KAILUA-KONA — Bernhard Langer didn’t look at the scoreboard littered with red numbers before he teed off in the final pairing of Round 1 on Thursday at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai. ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA — Bernhard Langer didn’t look
KAILUA-KONA — Bernhard Langer didn’t look at the scoreboard littered with red numbers before he teed off in the final pairing of Round 1 on Thursday at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai.
The PGA Tour Champions powerhouse just did what he almost always does on the Big Island — score incredibly well.
Langer, the reigning Player of the Year on the Champions Tour and Charles Schwab Cup champ, fired a first round 8-under-par 64, putting himself in a three-way tie atop the leaderboard with defending champion Duffy Waldorf and Marco Dawson.
There is a large chase pack just a few strokes back, but leading a group of four at 7-under are Hualalai rookie John Daly and former Masters champ Fred Couples.
“I don’t even look at that because I knew I would have birdie chances if I played well,” Langer said of scoreboard watching before his round. “It was a beautiful day and a great golf course. Everything was good.”
After a brilliant shot out of a bunker on No. 18, Langer had a chance to take sole possession of the first-day lead with a medium length putt. However, the shot from his long putter went just a few inches wide of the hole. The miss didn’t damper the spirits of the two-time Hualalai champ one bit.
“A 64 is always good,” Langer said with a laugh. “I’ll take that anywhere.”
Waldorf and Dawson had their own adventures to get to 64.
As he did in the final round of his championship campaign last year, Waldorf scorched the back-nine with six birdies. He even emulated his clutch antics from a year ago, when he rolled in a 25-foot putt for a one stroke victory over Tom Lehman. It was a little shorter this time and with less pressure, but it did give him a share of the lead.
“I felt comfortable on the course,” Waldorf said. “I feel like it’s a pretty big hill to climb when you know you’ve got to shoot a good score, especially when the wind’s down. But it’s a nice place to start.”
He also overcame his first bogey at Hualalai, breaking a streak of 57 holes on the Big Island without a blemish. It came on the par 5 fourth hole, which saw just two bogeys all day and was rated as the second-easiest hole for the round.
“I was struggling a little bit out there, especially with my driving on the front side,” Waldorf said. “It didn’t look like it was going to be that good of a round on the front side, but I really got my putter going on the back.”
While Waldorf was trying to keep up with the expectations he set for himself a year ago, the key for Dawson was not trying to over do it.
“My expectations were not very high, so I didn’t hit any stupid shots,” Dawson said. “There were a couple of par 5s where I had a chance to hit the green, but the lie just wasn’t good enough and things were telling me that’s not a good chance to go try. But I ended up making birdie on both those holes by laying up. So stuff like that helps.”
Dawson — a college teammate of fellow Mitsubishi players Rocco Mediate and Lee Janzen at Flordia Southern — won two PGA Tour Champions events last year, including the Senior Open Championship. However, his best finish on the PGA Tour was a second-place effort at the 1995 Greater Milwaukee Open.
“It was pretty easy,” Dawson said with a smirk. “I just took advantage of the par 5s, got up and down and made all the putts I was supposed to.”
For most of the afternoon, the brightly-dressed Daly was the clubhouse leader. His round of 65 was his best opener since 2005, and also his lowest round ever on the Champions Tour.
“There’s no excuses. I mean, fairways are perfect, greens are perfect,” Daly said. “It’s just a matter of execution for me.”
Daly was feeling it in the first round, and credited his new Vertical Groove driver for the stellar round. He led the field in driving distance with an average of 318.5 yards.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “I think I’m hitting it straighter than my putter, actually.”
The most difficult hole on the day was the par-3 eighth. Craig Stadler and Scott McCarron were the only two to record birdies there. Hole No. 7 yielded five eagles, 27 birdies and no bogeys.
Lee Janzen (6-under 66) had one of those eagles on seven — one of his two for the day. Doug Garwood (6-under 66) also accomplished that double-eagle feat at Hualalai in the first round.
“I hit a great iron shot on 7 and converted the putt for eagle, and that was after I holed a bunker shot for eagle on four,” Janzen said. “A 66 is a good start. Even if it was last place, it’s still a good start and highly unlikely to be last place.”
Play continues at Hualalai through Saturday.
Notes: Tom Pernice Jr. increased his string of consecutive holes without a three-putt to 254… The 71-year-old Hale Irwin bettered his age for the 17th time of his career, shooting 3-under 69. Irwin is a fan of the Aloha State, having won nearly $4.5 million here in various tournaments… In his PGA Champions debut, 50-year-old young gun David Toms shot a 3-under 69… Langer has shot in the 60s in 24 of his 28 rounds at Hualalai with a 67.18 scoring average.
