Northern Trust Open: Round 1 notebook

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Weather: Partly cloudy skies with a high in the upper 60s. Winds S/SW 6-12 mph.

SAN DIEGO -- The first round was postponed due to darkness with three players remaining on the course with one hole to play. Rickie Fowler (E-T56), Alex Prugh (E-T56) and Brett Lederer (+1-T83) will return at 8 am to finish their first round. Players scheduled to begin their second round will start as scheduled.

RELATED LINKS

Leaderboard: Round 1
Round 2 tee times
Scorecard: Dustin Johnson
Live Report: Round 1
Ross: Stadler a familiar name
Interview transcripts
Photos: Round 1

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• In one of the oldest tournaments on the PGA TOUR, the leaderboard at the 84-year-old Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club is topped by five players in their 20s with Dustin Johnson (25) leading by one stroke over Andres Romero (27) and Kevin Stadler (29). Ricky Barnes (28) and Brandt Snedeker (29) are two strokes off the lead.

• Two-time TOUR winner Dustin Johnson shot a 7-under-par 64 in the opening round, the lowest first-round score of Johnson's career. This is Johnson's third time playing at this event. His best finish came last year with a T10. The 25-year-old will head to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am next week as the defending champion.

• If Johnson were to go on to win, he would be the youngest winner of the tournament at 25 years, 7 months and 16 days since Pat Fitzsimmons won in 1975 at 24 years, 2 months, 8 days. Adam Scott was also 24 when he won the tournament in 2005, but the tournament was shortened to 36 holes due to weather so the win is not considered official.

• Johnson is one of six players from the United States under 30 with multiple PGA TOUR victories - J.B. Holmes, D.J. Trahan, Sean O'Hair, Anthony Kim, Nick Watney.

• Johnson has never held a solo lead following the first round. He was tied for the lead after round 1 at the 2009 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am which he went on to win. The tournament was shortened to 54 holes due to weather.

• Johnson's 64 is one shot off the lowest first-round score of 63 at this event set by five players (Charlie Sifford 1969, Lanny Wadkins 1985, Michael Allen 1990, Padraig Harrington 1997 and Phil Mickelson 2009). Bolded players are in the field this week.

• Kevin Stadler led the field in greens in regulation by hitting 16 out of 18 greens to shoot 6-under-par and is one off the lead. Stadler is looking to match Bill Haas' win earlier this year at the Bob Hope Classic where Haas joined his father Jay Haas as the second father-son combo to win the same PGA TOUR event. Al and Brent Geiberger each won the Wyndham Championship. Stadler's father, Craig, won the Northern Trust Open in 1996.

• Stadler's best finish in 2009 came in a playoff defeat at the Wyndham Championship where he lost to Ryan Moore.

• Stadler has shot in the 60s in seven of the eight rounds he has played on TOUR this year.

• Brandt Snedeker's solid play in 2010 continued with a 5-under-par 66. Snedeker followed a T10 at the Bob Hope Classic with a runner-up finish to Ben Crane at last week's Farmer's Insurance Open. In his two previous appearances at the Northern Trust Open, the 2007 PGA TOUR rookie of the year has missed the cut.

• Argentina's Andres Romero shot a first-round 6-under-par 65 with birdies on his final four holes. The 65 is one better than Romero's first-round score at last year's Northern Trust Open where he finished T3, his best finish on the PGA TOUR in 2009 and one of two top-10 finishes last year.

• A year after winning the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, finishing 28th in the FedExCup standings and making the cut in all four Major Championships in 2008, Romero struggled in 2009 finishing 132nd in the FedExCup and missing 8 of 19 cuts.

• Steve Stricker, No. 3 in the Official World Golf Ranking and runner-up to Phil Mickelson at last year's Northern Trust Open, shot a first-round 4-under-par 67. Stricker's round got off to a great start when he pitched in for eagle on the first hole and birdied the second. On the third hole, however, Stricker three-putted from 6 feet, 11 inches. In the ShotLink Era (2003-present), Stricker has three-putted from inside 10 feet only once, in Round 2 of the 2003 Shell Houston Open on the 17th hole from 5' 4".

• Stricker is coming off the best season of his career, having captured three PGA TOUR events (Crowne Plaza Invitational, John Deere Classic, Deutsche Bank Championship); one of just nine players since 2000 to win three or more times in a season (Woods, Singh, Els, Love, Perry, Weir, Mickelson, Toms). Stricker is one of two players with top-10 finishes in the first two events of the season.

• Ricky Barnes shot a bogey-free 5-under-par and is T4 following round 1 of the Northern Trust Open. Barnes gained notoriety for his T2 finish at last year's U.S. Open at the rain-soaked Bethpage Black, but it was his only top-10 finish of the 2009 season.

• Barnes and Johnson were the only three players to record bogey free rounds during round one.

The Par 4 10th hole is one of the shortest par 4s on the PGA TOUR. Jack Nicklaus called this "one of the best 10th holes in major championship golf." A short hole but by no means easy, longer hitters can drive this green, but extreme accuracy is required.

• Joshua Wooding, a 2007 graduate of the University of Southern California, is the 2009 Northern Trust Open Exemption. Wooding was chosen from a pool of applications to receive the annual exemption, sponsored by Northern Trust, which provides a playing opportunity for a top golfer who represents the advancement of diversity in golf and wouldn't otherwise be eligible to compete in the 2010 tournament. Wooding birdied his first hole of the day and then scored 16 consecutive pars before recording a bogey on his final hole to finish at even-par T55.

• J.B. Holmes continues his solid play at Riviera Country Club and the Northern Trust Open with a 3-under-par 68. The two-time PGA TOUR winner has finished in the top 10 in each of his past two appearances at Riviera with a T7 in 2008 and a T6 in 2009. In each of those tournaments, Holmes shot scores of over par in the first round. Holmes, playing the tournament for the fourth time in his career, had yet to shoot a first-round score under par.

• Phil Mickelson is attempting to win the Northern Trust Open for the third consecutive year. Not only has this never happened in the tournament's history, winning an event three years in a row is something that Mickelson has yet to accomplish in his career. Mickelson shot a first-round 1-over-par 72 and is T83 at the suspension of play.

• On Friday, February 5, at 10:30 a.m. in the Patriots' Outpost Presented by The Annenberg Foundation located near the 9th fairway at Riviera Country Club. Jerry West, David Pillsbury, Mike Bone, and Northern Trust CEO Rick Waddell will be participating in a meet 'n greet with approximately 30 soldiers from the 40th Battalion in Los Angeles to express appreciation for their service.