As long as Tim Clark is healthy, Waialae Country Club seems like his ideal place to play.

The two-time runner-up at the Sony Open in Hawaii was one of the few golfers teeing off in the afternoon to find their way near the top of the leaderboard after Thursday’s first round.

Clark rattled off three birdies in five holes on the back nine to polish off a 5-under 65 to sit in a tie for sixth place.

Only Robert Streb’s 63 bettered Clark among the afternoon golfers who will get their turn to play in the morning Friday.

"I hit the ball great last week so I was looking forward to coming here this week," said Clark, who tied for 25th at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua on Monday. "I hit the ball good today and I do feel like I left a few shots out there … but obviously my game is really solid."

The South African is one of the shorter hitters on tour, but his accuracy with the driver is his strength, ranking in the top 30 in 2014.

The par-70, 7,044-yard layout of Waialae Country Club fits him perfectly as one of the smaller courses on tour that ranked as the second-toughest to put the ball in the fairway in 2014.

"Obviously there’s a premium here on hitting it straight and I hit a lot off drivers around this course," said Clark, who hit 10 of 14 fairways. "Like I said, hitting it how I am again this week I have a lot of birdie opportunities so this really is a course I enjoy."

Clark finished second here in both 2011 and ’13 and had finished no worse than 25th in four starts here before withdrawing after the first round last year.

His streak of 10 straight rounds in the 60s ended when he shot 73 on the first day before pulling out with a nagging elbow injury that kept him from playing again for nearly two months.

It’s been a reccurring injury that forced him to miss the 2014 Barclays, but it was not a problem when he won the RBC Canadian Open in July after a fifth-place finish two weeks earlier at the John Deere Classic.

"I feel pretty good (now)," Clark said. "There’s been bad weeks but right now I’m feeling really good and I’m certainly excited about this week."

Clark needed only 25 putts to get through Thursday’s round, including 11 on the back nine. Two of his three birdies on the front came on a 16-footer on the par-4 third and a 60-foot bomb on No. 6.

But he also missed a 7-footer for birdie on No. 2.

"It’s one of those things, you miss a short one, you make a long one," Clark said. "I didn’t birdie the par-5s but birdied quite a few of the par-4s — a lot of good tee shots that put me in position and a lot of solid iron shots."

Since his PGA Tour debut in 1998, Clark has pocketed more than $23 million in career earnings and done it exclusively with a belly putter that will be outlawed starting in 2016.

First-round co-leader Webb Simpson shot 62 playing his first round with the short putter, but Clark says it’s an issue he won’t worry about until the later part of the season.

"I’m going to address it more toward the end of the year and try to win a tournament while I can right now," he said.