From staff reports
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With two birdies both early and late in his round, Kyle Long carded a 3-under-par 69 Friday morning and claimed the opening-round lead in the 60th Twin Hills Invitational.
Long, who won last year’s tournament by nine shots and is a three-time Twin Hills champion, owned a three-stroke advantage over Tug Baker and Steve Thomas.
Chris Newby, playing in the group behind Long, shot a 2-under 70 to open a three-stroke advantage in the Seniors Flight.
The 140-man field has 61 players in the regular division and 79 in the seniors division. After today’s second round, the field will be split into three flights for the younger players and five for the over-50 competitors.
Long started his round on the 10th tee, and he birdied the par-5 10th and par-4 12th. A birdie on the par-5 16th dropped him to 3-under before a bogey on the par-3 No. 18 gave him a 34 at the turn.
Bogeys on 2 and 4 sandwiched around a birdie on 3 put Long at 1-under before he birdied his final two holes — the par-3 eighth and par-4 ninth.
Baker, playing in the afternoon, almost matched the scorecard hole-for-hole. Also starting on the back nine, he carded 16 pars, a bogey on the par-3 11th and birdie-4 on 16.
Thomas made birdie-3 on No. 3 and a birdie-2 on 5, but he gave both shots back with a double bogey on the par-5 sixth. He made all pars the rest of the afternoon except for a birdie on 12 and a bogey on 13.
Ashley Roberson, Brad Watts and Marshall Wesson shared fourth place at 74. Tim Wagaman was alone at 75, and a logjam at 76 involved Russell Iorio, Ryan Knell, Scott Martin, Jason Mickey, Chris Patterson, Andy Pochik and Ryan Westhoff.
Wesson, in contrast to Baker, had only seven pars while shooting 36-38. He offset four birdies with four bogeys, and he double bogeyed No. 13.
Newby posted 35s on both nines, including birdies on 3, 7, 14 and 15. Both of his bogeys came on par-5s — Nos. 6 and 10.
Jim Weaver, the seniors winner in each of the past three years, shot 73 to share second place with John Walker and Goose Garritson.
Weaver shot 38-35 with two bogeys on the front nine and one birdie on the back, and Walker had three birdies and four bogeys during his 36-37 round.
Garritson’s adventurous front-nine 39 included an eagle-3 on No. 6 and a triple-bogey 6 just two holes later. He holed two birdies for a back-nine 34.
