Turning Stone Resort Championship: First-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff VERONA, N.Y. -- Jeff Gove and Chad Campbell each carded rounds of 65 on Thursday at the Turning Stone Resort Championship and share a one-shot lead heading into Friday's second round.  Rookie John Malllinger got off to a strong start Thursday at Turning Stone. (Mike Ehrmann/WireImage)
• Gove's first-round 65 ties his low round of the 2007 season (Shell Houston Open, 65, Third Round). This marks the first time in Gove's PGA TOUR career that he has been either a leader or co-leader through 18 holes of a TOUR event. • Gove entered the week ranked second on the PGA TOUR in Greens in Regulation (70.13 percent) for the 2007 season and did not disappoint. He hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation on Thursday. • Gove is in his fourth full year on the PGA TOUR and has recorded four top-10 finishes in his career, with the last coming earlier this year at the John Deere Classic (tied for sixth). • This marks the third time in Campbell's career in which he has been a leader/co-leader through 18 holes of a PGA TOUR event. He also led the 2005 Honda Classic and went on to finish tied for 52nd, and the 2004 Bay Hill Invitational, which he won. • Campbell is currently 85th on the 2007 PGA TOUR Money List and is in jeopardy of not finishing in the top-25 for the first time since 2002. He has failed to record a single top-10 finish in a stroke play event in the 2007 season (fourth, semi-finalist, World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship). • This is only the fifth time in 24 events in the 2007 season that Campbell has opened with a round in the 60s. The round of 65 is also his lowest opening round on the PGA TOUR since the 2006 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (63), which he won. • Defending champion John Rollins opened his title defense with a 5-under-par 67 and is looking to become the third player to successfully defend a title this year. Tiger Woods has successfully defended four titles (Buick Invitational, World Golf Championships-CA Championship, World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, PGA Championship) and Jim Furyk has successfully defended one (Canadian Open). • Rollins is one of 10 players to record a bogey-free round on Thursday. The others were Robert Allenby, Justin Leonard, Peter Lonard, Robert Gamez, Joey Sindelar, Cliff Kresge, Johnson Wagner, Daisuke Maruyama and Corey Pavin. • 2007 Reno-Tahoe Open champion Steve Flesch continued his good play with a first-round 66 in which he was 6 under through eight holes before recording a double bogey at the par-4 ninth. Flesch has finished in the top-25 in four of his last six tournaments on the PGA TOUR, including the victory and a top-5 finish at the U.S. Bank Championship. Flesch has earned $1,164,886 in 2007, with $910,612 of it coming during that stretch. • PGA TOUR Rookie John Mallinger fired a round of 67 on Thursday and appears to have his 2007 back on track. Mallinger began the year with third-place finishes at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and the Zurich Classic, and then failed to record a single top-25 finish until the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee (tie for 13th). That finish began a streak of six consecutive cuts made for Mallinger. Including today's round, Mallinger has now carded 19 of his past 25 rounds at par or better. • Home cooking seems to help any golfer's career. Oswego, N.Y., native David Branshaw saw some encouragement in his 2007 season on Thursday with a first-round 68. Up to this week, Branshaw had made just six of 23 cuts on the PGA TOUR this year, with his best finish being tie for 48th at the Sony Open in Hawaii. • Branshaw can likely credit his irons and his putter for his round of 68. He came into the event this week ranked 182nd in Putting Average and tied for 107th in Greens in Regulation. Branshaw managed to record a mere 27 putts on Thursday and hit 13 of 18 greens in regulation. • John Cook, who turns 50 on October 2nd of this year, is priming himself for a run on the Champions Tour after taking the last two and a half months off (last event was the Buick Open). Cook's first-round 68 marks only the second time this year in which he has opened a tournament with a round in the 60s (68, Mayakoba Golf Classic). • Anders Hansen and Joe Durant were perfect off the tee on Thursday as each hit 14 of 14 fairways. • Justin Leonard and Joey Sindelar were the only two players in the field to hit 18 of 18 greens in regulation. • Through one round, the par-4 13th is playing as the most difficult hole with a scoring average of 4.207. • Australian invasion? At the end of the first round, three Australians found themselves inside the top seven: Matthew Goggin, John Senden, and Robert Allenby. • Rich Beem withdrew during the first round because of an illness. ... Paul Stankowski withdrew prior to the first round due to a shoulder injury. ... Brent Geiberger withdrew during the round with a case of vertigo. ... John Daly withdrew during the round with flu-like symptoms. |
