First-round notebook – Turning Stone Resort Championship
* Champions Tour member Joey Sindelar of Horseheads, NY, posted a 5-over 77 in the opening round Thursday. Sindelar has made the cut in one of four PGA Tour starts this year but has not played since the Puerto Rico Open in late March. Sindelar is currently No. 25 on the Champions Tour money list with 12 top-25 finishes in his 15 starts, including a T3 at the Senior PGA Championship.* Dudley Hart withdrew prior to the start of the first round and was replaced in the field by Robert Gamez.
* Mark Calcavecchia withdrew during the round due to an injury (knee), while John Mallinger withdrew following the opening round.
* Australian Steve Allan fired a 4-under 68 this morning to take the clubhouse lead. Allan remained at the top until Jeff Overton posted a 5-under 67 several hours later. Had it held up, it would have marked the first 18-hole lead in a PGA Tour event for Allan, who is 16 days shy of his 35th birthday. The Australian hit only 7 of 14 fairways but needed only 28 putts for his five-birdie, one-bogey effort.
* The first-round leader/co-leader has gone on to win eight of 41 stroke-play events on the 2008 PGA Tour, including most recently Camilo Villegas at the BMW Championship.
* Jeff Overton fired a 5-under 67 to take the first-day lead by one stroke over Steve Allan and Michael Allen. It’s only the second time in his PGA Tour career that Overton has held/shared the first-round lead. The other time at the 2008 Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, where he carded a 7-under 65 and led by two strokes. Overton added rounds of 75-75-70 and tied for 37th place.
* Veteran Brad Faxon is making his first start in nearly 14 months. The eight-time PGA Tour winner underwent knee surgery to repair ACL damage in December and has not played on Tour since last year’s Wyndham Championship – Aug. 17/69-72-mc. Faxon fired a 4-over-par 76 in Thursday’s opening round. Faxon ran off nine consecutive pars on the front nine but ran into trouble with five bogeys on the first six holes of the back nine.
* Australian rookie Jason Day fired a 3-under-par 69 and is currently tied for fourth. Day, a 2007 Nationwide Tour graduate, has made the cut in 10 of 22 starts this year and enters this week at No. 129 on the money list. Day has two top-10s to his credit in 2008, including a sixth at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
* Michael Allen joined Steve Allan near the top of the leaderboard with a 4-under 68 during the afternoon, his third consecutive 68 on this course. Allen, runner-up in this event a year ago to Steve Flesch, has now posted all five rounds in the 60s at Atunyote Golf Club. The 49-year old Scottsdale, AZ, resident was the only player to shoot all four rounds in the 60s last year (69-67-68-68).
* Thursday’s weather was in stark contrast to last year’s opening round which saw sunny skies and an afternoon high of 78 degrees.
* U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee struggled in his opening round Thursday. The Korean-born, New Zealand resident carded a 3-over-par 75 that featured only two birdies. Lee three-putted four times and needed a total of 34 putts to complete his day.
* Robert Garrigus had the day’s longest drive, a 373-yard tee shot on the par-5, 18th hole. Tag Ridings had the next longest at 361 yards. Garrigus ranks No. 2 on the Tour this year in Average Driving Distance (311.1). Bubba Watson is No. 1 on the list at 315.4 yards.
* Robert Garrigus (72), Davis Love III (75) and Charles Warren (73) each hit 16 of 18 greens to lead the field in that statistical category.
* Davis Love III fired a 3-over 75 that included 37 putts. Love three-putted three times. Love rolled in a putt from 15 feet, 6 inches for par at No. 17 and one from 6 feet, 7 inches at No. 13. Otherwise, Love’s longest made putt Thursday was 2 feet, 11 inches at No. 12. His total distance of made putts added up to 47 feet, 4 inches. Harrison Frazar leads the Tournament with total distance of 157 feet, which included a par putt of 79 feet, 4 inches at No. 16.
* Greg Kraft, Shane Bertsch and Robert Gamez, the last player in the field, hit all 14 fairways Thursday.
* Troy Matteson shot a 2-under-par 70 that featured a birdie at No. 1, followed by 16 pars, then a birdie at the closing 18th hole.
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