At 64, Hope Leaders Keep Low Profiles

There’s no place for the slow, the weak and the faint of birdie at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. That familiar approach was embraced once more in Wednesday’s first round, when 128 players made 609 birdies, laid waste to par, then went to sleep and dreamed about doing it all over again.

It’s five spins around a fast track and the best way to handle this event is never to look back over your shoulder because some people, probably a lot of people, are already passing you.

“You want to go as low as you can,” said Duffy Waldorf, whose eight-under-par 64 at Bermuda Dunes earned him a share of the first-round lead with Robert Damron, Ted Purdy, Joe Ogilvie and Fred Funk.

Waldorf sounded the obvious warning.

“Every day somebody goes with low rounds.”

Opening day was no different. Purdy, who is playing in his first Hope, got the knack of how to play the thing fairly quickly, not even bothering to play a practice round to get ready for his 64 at Tamarisk.

He said he wasn’t surprised, because the greens were so good. “If you have a reasonable length birdie putt, you expect to make it.”

Expectations ran high and scores ran low at La Quinta, Tamarisk, Bermuda Dunes and the Palmer Course at PGA West, where the only disappointing score of the day was an 82 by David Duval, who shot 59 on the same layout to win the 1999 Hope.

At the opposite spectrum, it’s the first time in 35 years that there’s a five-way tie for the lead after one round of the Hope, and there’s not much room separating the guys at the top, thanks to some very low scores.

Out of the 128 pros, 105 shot under par, among them 1998 winner Fred Couples, who had a 65 at Tamarisk, and two-time champion Phil Mickelson, who put up a 66, also at Tamarisk.

There are 26 players within three shots of the leaders, who clearly are not safe.

Couples, Franklin Langham, Justin Rose, Neal Lancaster and Nick Watney are tied for sixth at 65.

Jim Furyk leads a group of 14 players at 67. Davis Love III, in his first round of the year, had a two-under 70 at PGA West.

Damron, who tied for 14th last week at Torrey Pines, began with five birdies in his first seven holes and closed with birdies at three of the last four holes at Tamarisk. With one victory in his nine-year career, Damron has still made more than $9 million and is hoping to add to it with a good showing this week.

“I know the courses are all in great shape and I try not to get too ahead of myself too much, just stay patient,” he said. “If there are some holes that confuse me a little bit, so be it. I don’t think that’s anything new.”

Ogilvie, who made $1.4 million last year with four top-10 finishes, is one of the best putters on the PGA Tour, so he figures to do as well this week as he did Wednesday at PGA West.

Funk, 48, whose 64 came at Bermuda Dunes, has made a career out of consistency. His victory last year at the Southern Farm Bureau Classic was his sixth, but it was also his first in six years, yet Funk is 20th on the PGA Tour’s career money list with a little more than $15 million.

Couples’ round was a seven-birdie, no-bogey, carefree tour of Tamarisk that featured five birdie putts from eight feet or less. His low opening round was something of a surprise after a couple of misadventures last week at Torrey Pines.

Believing he was going to miss the cut at two-under at the Buick Invitational and one of the few who had played 36 holes by Friday night, Couples decided the heck with it and headed for Palm Springs with his caddie, Joe LaCava. An hour out of Palm Springs, Couples got a call from one of the Buick’s official scorers, who said it might be a good idea to come back.

“So we turned around and spent five hours in a car because we wanted to get back out there and practice Saturday and watch football on Sunday,” Couples said. “It’s not like I went in an airplane across country, but I did turn around in the car.”

Couples, who wound up with a 68 on Sunday at Torrey Pines and tied for 37th, finally corrected a swing flaw caused by a back injury he received when he hit too many balls in practice Wednesday.

“I just said, you know, even if you’re going to die, you’ve got to start swinging the right way,” he said.

The way things are going in the desert, it looks as if there’s no wrong way.