First-round notebook – Buick Open
• Corey Pavin, Bo Van Pelt and Dudley Hart each carded rounds of 8-under 64 on Thursday at the Buick Open and will share the lead heading into Friday's second round.• This marks the fifth straight year where a score of 64 or lower had led after one round of the Buick Open.
• Play was suspended at 3:10 PM due to a dangerous situation and resumed at 3:32 PM.
• Today's brief weather delay marked the eighth time on the PGA TOUR this year that play has been suspended due to a dangerous situation.
• Corey Pavin is continuing his good play from last week, where he finished T10 at the Travelers Championship, thanks in part to a final-round 64. Although the rounds were at separate tournaments, this is the first time in his storied 25-year career that Pavin has recorded back-to-back rounds of 64 on the PGA TOUR.
• Pavin played well at the Buick Open earlier in his career with a T4 finish in 1993 and a runner-up effort in 1994. Since that point, his best finish in four starts at Warwick Hills was a T40 in 2006.
• This marks the 17th time in Pavin's career in which he has been a leader/co-leader through 18 holes of a PGA TOUR event. In that situation, he has recorded three wins (2006 U.S. Bank Championship, 1987 Sony Open in Hawaii, 1985 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial) and has only finished the week outside the top 10 three times.
• This marks the third time in Bo Van Pelt's PGA TOUR career in which he has been a leader/co-leader through 18 holes of a TOUR event. He held the 18-hole lead at the Puerto Rico Open earlier this year and held a share of the 18-hole lead at the 2004 U.S. Bank Championship.
• Van Pelt is making his fifth career start at the Buick Open this week. In four prior starts, the former Oklahoma State star made only one cut, in 2006, when he finished T53.
• This is the seventh time in Dudley Hart's PGA TOUR career in which he has been a leader/co-leader through 18 holes of a TOUR event. Hart won the 2000 Honda Classic after leading with an opening-round 65.
• In the 49-year history of the Buick Open, the first-round leader/co-leader has gone on to claim the title eight times, with the last being Vijay Singh in 2004.
• Hart entered the 2008 season on a Major Medical Exemption after his wife was diagnosed with non-smokers lung cancer in May of 2007. Hart entered the season with 15 tournaments to make $485,931 and receive fully exempt status for the remainder of 2008. With his T12 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in March came a $110,825 paycheck, surpassing the needed money.
• Briny Baird's round of 7-under 65 comes as little surprise as the PGA TOUR veteran entered the week ranked No. 5 in Round 1 Scoring Average on the TOUR this year (69.78).
• Baird, who has now made 263 starts on the PGA TOUR without a win, has played quite well lately. Since missing the cut at the PODS Championship in March, Baird has eight top-20 finishes in 10 starts, including fourth-place finishes at the Puerto Rico Open and THE PLAYERS.
• Van Pelt is making his 196th PGA TOUR start this week, and like Baird, is still looking for his first win. He recorded the best finish of his career earlier this year at the Puerto Rico Open, where he took a one-shot lead into the final round before falling one-shot-shy of eventual champion Greg Kraft.
• Daniel Chopra (65) opened the season on fire with a win at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, for which he was exempt via his first PGA TOUR title at the 2007 Ginn Sur mer Classic. However, Chopra has struggled since his win in Hawaii with zero top-25 finishes to his name in 17 events in that time span.
• 1995 Buick Open champion Woody Austin continued his first-round success in Grand Blanc on Thursday with a round of 66. Austin opened with 65s in each of the past two years at Warwick Hills en route to top-10 finishes.
• Charles Warren (67) recorded six birdies in a row on holes Nos. 12-17 and tied the best mark of the 2008 season, which is shared by seven players. The former NCAA Individual Champion is no stranger to streaks this year as he shares the best birdie/eagle streak of 2008 with Phil Mickelson and Soren Kjeldsen (birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie
• PGA TOUR rookie Dustin Johnson appears to have his game back on track after a round of 68 on Thursday. Johnson began the season as the hottest rookie on TOUR with top-15 finishes in three of his first five starts, where he in turn made the cut in each. After that, he missed seven of his next nine cuts before righting the ship by making the weekend in his past five tournaments.
• Lee Janzen (67) is making his 262nd start on the PGA TOUR this week since his last victory at the 1998 U.S. Open. In that span, he has collected 23 top-10 finishes. His best finish in six starts at the Buick Open since that win came in 1999, when he finished T19.
• Twenty-three-year PGA TOUR veteran Tom Byrum made the most of a late entry into the Buick Open on Thursday with a round of 5-under 67, which was his lowest round-to-par on TOUR since a final-round 67 at the 2006 Chrysler Classic of Tuscon. Byrum earned a spot in the field when Brett Wetterich withdrew on Wednesday.
• Twenty-three players carded rounds of 68 or better in the morning wave, while only nine managed to do so in the afternoon.
• Tom Scherrer withdrew after the first round.
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