Round 1 notebook: SBS Championship

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Jan. 8, 2010
By John Bush, PGA TOUR Staff

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Lucas Glover jumped out to the early lead at the PGA TOUR's season-opening SBS Championship with a 7-under 66. The 2009 U.S. Open champion produced a roller-coaster round that began with a double bogey on the par-4 first hole, but then included a 10-hole stretch in which he went 9-under par, including eagles on the par-5 fifth and ninth holes and birdies on Nos. 6 and 10-13.

• Glover has failed to carry any of his six previous first-round leads/co-leads to victory with a T7 at the 2008 Verizon Heritage his best eventual finish. Most recently, he finished T42 after holding a share of the first-round lead at the 2009 Waste Management Phoenix Open.

• Glover is making his second-career start at the season-opening event in Kapalua, finishing sixth in 2006.

• Glover, a 30-year-old native of Greenville, S.C., is hoping to stop an eight-year streak of foreign-born players winning the SBS Championship (2009-Geoff Ogilvy, 2008-Daniel Chopra, 2007-Vijay Singh; 2004-2006-Stuart Appleby, 2003-Ernie Els, 2002-Sergio Garcia).

Martin Laird and Nathan Green, both making their first appearance at the SBS Championship, opened with 6-under 67s. They were joined at that number by Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney and Dustin Johnson.

• Laird and Green are among the seven-player contingent making their first appearance at the 2010 SBS Championship. The others include Pat Perez (71), Y.E. Yang (70), Paul Casey (70), Bo Van Pelt (72) and Ryan Moore (69). Dating to 1989, just three players have won the tournament in their first attempt (Chopra -- 2008, Garcia -- 2002 and Steve Jones -- 1989).

• All four major championship winners from 2009 are participating this week at the SBS Championship: Angel Cabrera (68), Glover (66), Stewart Cink (68) and Y.E. Yang (70).

Steve Stricker, No. 3 in the current Official World Golf Ranking and the 2009 FedExCup, carded an even-par 73 in his fourth career start at the SBS Championship (T27-1997, 25th-2002, 2nd-2008). Last year, Stricker became just the ninth player since 2000 to win three or more times in a season, joining Tiger Woods, Singh, Els, Davis Love III, Kenny Perry, Mike Weir, Phil Mickelson and David Toms.

• Defending champion Ogilvy, the only past champion of the SBS Championship in the field, opened with a 4-under 69. In the history of the SBS Championship, six players have won the tournament in back-to-back years: Stuart Appleby (2004-05-06), Lanny Wadkins (1982-83), Tom Watson (1979-80), Arnold Palmer (1965-66), Jack Nicklaus (1963-64) and Gene Littler (1955-56-57).

• Eight players, including tournament-leader Glover, birdied the par-5 18th hole on Thursday to take the early lead in the 2010 Kodak Challenge, the sophomore edition of the $1 million competition. Kevin Streelman was the winner of the inaugural Kodak Challenge.

• Bogey-free rounds on Thursday: Kuchar (67), Watney (67) and Moore (69).

• The par-3 eighth hole played the most difficult at 3.393. The par-5 ninth hole played the easiest at 4.250.

Scoring Averages at the par-73 Plantation Course
Day Front 9 Back 9 Total Cumulative
Thursday 34.964 34.893 69.857
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