Weather: Cloudy, warm and humid with intermittent showers throughout the day. Highs reached the upper 70s. Winds were from SW at 10-20 mph. The course received over 2 inches of rain since early Thursday evening and the start of play was delayed for 1 hour, 39 minutes due to the rain and wet conditions. Lift, clean and place rules were in effect.
Current Leaderboard: T1 -- Michael Allen, Jay Don Blake & Fred Funk (69/-3); T4 -- John Cook & Sandy Lyle (70/-2); 6 -- D.A. Weibring (71/-1).
This is the Champions Tour's first venture into the Asian market and the 56-man field is playing for a record purse of $3 million with the winner receiving $450,000 as well as 450 points in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race.
Only six players in the 56-man field finished with a round under par and there were only 10 par- or-better rounds. The field averaged 74.428 for the day which was the fourth-highest average for an opening round this year. Only the U.S. Senior Open (76.697), Senior PGA Championship (75.716) and the Senior British Open (74.958) were higher.
Bob Gilder made his 164th consecutive start for events he has been eligible for on Friday. That is the longest current streak in that category on the Champions Tour.
The most difficult hole was No. 1 with a scoring average of 4.429 (+.429), while No. 3 was the easiest at 4.441 (-.589). Only two players made birdies on No. 1 -- Nam-Sin Park and Chip Beck. However, No. 3 yielded just one birdie and that was posted by Mark Calcavecchia.
Current money and Charles Schwab Cup point leader Bernhard Langer opened with a 1-over-par 73 and is T11. This is his first start since winning the Boeing Classic two weeks ago.
The tournament will utilize another two-tee start on Saturday as more rain is expected to move through the area on Friday evening and again on Saturday.
Nam-Sin Park was the leading native Korean player in the field, shooting an even-par 72.