Lu Wen-teh of Taiwan opened with a 9-under-par 63 on Thursday for a one-stroke lead over defending champion Retief Goosen of South Africa and Michael Campbell of New Zealand after the first round of the China Masters golf tournament.

Starting at the 10th hole, Lu parred his first three holes before compiling a string of birdies on Nos. 13, 14 and 15. He made a five-foot birdie putt on No. 17 before dropping his only bogey on No. 18.

Goosen and Campbell, both U.S. Open winners, had an eagle and seven birdies in the Asian Tour event.

``I got off to a slow start and suddenly I made three birdies in a row,'' Goosen said. ``But I played the par-5s poorly in 1-under and lost a few shots.''

Campbell said his strong early play provided a psychological boost.

``Over the past two months, you see Tiger Woods' name up on the leaderboard, and when he's playing well, he's hard to beat,'' said Campbell, second to Goosen at last year's Masters. ``Hopefully, I'll be sending the same kind of message out there this week.''

England's Yasin Ali was at 66, a stroke ahead of Australia's Scott Strange, Malaysia's Danny Chia and China's Huang Mingjie.

© The Canadian Press, 2007