Lee Westwood banged his knee heavily getting back into bed following a 4am ‘nature’s call’ but then got up to post a five under par 67 on the first day of the PGA Tour’s flagship Players Championship.

In a first for some time in his career, Westwood was the very first player to tee-up in the $US 10m event starting at 7.15am local time.

The recent Maybank Malaysian Open winner didn’t drop a shot on the Pete Dye designed Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

“When I got here at 6am there was hardly a soul here, and if they had of shouted out their names I probably would have known everyone by name given there was only about eight there,” he said smiling.

“It was nice and quiet and no shadows creeping over the tee, no phones going off and no rattling of change in the pockets.

Lee Westwood on route to a round of 67 on the first day of the Players Championship. (Photo – www.pgatour.com)

“But after seeing the draw I had a little chuckle to myself and thought this will be great as it’s like having a handicap again and getting a shot, and being first out is brilliant.

“So I just loved it and it’s better than being last out as the pace of play was nice, and there no spike marks and they were two good playing partners.”

Westwood had set his alarm for 4.45am but found himself heading to the bathroom at 4am but not counting on the mishap crawling back into bed.

“I had a call to nature at four o’clock and getting back to bed, I cracked my leg on the bed and I thought ‘Oh, no’ so I have been struggling with that all day limping round as I did,” he said also smiling.

Westwood got his round off to a super start with a laser-like drive and then had 119-yards to the flag and hit it to about 18 inches.

“It was a nice start to the day having an easy tap-in and then had a birdie at the next, so that was a great way to start the round,” he added.

Also on five under was fellow Englishman Justin Rose and the Spanish pair of Sergio Garcia and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.