The Daily Wrap-Up: Rd. 1, Mercedes-Benz Champ.
KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) -- Geoff Ogilvy opened the PGA TOUR season with a bogey-free 6-under 67 and a one-shot lead in the Mercedes-Benz Championship on Thursday, a score that surprised him only because of the location.
"I haven't shot very many good rounds around this course, so maybe that's a surprising thing," said Ogilvy, who had not broken 72 in his previous two trips to the winners-only tournament. "But the fact that I'm playing OK is not surprising."
Ogilvy won the Australian PGA Championship and tied for sixth in the Australian Open, and he was just as crisp with his game in taking the first-round lead over Ernie Els, Kenny Perry and fast-closing Johnson Wagner.
With only moderate wind on a Plantation course that Ogilvy refers to as "extreme golf," eight players broke 70 and 20 players in the 33-man field broke par.
FedExCup champion Vijay Singh, who will have knee surgery next week, was not among them. He made double bogey on the opening hole and rallied for a 73. Defending champion Daniel Chopra was headed for a round in the 80s until he birdied the last two holes for a 79.
That Ogilvy was atop the leaderboard was surprising only because his average score in eight previous rounds was 73.875. But he kept practicing during his brief respite at home in Arizona, and it showed.
"We only finished the Australian Open three week ago," Ogilvy said. "And three weeks isn't enough to get rusty."
Els arrived in Maui having played only once in the last six weeks, and that worked well for him. In his first visit to Kapalua in four years, he made only one blunder -- a tee shot into the hazard on the par-5 15th -- to get his season off to a solid start.
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Johnson Wagner had the shot of the day when he reached the 663-yard, par-5 18th in two, leaving himself an 8-foot putt for eagle. He made the putt and recorded the first of two eagles on the hole Thursday. 
Geoff Ogilvy played an error-free round, shooting a 6-under 67 that featured six birdies and no bogeys. His score was good for a one-stroke lead after the first round. | QUOTE OF THE DAY | |
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HOT START GIVES LOVE A LEG UP
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- A year ago, Davis Love III had to watch the Mercedes-Benz Championship on TV.
But even if Love had managed that victory in 2007 that would have earned an invitation to the PGA TOUR's season-opener, he couldn't have played at Kapalua. Not with just one good leg.
Those tendons he tore in his left ankle when he stepped in a hole the previous fall have long since healed, though, and Love punched his ticket to Maui with a win the Children's Miracle Network Classic presented by Walmart two months ago.
Now Love is starting 2009 the way he ended 2008 -- in contention for what would be his second straight victory and the 21st of what is sure to be a World Golf Hall of Fame career.
"I've been working real hard on my putting, on my short game, and it starting to pay off," said Love, whose 4-under 69 Thursday on the Plantation Course included six birdies and left him two strokes behind leader Geoff Ogilvy.
"It's nice to have the confidence back and be able to take, basically, 2 1/2 weeks off in the snow, and then come right back and start playing good golf, just like I did. ... It's nice to be, you know, 80 or 90 percent healthy after where I was this time last year."
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INSIDE THE ROPES WITH THE PGA TOUR NETWORK
PGA TOUR Network correspondent Fred Albers offers these observations from Thursday's action. Listen to PGA TOUR Live coverage on XM 146/SIRIUS 209 or right here at PGATOUR.com.
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Will MacKenzie had the honor of making the first birdie of 2009 and also recording the first sub-par round of golf. The former surfer hit a 6-iron into the par-3 second hole from 223 yards away and converted the birdie. MacKenzie went on to shoot a 1-under 72.
Anthony Kim had duel loyalties working in his opening round. He went to school at the University of Oklahoma, but is also part of the Nike Family. Kim played the first hole wearing a hat sporting "OU," then switched to a hat with a Nike logo until his final hole. Kim put the "OU" hat back on for the 18th, made birdie and proudly proclaimed "Boomer Sooner" to the gallery.
Johnson Wagner brought home his round in style finishing birdie, birdie, eagle to shoot a 5-under 68. His eagle came on the par-5 18th when his approach from 275 yards out nestled to 17 feet. The 18th hole is this week's Kodak Challenge, which puts him at the top of the leaderboard in a year-long race for a $1 million bonus pool.
MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST-ROUND NOTEBOOK
By John Bush, PGA TOUR Staff
KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Geoff Ogilvy moved out to the opening-round lead at the winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship with a 6-under 67 on Thursday, taking a one-shot advantage over Ernie Els, Kenny Perry and Johnson Wagner. Ogilvy, a four-time PGA TOUR winner and 2008 World Golf Championships-CA Championship victor, is making his third consecutive appearance at Kapalua (tied for 13th in 2006, tied for 19th in 2007). Thursday marked his first sub-70 round at Kapalua out of nine overall rounds.
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• This represents the fifth first-round lead for Ogilvy on TOUR, having most recently carried the 18-hole lead to victory at the 2008 WGC-CA Championship. The other leads came at the 2006 Honda Classic (second), 2001 Honda Classic (tied for second) and the 2001 Chrysler Classic of Tucson (tied for third).
• Ogilvy, a 31-year-old native of Adelaide, Australia, is hoping to extend a streak in which a foreign-born player has captured the title at the Mercedes-Benz Championship for seven consecutive years (2008, Chopra; 2007, Vijay Singh; 2004-2006, Stuart Appleby; 2003, Els; 2002, Sergio Garcia).
• Ryuji Imada (69) had seven straight birdies on Nos. 6-12, just one shy of the TOUR record of eight -- posted six times and most recently by Jerry Kelly during the third round of the 2003 Las Vegas Invitational.
• Els, winner of the 2003 Mercedes-Benz Championship, posted a 5-under 68 in his first return trip to the Plantation Course since 2005. Els has seven previous starts in Kapalua, with four top-3 finishes in his last five starts (second in 2000, tied for third in 2001, won in 2003, tied for 21st in 2004, tied for third in 2005).
• In a match-up reminiscent to Thursday's NCAA National Championship football game, Anthony Kim (University of Oklahoma) and Camilo Villegas (University of Florida) were paired together in the opening-round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Kim, with a 2-under 71, got the best of his playing partner, who opened the season with a 1-over 74.
• Wagner, winner of the 2008 Shell Houston Open, went birdie-birdie-eagle on the closing holes to record a 5-under 68. Wagner is one of 12 players making first appearances at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Dating back to 1989, just three players have won the tournament in their first attempt (Chopra in 2008, Sergio Garcia in 2002 and Steve Jones in 1989).
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