BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Something in southwest Michigan agrees with Chris DiMarco’s golf game.
As a 19-year-old playing for the Florida Gators, DiMarco won the prestigious 1988 Western Amateur at Point O’Woods Golf & Country Club in Millburg.
On Thursday, the 53-year-old was one of five golfers who shot an opening 4-under 67 at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores.
“It’s hard to remember back that far … obviously I have some great memories from there,” DiMarco said.
American Gene Sauers, Australia’s Mark Hensby, Sweden’s Joakim Haeggman and France’s Thomas Levet also had 4-under 67s at the par-71, 6,734-yard Jack Nicklaus-designed course that's hosting its fifth Senior PGA Championship since it opened in 2010.
DiMarco's round featured six birdies, including five in a six-hole stretch beginning at the sixth hole. Not bad for only his second trip around Harbor Shores, where he played a practice round Wednesday.
“I like good undulating greens that have a lot of imagination to them,” said DiMarco, who bogeyed the par-4 18th hole.
Another three golfers — PGA Tour Champions leading money winner Steven Alker of New Zealand, Stephen Ames of Canada, and American Duffy Waldorf — had reached 4-under in the afternoon as light rain began to fall on the course, which got more than an inch overnight.
Defending Senior PGA champion Alex Cejka of Germany, who won last year’s title at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but missed the cut in last week’s PGA Championship, headed a group of six golfers who shot 3-under 68s.
That group included KJ Choi, Darren Clarke, Darren Dodd, Kevin Sutherland and Michael Allen, who won the 2009 Senior PGA at Canterbury.
The 51-year-old Cejka, who had four birdies, three of them in a four-hole stretch beginning at hole No. 8, has only played three times in preparation for his defense. But he’s already got an idea what needs to be done.
“You’ve got to drive it well,” Cejka said. “That’s what I did today. My goal is just to find a lot of fairways. If I do, I can attack the pins. It all depends on the weather the next couple days. If we have weather like this — the last couple of (times) it was here — it was low scoring.”
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