Veterans Lead The Way
In Panama Claro Opener
By Joe Chemycz, PGA TOUR Staff
PANAMA - Former tournament winners Miguel
Carballo and Scott Dunlap posted 5-under 65s
in the opening round of the Panama Claro
Championship and grabbed a share of the lead
in the Nationwide Tour's third event on the
2010 schedule.
Carballo and Dunlap, winners in 2007 and
2008, respectively, are joined at the top of
a crowded leaderboard by 2006 Nationwide
Tour Player of the Year Ken Duke, David
Branshaw, rookie Scott Brown and Sweden's
Peter Gustafsson, the 2009 Tour de las
Americas Order of Merit winner.
A total of 10 players are knotted one stroke
back at 66 in nearly-completed round.
Darkness forced the suspension of play at
6:28 p.m.with five players left to complete
their day. Those players will return to the
Panama Golf Club course in the morning and
resume play at 8 a.m. The second round,
scheduled to begin at 7:10 a.m., will start
on time.
"I've always known what to do around here,"
said Dunlap after his bogey-free day. "On
some courses you feel lost, you don't know
what lines to take, you don't feel
comfortable on the greens. Here, if I play
badly, it's not because I'm confused, it's
because I just don't play the shots."
Dunlap had all the shots he needed in
Thursday's opener and was never in danger of
dropping a stroke to par.
"It is as soft as I've ever seen it and we
had no wind today so it's as scoreable as it
will get," he added. "Still, I played with
two guys who shot over-par, so just because
it's as easy as it's ever been doesn't mean
it's easy."
Duke collected more than $4.5 million in 93
PGA TOUR starts since he graduated to the
PGA TOUR but is looking to regain the magic
that propelled him to new heights in
2007-09.
"I went down and met with my coach, Bob
Toski, and had a good session there," said
Duke, who tied for 51stat the Moonah Classic
in Australia after missing the cut at the
Michael Hill New Zealand Open to start the
year. "I told my caddie this week that I
thought we might have something good going
on."
The 41-year old relied on a steady diet of
short irons to get him within birdie range
and rolled in four from longer than 12 feet
to put some red numbers on the board.
"It's a shotmaker's course," said Duke of
the 7,150-yard layout. "There are some long
holes out here but you have to feel your way
around. You can't be too mechanical because
you have a lot of half-shots and a lot of
jumpers. It's not just hit it here, hit it
there and hit it on the green. You're going
to get some good bounces and you're going to
get some bad bounces. You take what you
get."
Late in the afternoon players got a rare
drenching rain storm, the first in the
tournament's seven-year history. The storm
took many by surprise since there hadn't
been any measurable rain in the area since
December 29th. A little more than a tenth of
an inch of rain fell and play was not
stopped, but it was enough to send players
and tournament officials scrambling for
umbrellas as they played the last couple of
hours under darkening skies.
Round 1 notes:
• Leading money winner Robert Gates posted a
4-over 74 Thursday morning. Gates won the
season-opening Michael Hill New Zealand
Open.
• Moonah Classic champion Jim Herman carded
an even-par round of 70.
• The Nationwide Tour record for most
players tied for the 18-hole lead is eight,
including last year's tournament when the
octet shared the lead at 3-under 67.
• Shaun Micheel posted a 1-under 69 in his
first Nationwide Tour start the Tour
Championship to close out the 1999 season.
Micheel finished No. 9 on the money list
that year and graduated to the PGA TOUR,
where he has made 270 starts and more than
$7.5 million since. Micheel earned his only
career title when he captured the 2003 PGA
Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in
Rochester, N.Y. In his only PGA TOUR start
this year, he posted four sub-par scores at
last week's Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico
and tied for 17th. |
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