IRVING, Texas – Peter Hanson made his only back-nine birdie with a 6-foot putt at the 18th hole Thursday, closing out a 5-under 65 for a one-stroke lead over David Duval and two others after the first round of the Byron Nelson Championship.

Duval, ranked 890th in the world 15 years after being No. 1, birdied his last three holes – Nos. 7-9 – after pitching in from 57 feet for another birdie at the fifth hole.

Marc Leishman and Tim Wilkinson matched Duval at 66.

The 42-year-old Duval almost withdrew before the round because of a muscle issue in his right elbow that made it painful to hit balls and practice this week. About a half-hour before teeing off, he still wasn’t sure that he was going to play because his arm was hurting again.

“I’m just glad I chose to tee off today, because I was seriously considering not,” Duval said.

Martin Kaymer, The Players Championship winner Sunday, was among eight players at 67.

Hanson made the turn at 5 under after shooting 30 on the front side. The Swede couldn’t keep up the pace on the back nine at TPC Four Seasons that he hadn’t played before Thursday because of travel issues and a sore back.

All six of Hanson’s birdie putts were inside 10 feet.

While Hanson, Duval and Wilkinson played afternoon rounds, Leishman was in one of the first groups out in the morning. He had a tap-in birdie putt at the par-3 second hole.

Leishman’s only bogey, at the 431-yard fourth hole after missing the green, was sandwiched by a pair of birdies. The Australian hit 13 of 14 fairways and 16 of 18 greens in regulation in a round he described as “fairly stress-free for the most part.”

It was Leishman’s best-scoring round since an opening 66 at Torrey Pines in January when he was the runner-up with his second consecutive top-five finish. In eight tournaments since, he missed three cuts and his only finish in the top 30 was a tie for 23th at The Players.

When Duval finished his round, he had a share of the lead – until Hanson sank his final putt. Hanson didn’t arrive in Texas until Tuesday after a canceled fight and has also been bothered by a sore back.

Duval hasn’t led the end of any round on the PGA Tour since the fourth of five rounds at Las Vegas in 2002. That was a year the last of his 13 PGA Tour wins at the 2001 British Open. He is playing his first Colonial since 2003 as a past champion on tour, a status that provides only limited playing opportunities.

After his bogey on his 12th hole, the 528-yard third hole, Duval was even par for his round. He had the long pitch on No. 5, and a similar shot from 43 feet at the par-5 seventh hole started his closing birdie stretch. He sank putts of 3 1/2 and 17 feet to finish.

Canada’s Graham DeLaet and Mike Weir opened with matching 2-under 68s and hold a share of 13th spot.

Stephen Ames was at even-par after his round Thursday. Brad Fritsch took 72 swings to get around TPC Four Seasons Resort.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Champions Tour players put on long-sleeved pullovers and tried to figure out which way the wind was swirling from hole to hole. They left Shoal Creek with little separation at the top.

Jay Haas, Mark Calcavecchia, Olin Browne and Chien Soon Lu shared the first-round lead at 3-under 69 on Thursday in the Regions Tradition, the first of the 50-and-over tour’s five majors. Nine others were within two strokes of the lead.

With windy, unseasonably cool conditions, it was the highest score for first-round leaders at the Tradition since three players tied at 3-under in 1990 at Desert Mountain Club in Arizona. The course absorbed more than an inch of rain heading into Thursday and the players were allowed to lift, clean and place their golf balls.

The Tradition hasn’t been so tightly bunched in the top spot after the first round since a seven-way tie in 2008 and the average score was about two strokes higher than last year’s first round.

“The winds were very tricky,” the 60-year-old Haas said. “I kind of had a handle on it, I thought, on the front nine. And then by the time we got to about 13, 14, 15, I had no idea which way the wind was blowing.

“With all the trees and the valley and everything, you get a lot of swirling winds and you just have to be extra careful and think it out and then hit the shot that you’re planning to hit, which I did most of the time.”

Calcavecchia birdied three of the final nine holes and came within a whisker of a fourth and the solo lead on No. 18.

“When it was about 10 feet short, I didn’t think it could miss,” he said. “It was just dead center the whole way and the last couple of feet, it was still in the middle of the hole and it just dribbled just a shade to the right and singed the right lip.

“That would have been nice to walk that one in to end the day. Those are the ones that make the rest of the day go by a little bit better, dinner taste a little better.”

Haas capped a run of three straight birdies with a 50-foot putt on the 12th hole to move to 5 under. He finished with six birdies and had bogeys on three holes, including two of the next four after the long putt.

The sun actually shone much of the day but the wind and wet course did make for some challenges.

“There was no roll in the fairways,” Calcavecchia said. “We had to play lift and place. The ball was just caked with mud every time you picked it up in the fairway. The wind was very tricky.”

Lu did manage to birdie the final hole and two of the last three to grab a share of the lead

The native of Taiwan has two second-places in the Tradition, 2010 in Oregon and 2012 at Shoal Creek.

Calcavecchia’s history at the scenic course has been up and down, though he says it’s his favorite stop on the Champions Tour.

He lost a six-shot lead in 2011, including a pair of weekend double bogeys on No. 12. This time he avoided a bogey on his most troublesome hole but tweaked a rib on a shot from the fairway bunker.

“The 12th hole is not my favorite out here, I’ll tell you that right now,” Calcavecchia said.

Browne’s only win on the 50-and-over circuit came in the 2011 U.S. Senior Open Championship. He missed five months of last season with a stress fracture in his back, playing only 14 events.

Browne, who tied for second at the ACE Group Classic in February, had a bogey-free round with his final birdie on No. 17.

“It was blustery and it was difficult to gauge, but my caddie and I did a decent job,” Browne said.

Steve Elkington, Willie Wood and Corey Pavin were one stroke off the lead at 70 and six players were two shots back.

Canada’s Rod Spittle carded an even-par 72 Thursday. He was tied for 14th with nine players including Tom Watson, Colin Montgomerie and David Frost, among others.

Jim Rutledge shot 76 Thursday.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Azahara Munoz and Austin Ernst had strong finishes Thursday to share the first-round lead in the Kingsmill Championship at 6-under 65.

The former NCAA individual champions completed their morning rounds on the front nine at Kingsmill’s River Course, with Munoz birdieing four of her last seven holes, and Ernst closing with birdies on No. 7 and 9.

“I don’t think it’s easy,” Munoz said. “The wind is pretty tricky, but the pins were somewhat accessible. Obviously, the course is playing is much shorter than normal because it’s warmer and drier. Holes I had been having 4-irons in, I was having 9-irons in today.”

Munoz had a bogey-free round, saving par with a 10-foot putt on the par-3 second – her 11th hole – after hitting into a greenside bunker. The Spaniard lost a playoff to Paula Creamer in Singapore in March, when Creamer made a 75-foot eagle putt on the second extra hole.

“I’ve been having a much better attitude,” said Munoz, the 2008 NCAA winner at Arizona State who won the 2012 Match Play Championship for her lone tour title. “When I miss a shot, I don’t let it get to me so much like I used to. I used to get pretty upset, and that really hurt me.”

Ernst, the 2011 NCAA winner at LSU, rebounded from a bogey on the par-4 first with an eagle on the par-5 third, hitting a 6-iron from 182 yards to 10 feet on the downwind hole.

“Really just solid,” Ernst said. “Gave myself a lot of looks, hit a lot of greens and made it really easy on myself out there on a day when it was pretty windy and it could kind of get away from you a little bit.”

Heavy rain was expected overnight and Friday morning, likely delaying second-round play.

“We’ll just kind of see,” Ernst said. “I’m kind of glad I’m in the afternoon tomorrow. That way I don’t have to kind of hang out. If it does get delayed, you’re not waiting on the update every 30 minutes.”

South Korea’s Hee Young Park shot 66.

“Everything is pretty good,” Park said. “I made a lot more putts.”

Defending champion Cristie Kerr opened with a 67 after missing the pro-am Wednesday because of illness. She also won the Michelob Ultra at the course in 2005 and 2009.

“It was weird. I started feeling really bad Tuesday night,” Kerr said. “I woke up and just didn’t want to get out of bed. Just kind of knew something was wrong. I just was going to stay in bed and try to recover, but my husband was like, `You got to go see a doctor.’ So I went, and he was like, `You have heat exhaustion and maybe something else going on.’ So they took me to the hospital and gave my IV fluids and ran some tests and I had an infection.”

Lexi Thompson, the Kraft Nabisco winner, also was in the group at 67 along with Lizette Salas, Brittany Lang, Kathleen Ekey, Danielle Kang and Thidapa Suwannnapura.

“Overall, I’ll definitely take 4 under,” Thompson said. “I feel really good about my game right now. I’ve worked extremely hard in my offseason, especially on my short game. I put a lot of hours and hard work into it. To see it paying off definitely helps my confidence out.”

Jessica Korda, Yani Tseng and Ai Miyazato topped the group at 68.

Second-ranked Stacy Lewis and No. 3 Lydia Ko, both in position to take the top spot in the world ranking from Inbee Park, each shot 70. Lewis would jump to No. 1 with a victory or a solo second-place finish, as long as Ko doesn’t win. Ko needs a victory to move to No. 1. Park is skipping the tournament.

Lewis won the North Texas LPGA Shootout two weeks ago.

The 17-year-old Ko is coming off a victory three weeks ago in the Swinging Skirts event in California.

“I think I’m hitting the ball really well, which is a really good sign,” Ko said. “So, hopefully, I can hit like this the next couple days and get some putts going in.”

Alena Sharp is leading Canadian after the opening-round in Virginia. Sharp is 2-under, four back off the lead after a 69.

Lorie Kane carded a 2-over 73 Thursday, leaving her tied for 79th.

Team Canada members Rebecca Lee-Bentham and Jennifer Kirby, as well as Maude-Aimee LeBlanc, were all tied for 123rd after 5-over 76s.

Sue Kim was 6-over after a 77.

Heavy rain was expected overnight and Friday morning, likely delaying second-round play.

VIRGINIA WATER, England – Graeme McDowell is skipping next week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth to spend time at home in Florida with his pregnant wife, Kristin.

George O’Grady, chief executive of the European Tour, says the 2010 U.S. Open champion is choosing not to fly to England so that he can be with Kristin, who is expecting their first child and will not be able to travel for the next three months.

The rest of Europe’s Ryder Cup-winning team from Medinah in 2012 will be playing at the tour’s flagship event, with Luke Donald seeking his third victory in four years at the tournament.

The event starts May 22.

GIRONA, Spain – Eddie Pepperell of England shot a 4-under 68 for a one-shot lead after the first round of the Spanish Open on Thursday.

Spanish players Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez were among eight chasing Pepperell at the PGA Catalunya Resort golf course.

Garcia, coming off a third-place finish at the Players Championship at Sawgrass, shrugged off jet lag to put himself in contention for his second Spanish Open title – 12 years after his first.

Garcia says, “The course is tough and the fairways are some of the tightest we have played all year.”

A further eight players trailed Pepperell by two strokes, including former British Open champion Paul Lawrie, who was playing for the first time since January because of back and neck problems.

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Many of the top players in women’s golf have won when the LPGA Tour visits Kingsmill.

From Annika Sorenstam and Se Ri Pak to Karrie Webb and Suzann Pettersen, it is a layout that brings the best to the top.

No one loves the River Course more than three-time winner Cristie Kerr, but the defending champion missed Wednesday’s Pro-Am due to an illness and her status for Thursday is uncertain. If Kerr doesn’t play or isn’t 100 percent, Stacy Lewis would be the likely favorite to win. She is coming off a victory and has a chance to rise to No. 1, the favorite.

Lewis won the North Texas LPGA Shootout by six shots last weekend, closing with a 7-under 64.

Inbee Park has led the world rankings for 57 weeks, but she isn’t playing this weekend. But Lewis said her focus isn’t the ranking, it’s winning.

“My number one goal is to win tournaments,” Lewis said Wednesday. “Obviously the rankings and the money list, everything like that takes care of itself. The goal doesn’t change: win tournaments.”

Lewis has won nine times in her career and has eight top 10 finishes this season while Pettersen, another favorite based on her track record, has three top 10s after rebounding from a back injury.

She arrived at Kingsmill feeling like she’s rounding into form at just the right time.

“Overall I feel very happy with my game,” she said Tuesday. “I feel great. I’m happy that I kind of managed to get back and get a couple tournaments in before we got here after being out with an injury.”

Pettersen has won 14 times in her career, and the first one came on the River Course in 2007. She was in it to the end last year, too, and then some, losing to Kerr on the second hole of a playoff.

“I’ve been looking forward to this tournament since that last putt dropped last year,” she said. “This is by far one of my favorite stops. I mean, we can say that each and every week, but I’ve had some great success here. I love the course. I think it’s one of the best courses we play all year.

“I’m staying here at the resort. It’s just very pleasant and nice and calm. You have all the facilities you need. If you can’t find peace here, I don’t think you’ll find it anywhere.”

If Kerr rebounds to play Thursday, eight of the top 10 players in the world are in the field with Park and No. 7, Shanshan Feng, the only ones missing. Michelle Wie, one of the tour’s most popular players and in the midst of her best season, also is skipping the tournament. Wie is now ranked 12th worldwide.

Other former champions in the field include Pak, the 2004 champion and Karrie Webb (2006), along with 17-year-old sensation Lydia Ko, who won her last event and is ranked third in the world.

It’s Ko’s first experience with Kingsmill, and she said will place a premium on accuracy off the tee.

“They always seem to put the bunkers where my drive distance goes,” she said.

Parksville, B.C. (Golf Canada) – It only took one playoff hole for amateur Michelle Piyapattra to claim the season-opening Canadian Women’s Tour stop at Morningstar Golf Club.

Tied at 1-over par 145 after 36 holes, Piyapattra of Corona, Calif., headed into a hole-by-hole playoff with Samantha Richdale of Kelowna, B.C., and Lauren Mielbrecht of Gulf Stream, Fla. The 21-year-old faced an almost identical shot from the middle of the 18th fairway that she had taken just minutes earlier on her first trip down the 400-yard par-4 before posting a 2-over 74.

After Mielbrecht missed her approach shot to the left of the green, Piyapattra stepped up and stuck a pitching wedge to 3-feet. Richdale followed and landed her second shot 25-feet away. Moments later Piyapattra watched both players miss their birdie attempts and confidently converted her short putt for the victory and exemption into the 2014 Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.

“It was amazing for my approach shot just to stay on the green because I’ve been having trouble with that all week,” Piyapattra said. “I was just trying to stay focused and make sure to think that it’s not over until it’s over. It was really a great feeling especially with such great competitors out here.”

Piyapattra’s final round 2-over 74 was highlighted by three birdies – the most critical coming at the par-4 16th hole to grab a share of the lead. The Columbia University Lion senior graduates next week and hopes to play as a professional at Canada’s National Women’s Open Championship at London Hunt and Country Club, August 18-24th, 2014.

“It’s really an honour and I’m obviously still an amateur since I’m still in school and graduating next week,” she said. “Hopefully by then I’ll have a professional status. It’s going to be great that it’s my first event and I got into it as an amateur, it’s a real honour.”

Richdale and Mielbrecht shared first-place prize money following their playoff losses. They both took home $8,498.18 for their second place finishes. Mielbrecht carded the low round of the day at Morningstar with a 1-under 71, while Richdale posted a 3-over 75.

Team Canada Development Squad member, Valérie Tanguay of St. Hyacinthe, Que., shared fourth place at 2-over 146 place alongside amateur SooBin Kim of Coquitlam, B.C., and Seul-Ki Park of Northbrook, Illinois.

How do I measure the success of Golf Fore the Cure events? It’s simple – laughter.

Sure, it’s relative and it can’t be tracked. But if you’re looking, it’s there. Through the bogies, the birdies, the mulligans and the lost balls, laughter is the key to engagement.

Laughter creates fun, which leads to engagement – my personal goal (also the goal of the program). Golf Fore the Cure events are by no means required to be competitive. In fact, less than 10% of events feature some form of competition. And even then, that competition is almost always suited to accommodate all skill levels.

I felt it necessary to address competition, because it can be seen as a barrier to the game for women who are considering taking up the sport. Being at the centre of Golf Fore the Cure for over two years, I know that there are ladies who are hesitant to play for that very reason.

I want to change that. WE want to change that.

Golf is a game for a lifetime, and I want any and all ladies to be introduced to the game, even if interest doesn’t develop. Let’s not forget, a round of golf takes roughly four hours – the majority of time is spent in between shots. That’s where the laughter happens.

This is what Golf Fore the Cure looks like in my head:

We could all use more laughter. It’s a sign of happiness, it’s a sign of enjoyment, and above all it’s contagious. Hearing the foursome ahead of you erupt in laughter is a sure way to make anyone smile. That’s what I love about golf.

Awareness and fundraising for breast cancer is the financial goal of Golf Fore the Cure presented by Subaru. It is a global issue that affects millions and is a cause very dear to my heart. Through laughter on the golf course, we can grow female participation and work towards ending the fight against breast cancer forever.

So, what are you waiting for? Get involved… Register a Golf Fore the Cure event before June 27^th and you will be entered to win an iPad mini.

If you have any questions about Golf Fore the Cure, feel free to drop me a line.

Rebecca Siddall
Coordinator, Recreational Programs
Golf Canada
1.800.263.0009 x495
rsiddall@golfcanada.ca

Parksville, B.C. (Golf Canada) – Samantha Richdale and Anne-Catherine Tanguay fired opening round 2-under 70’s to share the lead at the Canadian Women’s Tour B.C. stop at Morningstar Golf Club.

Tanguay, of Quebec City, arrived at the season’s first stop on the heels of an eighth place finish at the NCAA West Regionals last week with her national championship bound Oklahoma Soooner’s squad. On Tuesday, she carded five birdies in her opening round that was highlighted by a 3-under 33 front-nine.

“We played in some tough conditions [at regionals] and I did really well so that gave me some confidence,” Tanguay said. “I made some pretty solid swings today and my putting was definitely what kept me going, I made a lot of putts for birdie and par.”

As the defending champion, Richdale of Kelowna, B.C., opened with a 1-under 35 front-nine. Her round included four birdies and was blemish free until a double-bogey on the par-3 4th hole on her closing nine.

“I made a lot of good chips today and I really only had one bad shot where I hit it in the water,” Richdale said. “Last year’s win gives me a little bit of confidence, I just really wanted to come back and play, we have a Symetra event this week but I decided to take it off just because I really like these events and I like playing in B.C.”

Heading into tomorrow’s final round, the duo leads by a stroke over Michelle Piyapattra of Corona, Calif. Piyapattra opened with a 1-under 71, while a trio of players including Emily Childs, the 2013 Canadian Women’s Tour Ontario champion, sit at even-par.

Team Canada’s Brittany Marchand of Orangeville, Ont. and Development Squad member Valérie Tanguay of St. Hyacinthe, Que., posted 1-over 73’s and share seventh place alongside six other players. World No. 3 ranked amateur, Brooke Henderson, carded a 2-over 74 and is currently tied for 15th heading into the final round.