first two way-points generated by PRM are often very close together

When generating paths using PRM generally the first two way-points are very close together and in 1 out 10 times can cause instability with the path following controller (only at the first way-point).  If I delete one of these way-points in the plan everything works fine - any idea why PRM should generate the first two points with such close proximity evern when their position doesn't have a significant influence on the path trajectory in terms of collison avoidance of obstacles.  I have tried different number of nodes and different connection distances but can still generate close points.