Perry has flat-out blitzed the Champions Tour this summer, winning back-to-back majors with unheard-of low weekends and utilizing his young-man's power to his full advantage. The Kentuckian always has admitted he's a streaky player, but this summer there has been no streak to it. It has just been, well, incredible. The train kept rolling on Friday at En-Joie GC near Binghamton, NY, where Perry shot 7-under 65 to take the solo lead over a host of players bunched at 6, 5 and 4-under par.
"I just played nicely," Perry said. "I hit a lot of fairways; my wedge game was beautiful...When things are going your way, things go your way, so it was just a nice day."
Indeed it was. Cruising along, as he put it, at 3-under par through 11 holes, Perry hit his tee shot sideways on the reachable par-5 12th and had to chop out. All he did from there was hole a 6-iron from just under 190 yards to jump up near the top of the leader board at 5-under, and from there it was just the status quo.
Many of the low scores came in the morning, when the greens ran true and hadn't dried out yet. Perry played in the very last group of the day (everyone played of No. 1 tee, unlike most Champions Tour events that utilize a split-tee system) yet handled the conditions perfectly while big names like Fred Funk (71), Bernhard Langer (73) and defending champion Willie Wood (77) stumbled in the late-day trickiness. Of course, however, Perry will deal with more of the same tomorrow. As the leader, he tees off in the final group, with Bart Bryant and Joel Edwards at 1:31 p.m. The weather looks perfect.
When Kenny Perry is on fire, he is tough to beat on the PGA Tour - let alone on the Champions Tour, on a course that provides an abundance of wedges into greens for the longer hitters. He's out in front, and it would be unwise to bet against him. Heck, 65 could be his worst score this week.
Notes:
-Hometown favorite Joey Sindelar, a Horseheads High graduate, shot 2-under 70 as he works his way back from early-year back surgery. Talking to assembled media after his round, Sindelar seemed incredibly happy as he discussed his comeback from the surgery, in which he said he needs to bridge the gap between his competitive mind and the reality that he can't yet swing like he used to. The jovial guy capped off his round by rolling in a 6-footer for birdie on 18, which elicited a huge roar from the massive crowd that arrived early for the Tim McGraw concert just off the 18th green. Writing this from the media center, you can hear the crowd's anticipation building for McGraw. Multiple reporters have described the event as the 'concert of the summer' in the area.
-Jeff Brehaut shot 1-under 71 in his fourth Champions Tour start of the year, as the recently-turned 50-year-old attempts to battle long odds and make enough money in a shortened season to crack the top 30 on the money list and avoid a return trip to Q School. Brehaut finished joint 23rd and 19th in his last two events after a disappointing opening effort in Chicago in late June, and he will enter Saturday tied for 33rd. He's currently 89th on the money list and will need a string of top-10s and maybe even top-5s as the season winds down, and his ball-striking looked solid but not exceptional today. So we'll see.
-Fred Funk was not too happy with his 71. As he briefly spoke to me after his round, he mentioned that he needed to get to the range to work on a couple things, as it was already past 5:30 pm and the range closed at 6:00. Especially considering the amount of success he has had an En-Joie (four top-2 finishes, including a win, between the PGA and Champions Tours), his place six shots back with two rounds to play is not ideal. He told me he is 'behind the 8-ball' heading into tomorrow and that he needs to go 'really low' on Saturday and Sunday. His round could have been better (he missed a few makeable birdie putts and had at least one three-putt), but could have been worse: he salvaged a bogey after finding the water on the par-3 14th, and spun a wedge to inside six inches for a kick-in birdie on the short par-4 16th.
At the rate Perry's going, nobody else may have a chance, but even without Perry the winning score will likely be in the 14- to 16-under range. That means a couple 65s for Funk on the weekend, something he hasn't came close to since last year's Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
-The scoring average for the first round was 71.512. Hole 15, a par 4, played as the toughest (4.387) while the par-5 third played as the easiest (4.688).
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