AUGUSTA, Ga. -- As he walked from the 15th green, having just watched his student make his third consecutive birdie to lead the 70th Masters, Greg Raymer did not look the part of teacher. At least, not the kind you see on the PGA Tour.

He was wearing blue shorts with an orange striped shirt, and his hat did not bear the logo of an equipment manufacturer or resort course, not even a teaching academy. Not that he doesn't have the money to belong to one. Or own one.

But he has passed along a lot of what he knows to his student, Rocco Mediate, who finds himself just a shot from the lead after one round at the Augusta National Golf Club.

"Greg gave me pure, unadulterated aggression," Mediate said. "That's why he's so good."

Raymer is a patent lawyer who quit his job to do what most men love to do, which is play cards and play golf. You might know him better as the 2004 World Series of Poker champion, a man who won $5 million -- at the time, the largest single cash prize for poker -- and instantly became known as the Phil Mickelson of poker.

Raymer and Mediate have an arrangement. He teaches the Greensburg native how to play poker. Mediate teaches him how to play golf.

So far, Mediate is getting the best of the deal.

"I'm a single-digit poker player," Mediate said.

"I'm an 18-handicap golfer," Raymer said.

Yesterday, on another glorious day among the Georgia pines, Mediate played golf drastically different from the way Raymer teaches him to play poker. He played cautious and calm, not wanting to take chances on a course that was firmer than a poker table. When it was over, Mediate came up with a round that, in poker parlance, would be "four of a kind" -- a bogey-free, 4-under 68 that left him a shot behind leader Vijay Singh, a former Masters champion.

"If it was Sunday, it would have been a royal flush," Mediate said of his round. "Game over."

All this under the watchful eye of Raymer, who has developed a friendship with Mediate and was watching him play competitively for the first time since they met last summer at the World Series of Poker. Mediate was a celebrity guest of PokerStars, an online poker service that put up his $10,000 entry fee (he finished 600 out of 6,600 entrants). Now they hang out together, cook out together, play golf and poker together.

"He's a winning poker player," Raymer said.

Mediate certainly was a winner in the first round, one of just three players in the field of 90 who did not make a bogey. He parred the first 10 holes before ending the streak at, of all holes, No. 11, the 505-yard par-4 where Ben Hogan used to deliberately miss the green to the right. Not Mediate. He hit 5-iron to 10 feet, making one of just two birdies there all day (Singh had the other).

"You're not supposed to do that on that hole," Mediate said. "I actually apologized to the hole as I left."

Mediate did a lot of things you're not supposed to do at Augusta National, certainly not on a day when even Tiger Woods suggested the course "played more like a U.S. Open than the Masters."

He made three consecutive birdies, beginning at the par-5 13th, then finished with two-putt pars on each of the three finishing holes. Included in the birdie run was a 30-footer at No. 14. At No. 15, the 530-yard par-5 that was one of six holes lengthened since last year, Mediate laid up in front of the water and hit a wedge from 99 yards to 15 feet.

Not exactly a full house. But a winner nonetheless.

"One of my best rounds I ever played," Mediate said.

"I watched a really, really good round," said Raymond Floyd, one of Mediate's playing partners. "He shot 68, and it could have been lower."

Not many expected Mediate to do what he did here. Perhaps not even Mediate.

He had missed four cuts in six starts this season, and his putter was shaky. He was 187th in putting average on the PGA Tour (30.41 per round), which is not exactly the kind of statistic that builds confidence heading to Augusta National.

"You got that right," Mediate said. "That's what was concerning me."

But there he was in the first round, taking only 28 putts in 18 holes with a short putter, and playing like he did the last time he appeared in a major championship, which was the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. Mediate started quick there, too, sharing the first-round lead with a 3-under 67 and finishing in a tie for sixth. The same type of conditions that existed at Pinehurst No. 2 -- firm, fast and frustrating -- are here at Augusta National.

Mediate didn't mind the course set-up then.

And he doesn't mind them now.

"I look at it the way a USGA event is," Mediate said. "The Masters tournament sets up their golf course exactly how they want to set it up because it's their tournament. If you don't want to abide by what they do, don't come."

There he goes again, putting his cards on the table.

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