Despite putting troubles, Brehaut posts Thursday 68

Jeff Brehaut knows his starts on the Nationwide Tour could be few and far between this year. He also knows he needs to play well when he gets in, if he wants to play as much as possible.

Striking the ball on Thursday, Brehaut looked like a PGA Tour player in midseason form. But putting-wise? Not so much.

From the first tee Thursday, Brehaut had his driver and iron game in complete command. He hit his first 11 greens in regulation, and he had good looks at birdie on most of them.

"I hit it good today," Brehaut said. "Especially since I haven't been playing any, so I wasn't really sure what I was gonna get."

But the putts refused to drop, and Brehaut settled for an opening round of 3-under 68. Not bad, but still close enough to the cut line (currently 2-under) where making the cut will require a solid round on Friday.

"I wasn't hitting awful putts," Brehaut said. "But they weren't going in. Maybe I wasn't hitting it quite close enough, but I had a lot of 10-to-15 footers...Yeah, I feel like I left a few out there."

After missing the cut in his first start of the season at the Mexico Open, Brehaut was given one of four sponsor's exemptions by the Wichita Open staff. Brehaut played the event every year from 1993 to 1998, and he made a good impression at the tournament, to the point where they wanted him back.

Knowing that a top-25 finish gets him into next week's event in Indiana, Brehaut has a lot on the line this week. Sponsor's exemptions are hard to come by (standard events can only allocate four), and there is no guarantee Brehaut will gain entry into any more events based on his Tour status. He may, but it depends on how many players ahead of him decide to play in a given week.

The best way to improve your status is to make more money. The only way to make Tour money is to make cuts in tournaments. Hence, the importance of getting into tournaments, making cuts, and finishing inside the top 25.

But if Brehaut was feeling any jitters, it didn't show early. The San Francisco-area resident hit a perfectly positioned drive on the dogleg-right opening hole, and he had birdie putts inside 20 feet on his first four holes.

But he didn't make any, and he went to the 7th tee still even-par on the day, despite no missed greens. The 7th is a tough par-4 built around a lake, and a bogey there could have hurt Brehaut mentally.

"Say you get four good looks at birdie (early), and then you make a bogey," Brehaut said. "That's when it gets frustrating, because then you're thinking 'geez, man, I should be 2-under, and I'm 1-over.'"

No worries, though. Brehaut had been hitting it great to that point, and he hit two perfect shots to leave himself with a 8-footer for birdie. He knocked it in, and he he would remain under par for the rest of the day.

But it wasn't easy. Playing the 13th at 1-under, Brehaut was faced with his first chip shot of the afternoon after pulling his approach a few yards left. The pin was tucked on the left of the green, so the margin for error on the approach was slim.

"I had a pretty good number for a 9-iron, and I hit a good shot," Brehaut said. "I just pulled it a little bit. But there's only three steps to the left of that pin, so I knew when it missed the green, it was going to be a hard chip."

And the chip was certainly a testy one, requiring a precise shot down a slippery slope. But Brehaut judged it perfectly, and the ball landed just in the fringe before rolling inside 3 feet. The par kept Brehaut at 1-under, and the momentum was sustained.

"The rough here is pretty sticky and tough," Brehaut said. "I had a tough shot, but I hit a great shot. To get a tap-in par in that situation was nice."

Holes 14 and 18 are short par-5's, easily reachable for anyone in the field with a good drive, and Brehaut was up to the task. The two-time Nationwide Tour winner had eagle putts inside 20 feet on both holes, and the easy tap-in birdies allowed him to post a round of 3-under.

The 68 may have been a 62 if a few more 10-to-15 footers had fallen, but as Brehaut said post-round, 'that's golf.' He returns to action tomorrow morning, looking to convert a few more birdie chances and play the weekend.

Either way, he's not one to complain about a 68.

"Overall, if you told me I was 3-under, I would've taken it," Brehaut said. ________________

-Brehaut made par on the boisterous par-3 17th, but not without a minor fiasco. While replacing his ball before attempting a 4-footer for par, his playing partner innocuously tossed a ball into the crowd.

But the ball never made it to the crowd. The toss landed short, and the ball sailed back onto the green, missing Brehaut's ball (and hand) by inches.

That would have made for an interesting conversation with a rules official.