New Orleans ? Graeme McDowell finished a flawless round in easy conditions at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Thursday by one-hopping a wedge from 116 yards into the cup for eagle on the ninth hole, giving him an 8-under 64 for a one-shot lead over Stuart Appleby.

It took just that to keep Appleby from leading a PGA Tour event for the fifth consecutive round. Coming off a wire-to-wire victory last week in the Houston Open, he again made it look easy by never coming seriously close to bogey and hitting a wedge into 4 feet for birdie on the 18th hole for a 65.

And it took an eagle from McDowell to get a small measure of separation from a jam-packed leaderboard, brought on by soft, slow conditions on a course that played so easy that McDowell found himself reaching for a wedge on nearly every hole.

Among par-72 courses used by the PGA Tour, the 7,116-yard English Turn is the third-shortest behind only the cleverly designed TPC at Sawgrass for The Players Championship and the course used for the B.C. Open. Ten players were in the group at 66, including two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, who made a late bogey with his best swing of the day, a 5-iron that cut through the breeze and went over the 17th green.

The average score was about 70.5, and only 40 players in the 156-man field failed to shoot par or better.

Masters champion Phil Mickelson, playing for the first time since slipping on his second green jacket two weeks ago, only made birdie on one of the par 5s but still managed to get around in 68 – still trailing 21 players.