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4 tied atop
leaderboard after first
day of Sony Open
Kona winds wreak havoc on
scores at Waialae Country Club
When the wind whips at Waialae, not much good can come from it.
You don't have to tell the 144 golfers who tried to remain on course as the Kona breezes blew hard and long throughout yesterday's opening round of the $4.8 million Sony Open in Hawaii.
For most of the golfers in the first full-field event on the PGA Tour, this entire week has been an exercise in futility. First, there was the rain that soaked the course last weekend, leaving golfers stuck in the mud during the early practice rounds.
Then the winds came from the wrong direction, leaving most of the field scratching their heads as they tried to decipher this par-70 course. Add a set of speedy greens that would leave the Plantation Course on Kapalua in the dust, and you have a recipe for the second-toughest round in Sony Open history.
A meager 29 golfers finished in the red, including the unlikely leading foursome of Brett Quigley, Stewart Cink, Tom Byrum and Hank Kuehne. All four fired 4-under 66 rounds to move to the top of a leaderboard lacking the usual suspects.
Past Sony Open champions Paul Azinger and Jeff Sluman joined seven other golfers at 3-under 67. That list includes U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman, Japanese star Shigeki Maruyama, Texan Chad Campbell, Woody Austin and red-hot Jonathan Kaye, who finished a surprising second to Stuart Appleby at last week's Mercedes Championships.
Carlos Franco and Briny Baird were among a group of four at 2-under 68, with world No. 1 Vijay Singh, local boy Dean Wilson and British Open champion Todd Hamilton highlighting a dozen golfers settling in at 1-under 69.
"It was a really tough day," said Singh, who finished with a disappointing bogey at the par-5 18th. "The winds are gusting quite a lot today, I don't know, maybe 30 mph, so I'm really happy with my round."
Singh led the first three rounds of last week's winners-only Mercedes Championships, before a triple bogey on the back nine of the final round left him in a tie for fifth with Cink and Adam Scott.
Cink and Quigley were part of a morning round where the wind was as strong as it was later in the day. Cink went bogey-free and Quigley made the most of a birdie on his final hole to find himself among the early clubhouse leaders.
"Par was probably 72 today," Quigley said. "I actually was looking forward to the wind because I knew I wouldn't be trying to hit perfect golf shots. I'd just be trying to shape it with the wind and it worked out pretty well."
Wilson found out an hour before his tee time that he would be playing this week. He was the fourth alternate coming in and needed a lot of help before touring the course. Wilson refused to practice on Tuesday because of the Kona winds.
"I thought it would mess with my brain," Wilson said. "And then it turns out we had the same kind of wind as on Tuesday."
Whatever the breeze, it didn't aid amateur Michelle Wie's chance to become the first woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias 60 years ago to make the cut at a men's event. Wie looked worn out by day's end, as did many of the competitors in the field.
"It was tough out there," Wie said. "I mean, it was really hard. I played so many times on the golf course, and I think it blew like three times, the Kona wind. So this is really rare.
"I really tried hard out there. The last seven holes, I made three great up-and-downs, so I feel really proud of that."
Most of the golfers felt Wie's pain. U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen hit two shots out of bounds on the opening hole en route to a 5-over nine. He finished with a 2-over 72. Jerry Kelly won this event three years ago and he fired a frustrating 4-over 74. Even two-time defending champion Ernie Els was not immune to the Kona wind, finishing with a 1-over 71.
Cink knew early on that his 66 might stand up all day. He proved correct and said the winds were to blame for all the high scores.
"It's really hard to hit the fairways out there because they are drying out," Cink said. "The wind is blowing your ball so hard, that when it lands, it's coming in at an angle and having a tendency to roll off into the rough. The rough is deeper than in past years, too."
Azinger is a veteran of this tournament and said when the wind started blowing, the winner would likely finish in single digits.
"The other wind, the dead-opposite wind, 18 under wins," Azinger said. "I just thought starting out that par was a good score on every hole, and it was howling out there.
"The golf course shaped up nice. I played on Sunday and it was sopping wet and the fairways looked terrible. Today, the fairways were playable and the greens were perfect, just like every year."
Byrum was the final 4 under for the day. The 44-year-old sounded much like Cink, who came in 5 hours before.
"I don't think I've ever played the course on any tougher conditions than today," Byrum said. "That makes 4 under a nice round for me. It was windless the last few years, if I'm not mistaken.
"I can remember the old days, there was a lot more wind around here, it seemed like. You always had to keep the ball down to run it a lot more. It's nice to see tough conditions on this course, where par is a decent score."
www.golfweb.com/tournaments/r006/
Round 1 scores
At Waialae Country Club.Purse: $4.8 million. Yardage: 7,060. Par: 70
a-denotes amateur
| Brett Quigley | 33-33 | -- | 66 |
| Stewart Cink | 33-33 | -- | 66 |
| Tom Byrum | 31-35 | -- | 66 |
| Hank Kuehne | 35-31 | -- | 66 |
| Jonathan Kaye | 34-33 | -- | 67 |
| Paul Azinger | 32-35 | -- | 67 |
| Chad Campbell | 35-32 | -- | 67 |
| Shigeki Maruyama | 32-35 | -- | 67 |
| Jeff Sluman | 34-33 | -- | 67 |
| Tom Lehman | 32-35 | -- | 67 |
| Woody Austin | 34-33 | -- | 67 |
| Justin Rose | 34-33 | -- | 67 |
| Andrew Magee | 32-35 | -- | 67 |
| Briny Baird | 34-34 | -- | 68 |
| Carlos Franco | 34-34 | -- | 68 |
| Brent Geiberger | 33-35 | -- | 68 |
| Tim Herron | 34-34 | -- | 68 |
| Joe Durant | 35-34 | -- | 69 |
| Robert Gamez | 35-34 | -- | 69 |
| Ryan Palmer | 35-34 | -- | 69 |
| Vijay Singh | 33-36 | -- | 69 |
| Tommy Armour III | 34-35 | -- | 69 |
| Tom Pernice, Jr. | 35-34 | -- | 69 |
| Greg Owen | 33-36 | -- | 69 |
| Dean Wilson | 36-33 | -- | 69 |
| Craig Parry | 35-34 | -- | 69 |
| Todd Hamilton | 34-35 | -- | 69 |
| Jason Allred | 37-32 | -- | 69 |
| Sean O'Hair | 34-35 | -- | 69 |
| Sean Murphy | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Brad Faxon | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| Shaun Micheel | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| Bart Bryant | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Larry Mize | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Paul Gow | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Brett Wetterich | 33-37 | -- | 70 |
| Omar Uresti | 34-36 | -- | 70 |
| Tag Ridings | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| Loren Roberts | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| Charles Howell III | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Rich Beem | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| Craig Perks | 34-36 | -- | 70 |
| Joe Ogilvie | 37-33 | -- | 70 |
| Jeff Maggert | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Michael Long | 35-35 | -- | 70 |
| D.J. Trahan | 36-34 | -- | 70 |
| Nick Watney | 34-36 | -- | 70 |
| Robert Allenby | 37-34 | -- | 71 |
| Arron Oberholser | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Chris Smith | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| Ernie Els | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Jim Furyk | 37-34 | -- | 71 |
| Craig Stadler | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Pat Perez | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Brian Gay | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Chris Tidland | 37-34 | -- | 71 |
| Greg Meyer | 37-34 | -- | 71 |
| Jason Bohn | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Kevin Stadler | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Toshi Izawa | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| Tom Kite | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| Billy Mayfair | 33-38 | -- | 71 |
| Chris Riley | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| David Toms | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| Ben Crane | 35-36 | -- | 71 |
| Adam Scott | 34-37 | -- | 71 |
| Franklin Langham | 38-33 | -- | 71 |
| Bob Estes | 36-35 | -- | 71 |
| D.A. Points | 33-38 | -- | 71 |
| Joey Snyder III | 34-37 | -- | 71 |
| John Riegger | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| Jesper Parnevik | 33-39 | -- | 72 |
| Bernhard Langer | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| Heath Slocum | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| Kirk Triplett | 35-37 | -- | 72 |
| Rory Sabbatini | 34-38 | -- | 72 |
| Corey Pavin | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| Vaughn Taylor | 39-33 | -- | 72 |
| Brian Bateman | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| Harrison Frazar | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| Michael Allen | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| Bradley Hughes | 38-34 | -- | 72 |
| Retief Goosen | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| Mark Hensby | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| John Huston | 37-35 | -- | 72 |
| John Cook | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| Peter Jacobsen | 36-36 | -- | 72 |
| James Driscoll | 39-33 | -- | 72 |
| Cameron Beckman | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Peter Lonard | 36-37 | -- | 73 |
| Steve Flesch | 36-37 | -- | 73 |
| Jonathan Byrd | 38-35 | -- | 73 |
| D.J. Brigman | 36-37 | -- | 73 |
| Rob Rashell | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Tim Petrovic | 38-35 | -- | 73 |
| Ted Purdy | 39-34 | -- | 73 |
| Daniel Chopra | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Steve Jones | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Aaron Baddeley | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Geoff Ogilvy | 34-39 | -- | 73 |
| David Ishii | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Brendan Jones | 37-36 | -- | 73 |
| Ryuji Imada | 38-35 | -- | 73 |
| Danny Briggs | 39-35 | -- | 74 |
| Jerry Kelly | 37-37 | -- | 74 |
| Hidemichi Tanaka | 37-37 | -- | 74 |
| Luke Donald | 36-38 | -- | 74 |
| Duffy Waldorf | 39-35 | -- | 74 |
| Ian Poulter | 37-37 | -- | 74 |
| Charles Warren | 36-38 | -- | 74 |
| Dick Mast | 38-36 | -- | 74 |
| Bo Van Pelt | 39-35 | -- | 74 |
| Spike McRoy | 38-36 | -- | 74 |
| John Morse | 38-36 | -- | 74 |
| Darron Stiles | 38-36 | -- | 74 |
| Dudley Hart | 35-39 | -- | 74 |
| Kevin Na | 38-36 | -- | 74 |
| Toru Taniguchi | 37-37 | -- | 74 |
| Hunter Haas | 41-33 | -- | 74 |
| Paul Casey | 39-36 | -- | 75 |
| Todd Fischer | 37-38 | -- | 75 |
| Steve Allan | 37-38 | -- | 75 |
| Frank Lickliter II | 37-38 | -- | 75 |
| Fred Funk | 39-36 | -- | 75 |
| a-Michelle Wie | 37-38 | -- | 75 |
| Scott Simpson | 39-36 | -- | 75 |
| Thomas Levet | 39-36 | -- | 75 |
| Hideki Kase | 38-37 | -- | 75 |
| John Lynch | 37-38 | -- | 75 |
| Matt Gogel | 38-38 | -- | 76 |
| Zach Johnson | 38-38 | -- | 76 |
| John Rollins | 42-34 | -- | 76 |
| Takashi Kamiyama | 38-38 | -- | 76 |
| Patrick Sheehan | 38-38 | -- | 76 |
| Kevin Carll | 37-39 | -- | 76 |
| Hideto Tanihara | 38-38 | -- | 76 |
| Justin Bolli | 39-37 | -- | 76 |
| John Senden | 38-39 | -- | 77 |
| Paul Claxton | 40-37 | -- | 77 |
| Matt Davidson | 36-41 | -- | 77 |
| Euan Walters | 36-42 | -- | 78 |
| Len Mattiace | 41-38 | -- | 79 |
| Andre Stolz | 40-39 | -- | 79 |
| Jonathan Mathias | 41-40 | -- | 81 |
| Skip Kendall | DNS |
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| Rod Pampling | DNS |
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| John Elliott | DNS |
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| Jimmy Walker | DNS |
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| Brian Davis | DNS |
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