First round: Late bogey ends Green's brief run at 59
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Australia's Nathan Green shot an 8-under 62 on Thursday to take a two-stroke lead over Olin Browne and Paul Claxton in the Valero Texas Open.
Green, winless in three seasons on the PGA TOUR, birdied nine of the first 16 holes before dropping a stroke on the par-3 17th and closing with a par.
"I didn't feel really good before the round started and then on the first hole I snapped my drive, it hit a rock and bounced back in the fairway," Green said. "From there, everything went pretty well."
Claxton and Browne, a three-time TOUR winner, had bogey-free 64s in sunny and warm conditions on La Cantera Golf Club's Resort Course.
"This course is right up my alley," said Browne, who tied for second in the 2005 tournament. "I hit every green and only had one shaky putt."
Tim Herron, Greg Kraft, Patrick Sheehan, Jason Gore, Nick O'Hern and Chad Collins opened with 65s, and Paul Goydos and Bob Tway topped a group at 66.
Defending champion Justin Leonard, the former University of Texas star seeking a record fourth victory in the event, shot a 70.
"I hit the ball pretty well off the tee, but didn't make any putts," Leonard said. "The greens weren't as good as they have been, but they were good enough to make putts."
Green shot a 5-under 30 on the front nine, then pulled away from the field with birdies on No. 2 10, 13, 14 and 16 for a four-shot lead.
"It was just one of those days were everything went right," Green said. "I had two months were I couldn't seem to get anything right, so this was nice to see."
The 62 was the lowest round of his PGA TOUR career. He tied for second in the 2006 Buick Invitational for his best PGA TOUR finish.
Green recently moved just outside of Dallas to ease his travel burdens and said playing in his adopted home state was a relief.
"I'm not a big fan of planes, so we drove down here Tuesday and it was very relaxing," Green said.
Starting at the par-4 sixth hole, he birdied five holes in a row with putts all 15 feet or shorter. His longest putt of the day came on the par 4 16th, when he rolled in a 24-foot birdie try.
Herron won the 1997 tournament.
"I don't have any problems with conjuring up good memories here," Herron said. "Of course, I made some putts, which helps as well."
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| Thursday's Best |
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The par-5, 527-yard fifth was the easiest with a Thursday scoring average of 4.588.
The par-3, 186-yard 17th was the toughest with a Thursday scoring average of 3.275.
Davis Love III avoided putting on the par-4 eighth by banking his approach shot into the hole for an eagle. 
Nathan Green, one of the best putters on TOUR, put together a career round when he hit 17 of 18 greens. | QUOTE OF THE DAY | ||
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FINALLY HEALTHY, GORE'S NEXT GOAL IS TO KEEP CARD
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
SAN ANTONIO -- Jaxon Gore was wheeling his way through the obstacle course in trampoline class the other day when he decided he wanted to hit something. He picked the padded wall.
But he paused to ask permission.
Dad Jason just smiled and shook his head.
"Go ahead,'' he said. "Just don't hurt the wall.''
That said, Jaxon went full bore. Shoulder down. Serious brute force -- for a 4-year-old.
Jaxon's fearless. And a chunk -- dad's word -- off the old block.
Knock either one of them down and they'll get right back up. Tell them they can't do something and they will. They're more than a little stubborn, but they're also driven by confidence.
All of which tells you all you need to know about the wall incident and Dad's current predicament -- he's 129th on the PGA TOUR money list and needs to finish in the top 125 to keep his PGA TOUR card.
To read the remainder of this story, click here.
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LATE EAGLE FIRES UP KRAFT'S LACKLUSTER ROUND
Statistically, Greg Kraft wasn't that good on Thursday. Kraft, a short hitter by PGA TOUR standards, wasn't long (288 yards) or accurate (57 percent) off the tee in the first round of the Valero Texas Open.
He also had 30 putts.
Yet, he shot 65. Here's how.
Kraft was even on his round when he got to the short par-5 14th. Kraft hit a solid drive into the fairway and flushed his approach, but he was left it 41 feet short of the hole. When the putt dropped for an eagle three, Kraft was two under on the day. Kraft parred the par-4 15th, then reeled off birdies at the 16th, 17th and 18th, sinking putts of 14, four and 18 feet.
It could have been even better -- he barely missed a 11-footer for birdie after a solid approach on the 15th.
The five-under 65 was the lowest round Kraft had posted all season and was the first 65 he'd hung up since the second round of the 2002 John Deere Classic.
Replay his round, click here.
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INSIDE THE ROPES WITH THE PGA TOUR NETWORK
XM Satellite Radio announcer Fred Albers offers these observations from Thursday's action. Listen to PGA TOUR Live coverage on XM 146 or right here at PGATOUR.COM.
Several PGA TOUR events go out of the way to make tournaments fun for the players. At the Valero Texas Open the sponsors have guns, -- and amusement. Players are offered the chance to go dove hunting before or after rounds. Fiesta Texas, an amusement park, is right next to the golf course.
Several players and their family have taken advantage of the hospitality. Olin Browne is playing the Valero Texas Open on a sponsors exemption. He has history on his side. Three years ago, Browne received an exemption into the Deutsche Bank Championship and won the tournament. He's hoping history repeats this week in San Antonio.
Nathan Green leads the tournament, making five birdies in a row at one point en route to a 62, but the Aussie did not seem happy following the round.
"I just don't feel I'm hitting it that well." said Green.
You wonder what number he could shoot if he starts striking it pure.
VALERO TEXAS OPEN: FIRST-ROUND NOTEBOOK
By Chris Reimer, PGA TOUR Staff
| 394 | Tee shot,in yards, hit by Bob Heintz on the 665-yard first hole |
| 439 | Tee shot, in yards, of the longest tee shot on the 2008 PGA TOUR (Tim Petrovic) |
• Australian Nathan Green hit the first 16 greens in regulation and was 9-under par before missing the green (left) at the 186-yard, par-3 17th hole. Green did not reach the green on his second shot and needed a putt of 5 feet, 5 inches for a bogey-4. Green missed a birdie putt of 7 feet, 8 inches on the final hole and settled for an 8-under 62 for a two-stroke lead over Olin Browne and Paul Claxton.
• The 62 marked a new career-low round on the PGA TOUR for Nathan Green. His previous TOUR-best score was a 63 (8-under) in the second round of the 2007 John Deere Classic, where he finished T3.
• This is the first time in Nathan Green's three-year PGA TOUR career that he has held the first-round lead. Green held a one-shot lead after both the second and third rounds of the 2007 John Deere Classic, where he finished three strokes back of winner Jonathan Byrd.
• Paul Claxton birdied his final two holes to shoot a bogey-free 64 and is tied with Olin Browne two stroked off the lead. Claxton is in search of his first top-10 finish of the season and is playing in the Valero Texas Open for the third time finished T15 here in 2005.
• Patrick Sheehan, runner-up here in 2004, shot a 5-under-par 65 Thursday. Four years ago, Sheehan posted rounds of 65-68-65-66?264 to finish at 16-under par, three strokes back of winner Bart Bryant. Sheehan comes into this week at No. 120 on the season money list ($750,497), having made the cut in 23 of 30 starts. His best finishes this year are a solo sixth at the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun and a T6 at the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.
THINGS TO WATCH ON FRIDAY
1. Rich Beem. The Beemer lives nearby in Austin and opened with a two-over 72. With $686,872 in the bank, he needs to make the cut this week to have a shot at making a move towards the top 125 this weekend. Beem retained his PGA TOUR card last year after making the cut in all five of his Fall Series starts.
2. Scoring. When the wind is calm, the 6,896-yard LaCantera Golf Club can be had, as Nathan Green showed on Thursday. We're still waiting for a 59 to pop up one of these days on this course, but despite the short yardage, the course has a lot of Texas-built defenses (hills, wind).
3. Steve Allan. The baby-faced Australian came into town with two consecutive top-10 finishes. The two top-10s were good for nearly $400,000 on the money list, and another solid run this week will all but assure him a spot on the 2009 PGA TOUR. As PGATOUR.COM freelancer Bruce Berlet wrote last week, much of Allan's recent success has come after he started swinging the club more smoothly on the backswing.
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