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Robert Allenby leads Honda Classic with a first-round
66
By Greg Stoda
Courtesy of the Palm Beach Post
Robert Allenby is extremely comfortable on The Champion course
at PGA National Resort & Spa.
Always has been.
The Australian who lives in nearby Jupiter loves
the place and plays there frequently. That it is in its third year as site
of the PGA Tour's Honda Classic is just a bonus, albeit a nice one.
Allenby,
who tied for fourth place in the tournament in 2008 and tied for fifth place
in it in 2007 - see why he's comfortable? - held the lead Thursday night in
the darkness-suspended first round this year with a four-under-par 66.
(Nine
players, including two-time heart transplant patient Erik Compton at one-under
par through 16 holes, failed to complete the first round.)
"You do have to be a good ball-striker to play well here," said
Allenby, who shot a four-under-par 66. "I know I've got that going for
me."
But there's a six-pack - Sergio Garcia, Angel Cabrera, Stewart
Cink, Will MacKenzie, Jeff Overton and Charlie Wi - a shot off Allenby's pace.
Never
was there a danger of anyone running away to a big lead with the wind whipping
steadily. There was an eight-way tie for the top spot at one point, and Allenby,
who started on the back side, got to the lead only after getting a birdie to
offset a bogey and then doing it again across his last four holes.
He bogeyed
the sixth out of the muck after going in without shoes or socks and "sunk
about a foot." He
birdied the seventh, but bogeyed the eighth on a missed putt from 2 1/2 feet.
The
shot that pushed Allenby to the lead was a 6-iron to within 6 inches of the
cup at his finishing hole at the ninth.
"(The wind) blew all day. It never changed," Allenby said. "The
only thing it did toward the end was get cold."
Allenby, who is still mourning the late January death of his
mother, Sylvia, said he had "good vibes" coming into the event.
"It was good that I had some really close friends out there," Allenby
said. "I was able to have a little chat with them. I've got a lot of support
this week, so it definitely makes it a lot easier."
There was nothing easy about the conditions, and Cink spoke
for the group of closest pursuers when he said he "squeezed a decent score out of a
not that great of a day."
Only 25 of the players who finished the round
broke par, and the field's stroke average of 72.336 reflected the difficult
nature of The Champion's nastiness. There were 72 double-bogeys and 14 triple-bogeys
or worse.
The place invites scoring disaster.
It's a rough joint, which
is precisely why Allenby loves it.
For tickets and additional information on the Honda
Classic, visit www.hondaclassic.com.
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