Crowne Plaza Invitational First-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff FORT WORTH, Texas -- First-round play in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial was suspended from 11:23 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. due to threatening conditions in the area. Afternoon tee times were delayed by one hour.  Tim Herron had one of the strongest starts for a defending champ in the last decade. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)
Play was suspended a second time at 3:08 p.m. due to a severe thunderstorm in the area and called for the day at 4:25 pm. First-round play will resume at 8:30 a.m. Friday. Half the field has yet to complete play (57 of 114). • The morning half of the draw completed play before the second suspension of the day. When play was halted, the lead groups had finished nine holes while the last groups off the tee had completed only one hole. • Dallas resident Anthony Kim birdied the final six holes of his round Thursday (Nos. 13-18) to finish at 7-under-par 63. Kim's six in a row is the best birdie streak on the 2007 PGA TOUR. Players posted five in a row 13 times so far this year, with the most recent coming at THE PLAYERS Championship by Jose Maria Olazabal. • Anthony Kim's 63 matches the second-lowest opening round in tournament history. Patrick Sheehan opened with a 62 in 2005, while other 63s came from Bruce Lietzke in 1980 and Brad Faxon in 1997. • Anthony Kim's 63 is the best-ever opening round by a tournament rookie at Colonial. His 63 also represents his lowest score since turning professional late last year. Kim's previous best was a final-day 64 at this year's Nissan Open (Feb. 18). • Anthony Kim's back-nine score of 30 was two shots off the tournament record of 28 set by Keith Clearwater back in 1993. Five others have posted 29s over the years, with the last one being Greg Kraft in 1999. • Australians Nathan Green (65) and Peter Lonard (65) are currently tied for fourth place. The last Aussie to win in Fort Worth was Ian Baker-Finch in 1989. • Defending champion Tim Herron posted a 3-under 67, which matches his lowest opening round here in 11 starts. Herron posted a 67 in 1997 (T63) and again last year (1). • Veteran Jeff Maggert posted a 6-under 64 on Thursday for his lowest score ever at Colonial CC (43 total rounds). His previous best was a 65 in the first round back in 1993. • When play was called for the day, the scoring average on the par-70 layout was 69.719. • The toughest hole so far is the 428-yard, 15th hole which has a scoring average of 4.174 and given up only six birdies. Three of those six birdies belong to Anthony Kim, Ted Purdy and Nathan Green. • There was only one eagle Thursday, that coming at the opening par-5 first hole by Todd Hamilton whose second shot from 239 years away ended up 14 feet, 8 inches from the cup. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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