Tiger Woods showed why he is the most feared opponent in the game when he fought back from three down with five holes to play to defeat a bruiser of a player by the name of J. B. Holmes in the first round of the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship yesterday.

The world No 1 had looked out of sorts before setting off on a run of three birdies and an eagle in four holes from the 13th, taking the lead for the first time at the 17th and holding on for victory by one hole at the last.

Woods’s remarkable recovery sent reverberations through the remainder of the field, in which a strong British and European contingent had set the pace during a brilliant day of golf at the Dove Mountain course.

As he has done at countless Ryder Cup matches over the years, Colin Montgomerie led the charge for the Europeans with an emphatic victory over Jim Furyk. The Scot was rightfully delighted with a 3 and 2 victory against the world No 7, which secured him a match today with Charles Howell III, but there were tremendous victories, too, for Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Bradley Dredge, Sergio GarcÍa and Niclas Fasth.

The biggest disappointment was Justin Rose’s 2 and 1 defeat at the hands of Rodney Pampling, but in all seven out of nine British and Irish players advanced to the next round.

With his world ranking having fallen to No 62, Montgomerie needs some good results to get back into the top 50 to secure a place at the Masters in April. The victory convinced him that while he has a way to go, he can still compete with the best.

“I’ve just beaten one of the US’s top match players and it has done wonders for me and for my confidence,” he said.

Montgomerie identified the 12th hole as pivotal to the match. Furyk, who was two down after ten holes, had birdied the 11th and was better placed to attack the pin at the 12th. “He had a chip straight up the green and I was expecting him to make a three and get back to all square,” Montgomerie said. “I had a difficult chip for my second shot, but I got up and down [in two shots] and he didn’t.

“And then I holed a 50-footer [to win the hole] at the 13th. So instead of thinking it was all square, 15 minutes later, I’m three up.” From there, he was not to be denied.

The best play of the day involved Casey and Robert Karlsson, his Ryder Cup teammate. Between them, the players traded stroke for stroke, birdie for birdie before Casey emerged the winner by two holes at the 18th. He had not dropped a stroke and had picked up nine birdies in a round of 63. Karlsson, though, gave virtually as good as he got and will have been dismayed that his round of 65 – seven birdies, no bogeys – was not good enough for him to advance to the next round. Casey will have sympathised. “It went through my head at one point that I could shoot 64 and still lose the match,” he said.

Against Jerry Kelly, a journeyman through and through, Harrington took a lead at the 1st hole that he was never to relinquish, cruising to a 4 and 3 victory that secured him a second-round match with Stewart Cink, who triumphed over Miguel Ángel Jiménez by the same score.

GarcÍa was too strong for John Senden, an Australian making his debut in the event. Two up at the turn, the Spaniard claimed a 3 and 2 victory with his sixth birdie of the day at the 16th.

Nick Dougherty’s debut was cut short (2 and 1) by Donald, a fellow Englishman, while Poulter beat Soren Hansen 2 and 1 and Westwood won 3 and 2 against Brandt Snedeker. Ernie Els, the world No 4, was the day’s biggest casualty, beaten 6 and 5 by Jonathan Byrd.