RALEIGH, N.C. – With 11 birdies on his first 15 holes, highlighted by seven-straight on Nos. 9-15, Jacksonville Beach, Florida resident Chris Baker took the clubhouse lead at the REX Hospital Open with a career-low 60, with the second round suspended due to weather.

In addition to his seven consecutive birdies, Baker added birdies at Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7. He narrowly missed a 12-foot putt for birdie and 59 at the par-4 18th hole.

“I did everything I could,” Baker said. “It’s just exciting when you’re playing great and everything is going well. You almost just want to get out of your own way and let it go. It was a blast. I had a lot of fun today.”

Baker’s 127 total ties the low first-36-hole-score on the Web.com Tour this season with Xinjun Zhang, who was at 17-under 127 at the Dormie Network Classic at Briggs Ranch.

Baker’s 11-under 60 ties the tournament record, posted by Jimmy Green at Raleigh Country Club in 1998. The REX Hospital Open, now in its 26th consecutive year, has been contested at The Country Club at Wakefield Plantation since 2001.

“My game has been awesome, but more important to me is that my mind has been awesome,” he said. “If I shoot a score I don’t like, I go to bed that night and don’t really stress about it. Last week, I had some issues where the first day was tough, but the second day I came out and shot a bogey-free 68. In previous years, maybe I shoot 2-over and then I’m frustrated and probably don’t make that cut. This year, there is belief and desire and I enjoy the moment. And, it works out.”

Baker, a Seymour, Indiana native, was looking to become the eighth player in Web.com Tour history to post a sub-60 score, a feat most recently achieved by Sam Saunders, who shot a 12-under 59 in round one of the 2017 Web.com Tour Championship.

At the Country Club de Bogota Championship in February, Baker led by a stroke after the second round before weekend scores of 70-80 resulted in a T51 finish. Making his 131st start on the Web.com Tour dating to 2009, he is looking to improve on a career-best finish of a playoff loss at the 2017 Panama Championship.

Baker, who is making his fifth start in Raleigh, comes off a T10 finish in last year’s REX Hospital Open.

“It’s the second round and there is a lot of golf left,” said Baker, whose caddie, Zak Smith, hails from nearby Cary, North Carolina. “But, if I just keep doing what I’m doing and stay to myself and be true, the week’s going to work out the way we want it to work out.”

Baker has now made 10 cuts in 13 starts this season and is currently ranked 28th in The 25.

Fellow Jacksonville Beach resident Sebastian Cappelen offset two bogeys with six birdies and an eagle to move to 12-under par before play was suspended for the day at 5:59 p.m. He still has the final hole to play.

In his last three starts, Cappelen combined for a 6-over total to miss the first two cuts. At last week’s inaugural Evans Scholars Invitational, he posted four sub-par scores to finish T14 at 12-under 276.

A week removed from his T4 finish at the Evans Scholars Invitational, a third member of the Jacksonville Beach contingent, Luke Guthrie, birdied three of his last four holes to post a bogey-free 9-under 62 and move to 11-under 131. The 62 ties his Web.com Tour career-low round.

Round 2 will resume at 7:15 a.m. Saturday. The third round is scheduled to resume at approximately 9:30 a.m. with groups teeing off Nos. 1 & 10.