By Rich Brown
rbrown@joplinglobe.com
MIAMI, Okla. — Jeff Corr came within one stroke of tying a Peoria Ridge Golf Course record and took the first-round lead Thursday in the $200,000 Buffalo Run Casino Classic, a stop on the NGA Hooters Pro Tour.
Corr, of Longwood, Fla., fired a 10-under-par 62. However, he didn’t have much breathing room with Joey Lamielle of Sarasota, Fla.; Matthew Anderson of Edina, Minn., and Daniel Vojta of Palatine, Ill., coming in with 63s.
Jordan Dempsey, the defending tournament champion, ended in a five-way tie at 65.
Golfers from the Joplin area were Boyd Downey, Carl Junction, with a 75, and amateurs Seth Rhodes, Miami, 81, and Bryce Rowe, Baxter Springs, Kan., 82. Grant Downey, Boyd’s cousin from Sand Springs, Okla., shot 68, and former Joplin resident Robert Russell shot 71.
Corr, 29, in his fourth year on the tour, was 5-under, with four birdies, after the first nine holes. He birdied No. 10, took pars on 11 and 12 and birdied 14 before chipping in for an eagle on 15. After making par on 16, he birdied the final two holes.
“I was hitting the driver well and positioning the ball well,” said Corr, who finished fourth last week in the Hooters stop at Bentonville, Ark. “I knew if I kept on hitting the greens, the ball would go into the hole. It gets to be just a big putting contest.”
Corr won four of the 11 winter tournaments with Hooters last year.
Among those in a seven-way tie for third at 64 was Blaine Peffley.
Peffley, a Lebanon, Pa., native, was last year’s rookie of the year when he also won the Hooters’ Loma Linda Classic in Joplin as well as taking fourth at Miami.
“This 64 was one of my best rounds all year,” he said. “I have played better but as far as a score this is the best I have shot all year.”
The Pennsylvanian had 10 birdies, including six in a row.
“Probably the best hole I had was on No. 2,” he said. “I hit my drive right on target, then hit the ball within 10 feet of the hole and got my putt for birdie.”
Peffley had two bogeys on 11 and 14.
“I had two terrible shots,” he said. “On my second shot on 14, I hit the ball through the green to the left and I pitched one out to the right on 11.”
Asked what he thought it would take to win, Peffley said “probably 26-under” for the four-day 72-hole tournament.
David Skinns from Lincoln, England, a two-time winner this season and the tour’s money leader, also shot 64 along with Hernan Borja, Andrew Dresser, Jeff Burns, Matt Schall and Parker LaBarge. Dresser, who tied for 71st place in last week’s U.S. Open, didn’t record his first par until the ninth hole as he followed bogeys on the first and second holes with six consecutive birdies.
Chris James, from Edmond, Okla., set the course record of 61 on the 6,960-yard Peoria Ridge course during the third round of his championship run in 2005. James opened with a 68 on Thursday.
The second round today gets under way with a 7:30 a.m. tee time.
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