Low-Key Furyk and Sizzling Scott Tame Oak Hill PITTSFORD, N.Y. - In a voice as expressive as an air conditioner's hum, Jim Furyk said he felt really in control of his game and was pleased with his play Thursday at the P.G.A. Championship. Furyk posted a five-under-par 65 at Oak Hill Country Club on a course softened by a predawn thunderstorm and left defenseless by the disappearance of its bodyguard breezes. "Trust me," Furyk, a 16-time tour winner, said with a deadpan expression, "I'll be in a good mood the rest of today." If he had not said so, it would have been hard to know. Furyk was so low-key in his news conference that he came across as someone in search not of his second major title but of his next drink of 5-hour Energy, a product he happens to endorse. Furyk, 43, stirred to life only when reminded of his lackluster finishes over the past 14 months, starting with the 2012 United States Open, where he was tied for the lead with three holes to play and stumbled to a tie for fourth. His woes continued at the Ryder Cup, where he lost a lead, and his final-day singles match, to Spain's Sergio García, to help deliver the victory to Europe. His shakiness on the greens, accentuated by two clutch putts that he missed down the stretch in his match against García, spilled into 2013. Furyk had two top-10 finishes in the first four months, but in the meat of the season he posted two missed cuts, at the United States and British Opens, with a tie for 44th at the AT&T National in between. "I'm on a nice little high, but you all are trying to bring me down," he said. No wonder you guys are on that side. You have bad thoughts too often. His mock fury spent, Furyk impassively allowed that while it was disappointing to have failed on the game's biggest stages, it was not dispiriting. "This sport beats you up," he said. The proof is in Furyk's results from 2003, which included victories in the United States Open and the Buick Open. It was a great run, to be sure, but he played in 27 events, which means that he lost 25 times. "You've got to take your lumps," Furyk said. You're going to have your good moments and your bad ones. I've always been very good at looking at the situation and figuring out how I could have made it better. It looked as if Adam Scott, who played with Justin Rose and Phil Mickelson in the afternoon, would better Furyk's score when he made five consecutive birdies starting at the fourth hole. Scott, the reigning Masters champion, made the turn in a five-under 30. He cooled off after a 70-minute delay because of thunderstorms in the area, playing the back nine in even par to match Furyk's 65. The top of the leader board is not necessarily the best place to be on Thursdays. Of the 32 PGA Tour events this year that have been contested over 72 holes, the first-round leaders went on to win in five. Furyk, whose best finish this year is a tie for third at the Texas Open in April, hit 15 greens and took 29 putts. His bid for a six-birdie, bogey-free round ended on his last hole, the ninth, when his drive landed in the right rough, he had to chip out into the fairway because low-hanging tree branches obstructed his trajectory to the green and he missed his par putt after knocking his nine-iron approach to 20 feet. "Right now we are jockeying for position," he said. Furyk knows the odds he is facing. At the 2002 P.G.A. Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, Furyk opened with a 68 and held a share of the lead. He followed it with rounds of 73, 76 and 71 to finish ninth. Since 1958, the first-round leader has gone on to win the P.G.A. Championship nine times, most recently in 2000, when Tiger Woods pulled off a wire-to-wire victory at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. Woods carded a 71 on Thursday, which included a double bogey on his last hole, the ninth. Woods, a five-time winner this year, was in a group with Keegan Bradley and Davis Love III. On their 10th hole, they were put on the clock after falling out of position. On their 11th, Woods missed a birdie putt of less than five feet, which he attributed in part to haste. One of the best stories, and scores, of the first round was supplied by Kiradech Aphibarnrat, a 24-year-old from Thailand who posted a 68 in the morning. In a nod to his portly physique and swing-out-of-his-shoes style, Aphibarnrat has earned the sobriquet the Asian John Daly after the 1991 P.G.A. Championship winner. "I am really proud of that name," Aphibarnrat said. A few years ago, Aphibarnrat gave up his birth name, Anujit Hirunratanakorn, in an effort to sway his fortunes. "I believe in luck," he said, adding that his new name "is more lucky." Before he became one of Asia's rising stars with a victory on the European Tour and two titles on the Asian Tour, Aphibarnrat was lapping fields in a racecar. In his late teens, he said, he raced Subaru Imprezas. "I was not so bad," he said. The hazards were far more dangerous than in golf, so when he was 21, Aphibarnrat gave up racing as a birthday present to his mother. "She was so happy, she was crying," he said. Golf has its spills and thrills, but it is not the same. "Golf is like shot by shot," Aphibarnrat said. But racing, you have to go and go. It's more intense.