Maybe Ian Poulter is a rival to Tiger Woods. At least, he was on Thursday at the 72nd Masters Tournament.

The 32-year old Brit fired a 2-under-par 70 to take the lead into the clubhouse as play continued during the first round. Woods was even par through 10 holes, trailing the leader by two.

Poulter accentuated his solid round with a hole-in-one at No. 16.

"Pretty exciting moment," he said. "Any hole-in-one is a nice one. But to do it on 16, with all of those spectators to the left-hand side, it's a great amphitheater for that. Great timing."

Poulter's round was otherwise balanced with one birdie and one bogey. Earlier this year, the colorfully-clad Poulter caused a stir and absorbed some criticism for suggesting he could be a rival to Woods, the No. 1 ranked player in the world and a four-time Masters winner.

But after his tidy round, Poulter said his remarks were misconstrued.

"Nothing was said that was untoward," said Poulter, who tied for 13th at last year's Masters. "The (critical) comments were the comments. They were hard to take at the time, but I think that the article was fine. I think what I said was fine.

"From No. 2 to 1,000th in the world is the same as where Tiger is between one and two. So I was just saying that he's one in a million."

Poulter posted his score shortly after Heath Slocum, who is playing in his first Masters, turned in a 1-under 71. Slocum first noticed his name on top of the leaderboard when he was 3-under after eight holes.

"Yeah, I saw that," said Slocum, 34, "but I did know it was Thursday. So it's a long way to go. I was very pleased with getting off to a good start, that's what I wanted to do."