Australian Richard Green made a long eagle putt and finished his round with a birdie to fire a 9-under-par 63 and take a two-shot lead after one round of the Regions Tradition on Thursday in Birmingham, Ala.
Green, who has yet to win on the PGA Tour Champions, gave himself a nice head start toward winning his first senior major championship at Greystone Golf & Country Club.
He sits two strokes ahead of a quartet tied at 7-under 65: Jerry Kelly, Stewart Cink, New Zealand’s Steven Alker and South Korea’s Charlie Wi.
“Everything was going well,” Green said. “I started really nicely, hit it really close a lot during the round. Just been a bit of a result of a lot of work.”
Green had drained six birdies through 11 holes before his eagle occurred at the par-5 13th hole. The lefty reached the green in two and rolled in a fast-moving putt for eagle to jump to 8 under and sole possession of the lead.
He birdied his very next hole, a par-3, before bogeying No. 16 and birdieing No. 18.
“Look, it’s a marathon,” Green said. “It’s hard to play awesome golf every day, but certainly try. It’s just give yourself a chance, get through every day giving yourself a chance into the next day, giving yourself a chance into Sunday and then hopefully you’re there with a chance on Sunday, that’s all you can really do.”
Cink, who won the PGA Tour Champions’ Insperity Invitational earlier this month, could be in the running for his first senior major title after a big day. He went 6 under par in a seven-hole stretch from Nos. 7-13, with five birdies, one bogey and an eagle putt at No. 13.
“It feels great and there’s some memories fresh from getting a win there, but it’s not like you can go out there and just sleepwalk your way to winning,” Cink said. “You’ve still got to do the right things. There’s a reason we got a win (at the Insperity) and the reasons are what we have to keep doing here and forward and we’ll hopefully pick up some more wins. But there’s no guarantee.”
Alker has nine wins on the 50-and-older circuit to his name, but just one major, the 2022 Senior PGA Championship. He got off to a smooth start to the week with seven birdies and no bogeys on his card.
“Everything’s pretty solid,” he said. “You’ve just got to try to get it in the fairway here because you never know, you could get a mud ball in that rough and anything can happen. So I did pretty well keeping it in the fairway and gave myself some chances.”
Germany’s Alex Cejka, who won this event in 2021, is alone in sixth after a 6-under 66. Tied at 5-under 67 were Y.E. Yang of South Korea, Thomas Bjorn of Denmark and Greg Chalmers of Australia.
–Field Level Media
