Drew Weaver, Jack Maguire share opening-round lead at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at Baha Mar

NASSAU, Bahamas — Drew Weaver and Jack Maguire each opened with a 6-under 66 on Sunday to share the first-round lead at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at Baha Mar. The pair leads five players by one stroke at the Royal Blue Golf Course at Baha Mar as play was suspended due to darkness at 6:00 p.m. ET with six groups still on the course.

This year’s tournament is being hosted at the Baha Mar resort in Nassau after Hurricane Dorian devastated the island of Great Abaco in September. Proceeds from the event will go towards hurricane relief efforts.

Weaver, competing in the first tee time of the day (6:55 a.m.), bogeyed his first hole before tallying five birdies over his next 16 holes and capping his round with an eagle at the 18th.

“The 18th is downwind right now, but you still have to hit two good shots,” said Weaver. “I think I had a 4-iron in from 222 yards. It’s kind of a neat green with a punch bowl and I used the left side of the green to bring my ball around the bowl to about 12 feet behind the hole and made the putt.”

The 32-year-old Virginia Tech alum missed the cut last week with back-to-back 77s, but still didn’t feel discouraged by his play in windy conditions. The calm conditions during the first round at Royal Blue Golf Course were in stark contrast to last week’s oceanside course.

“It was important to get off to a nice start this week after missing the cut last week,” said Weaver, who earned four top-25s in 2019. “I know it’s a long season, but it’s still easy to get freaked out after a couple of tough rounds. At the same time I felt like I played pretty well last week tee to green, I just got battered by the wind on some putts. I had a good talk with my short-game coach and basically said let’s not push the panic button.”

Beginning at the 10th tee later in the morning wave, Florida State product Jack Maguire made the turn at 2-under despite a triple bogey at the par-3 14th. After his front nine produced three birdies and an eagle at the 18th, Maguire added four more birdies on his second nine to reach 6-under.

“I don’t think I’ve ever shot a 66 with a triple,” said Maguire, who grew up volunteering as a standard bearer at the Valspar Championship. “I had a lot of 8-to-12 footers that I made today and there were some good approach shots that set me up for those.”

The 25-year-old also missed the cut last week but was able to draw on some momentum at the end of his second round.

“I finished last week really well; I think I was something like 5-under through my last 14 holes,” said Maguire. “So I kind of carried that momentum over and finished strong today. The one mistake was on the par-3. Just a brain fart … It was tough to mentally tell myself that I hadn’t missed a golf shot today and yet I was over par. It was frustrating. But soon enough I had some birdies and an eagle at the 18th so I kept just cruising along.”

A group of five players sitting one stroke off of the lead include Taylor Dickson, Jared Wolfe, Andrew Novak, Stephan Jaeger and John Oda. Oda finished T4 at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic last year and is coming off a T2 finish last week.