AT&T National: First-round notebook

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Tournament host Tiger Woods is hoping to win the AT&T National for the first time.

Anthony Kim, the defending champion, started at the 10th hole and posted a bogey-free 8-under 62, including a second-nine 29. Kim leads by two strokes over Tiger Woods, D.A. Points and Bryce Molder after round one.

• Kim's 62 is his career-low round on the PGA TOUR and betters the tournament and course record (63, Tom Pernice, Jr., Peter Lonard, 2008) by one stroke.

• Kim's 62 is his lowest round since his second-round 65 at this year's Masters Tournament where he posted 11 birdies.

• This marks the fourth time in Kim's career where he has held the first-round lead/co-lead.

• Kim's last TOUR victory was at this event last year. He has posted five top-10s since then, including his lone top-10 finish this year, a T2 at the season opening Mercedes-Benz Championship.

RELATED LINKS

Leaderboard: Round 1
Round 2 tee times
The Live Report: Round 1
Scorecard: Anthony Kim
Photo gallery: Round 1

• Tiger Woods (64) opened the tournament with back-to-back birdies, holing a 5-foot putt at the first hole and a 50-footer at the second. The last two times Woods began tournaments with back-to-back birdies were THE TOUR Championship and BMW Championship in 2007. He won both events.

• Woods, at No. 4, is the highest-ranked player in the FedExCup standings teeing it up this week. With a victory here he would become the first player to top 2,000 points this season. Woods, Sean O'Hair (69) and Lucas Glover (69) are the only three players who have a chance to oust Kenny Perry from the No. 1 spot this week, but all three require victory to make that happen.

• Bryce Molder (64) is experiencing a good stretch of play. The 30-year-old Nationwide Tour graduate has finished top-25 in his last three events (T23/HP Byron Nelson, T2/St. Jude, T19/Travelers) and has posted just one of his last 16 rounds over-par (71/Round 4/HP Byron Nelson Championship). The T2 finish at the St. Jude Classic is his career-best.

• Molder recorded six birdies in his first eight holes, along with a bogey at No. 3 for an outward nine of 5-under 30. He added a birdie at the 13th hole to shoot 64 -- the second-lowest opening round of his PGA TOUR career (63/2002 Verizon Byron Nelson).

• Molder, who was a four-time, first-team All-American at Georgia Tech, has Poland Syndrome, a fairly rare defect that made his left hand much smaller than his right. He underwent two surgeries before he was age 5 because three fingers on his left hand were webbed together up to the knuckle.

• Molder has given himself a great chance to become exempt for the 2009 British Open Championship via a mini-money list. The AT&T National is the sixth event in a six-tournament series (PLAYERS, Memorial, St. Jude, U.S. Open, Travelers, AT&T National), where the top two money-winners, not previously exempt, earn British Open exemptions. Here's a look at the list of non-exempt players, their current position on the list and the money they have earned in five of the six events;

• D.A. Points (64) has three top-10s this season, including a career-best third-place at the HP Byron Nelson Championship. In his third year on TOUR, Points is playing his 84th TOUR event and is in good shape to make the 36-hole cut on Friday. It would mark the 42nd cut of his career -- a 50 percent strike rate.

• Points has four Nationwide Tour victories, the most recent being the 2008 Miccosukee Championship, where he holed a 125-yard wedge from the fairway at the 72nd hole before defeating Matt Bettencourt in a playoff. Points finished 16th on the 2008 Nationwide Tour money list to graduate to the PGA TOUR.

• Points' 6-under 64 is a stroke shy of his career-low round on the PGA TOUR -- 63 in round two at the 2005 Reno-Tahoe Open. Points can go low. He has five rounds of 62 during his Nationwide Tour career and a career-low of 61on that Tour (2002 Gila River Classic).

• Steve Elkington (65) posted a bogey-free round that included birdies on three of the four par-3 holes (No. 2, 7 and 13) at Congressional CC. Elkington narrowly missed making four deuces, failing to hole a putt from just inside 14 feet at No. 10.

• Elkington withdrew after a first-round 69 at last week's Travelers Championship. Before that he had a string of five consecutive missed cuts.

• Since joining the TOUR in 1994, Jim Furyk (66) has recorded at least one victory every year with the exception of 1994, 97, 04, and 08. He has yet to record a win this season. Furyk has six top-10s this year and has a liking for Congressional CC, having finished T3 in both the 2007-08 editions of the AT&T National. He also posted a T5 finish at Congressional in the 1997 U.S. Open.

• 2008 Mercedes-Benz Championship winner Daniel Chopra (66) posted seven birdies and three bogeys for his lowest opening round in 18 starts this season. It marks Chopra's lowest first-round score since a 65 at the 2008 Buick Open and is just the fourth time this year that Chopra has shot below par in the first round.

• Past champions K.J. Choi (2007) and Anthony Kim (2008) had dissimilar results in Thursday's first round. Kim currently leads with 62 while Choi opened with 77 -- a 15-stroke difference.

• Brandt Snedeker (68) is playing his fourth consecutive event after recovering from a cracked rib which saw him cease play after the Verizon Heritage back in April. Snedeker missed cuts at both the St. Jude Classic and the U.S. Open before posting a T47 at last week's Travelers Championship. The 2007 Wyndham Championship winner is currently No. 183 on the money-list with $126,557.

• U.S. Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples opened with a 2-over 72. It was 26 years ago that Couples won his first PGA TOUR title at the Kemper Open held at Congressional. He's not at the A&T National this week, but Couples' opposing captain for the upcoming Presidents Cup matches, Greg Norman, also won the Kemper Open when it was played at Congressional.

• The AT&T National is Michael Allen's (67) 337th career start on the PGA TOUR where he has yet to post a victory. However, the 50-year-old California native who turned professional in 1984, has won on the European Tour (1989 Bell's Scottish Open), Nationwide Tour (1998 Greater Austin Open) and Champions Tour (2009 Senior PGA Championship). The Champions Tour win came a little more than a month ago in his first and only start and earned him fully exempt status for a year on the 50 and over circuit.

• Davis Love posted 1-under 69 in his 1990th round on the PGA TOUR.

• Matt Hill (71), who won the NCAA golf championship in May, along with the Jack Nicklaus Award, is the only amateur in the field of 120 players. The Canadian native, who is a sophomore at North Carolina State University, was 2-under in his last four holes.

• Charles Howell III (72) will need a good round on Friday to make his 200th career cut on the PGA TOUR. He finished round-one in T72 position.

• Kevin Stadler (69) holed out from 120-yards for eagle at the 602-yard, par-5 9th hole.

• The Kodak Challenge competition that celebrates beautiful holes and memorable moments on the PGA TOUR continues with the 466-yard, par-4 18th hole at Congressional CC as the featured hole this week. No. 18 ranked the 5th most-difficult hole in the first round with a 4.195 scoring average and just 11 birdies recorded. Players must play at least 18 of the 30 Kodak Challenge holes throughout the season to compete for $1 million and the Kodak Challenge title. A player's lowest score relative to par on his best 18 Kodak Challenge holes will be counted.

• Scoring averages at the par-70 Congressional Country Club;

• Bubba Watson withdrew during the first round with allergies. He also withdrew from Wednesday's pro-am for the same reason.