year behind Charl Schwartzel. Graeme McDowell (75), Ryo Ishikawa (76) and KJ Choi (77) also struggled.

Schwartzel bogeyed the 18th and shot an even-par 72.