Sandy Lyle is convinced his game is back on track after having returned to traditional blade irons recently. Lyle put Mizuno irons back in the bag at the Volvo PGA Championship a fortnight ago and he was satisfied enough with the results to keep them for the Kemper Open here in Washington, writes Andrew Both.
Despite three-putting three times with his long wand, he shot a respectable one-under 70 on the Avenel TPC course to trail first-round leader Fred Funk by six shots.
''I'm really starting to drive the ball well, hit a lot of fairways, and my irons are coming around. It's a promising start.''
Funk, who had laser eye surgery on Tuesday, had trouble focusing but it did not stop him from reeling off eight birdies for a seven-under 64, good for a one-stroke lead over fellow American Chris Perry.
Woody Austin, who shot 68, was helped by the first albatross in more than a year on the US Tour. He holed his second shot with a No.1-iron from 216 yards at the par-5 sixth. Leading scores (US unless stated):
64 - F Funk. 65 - C Perry. 67 - M Weir (Canada), J L Lewis, T Armour, C Parry (Australia). 68 - D Forsman, J Leonard, J Morse, C DiMarco, J Johnston, M Bradley, W Austin, M O'Meara,R Black, J D Blake, B Quigley, M Small. Other notables: 69 - S Hoch, J Parnevik (Sweden). 70 - S Lyle (Scotland), V Singh (Fiji). 71 - T Lehman, T Kite, C Strange, L Janzen. 72 - J Daly. 73 - R Karlsson (Sweden), R Coughlan (Ireland). 77 - N Fasth (Sweden), K Nolan (Ireland).
q Rain washed out the first round of the US LPGA's Michelob Light Classic.
Kemper Open
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