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Portugal's Gouveia grabs early PGA Barbasol lead / Photo: Rob Carr - GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
Portugal's Gouveia grabs early PGA Barbasol lead
Portugal's Ricardo Gouveia, playing only his second US PGA Tour event, fired an eight-under par 64 to seize the early lead in Thursday's opening round of the Barbasol Championship.
The 30-year-old, who missed the cut at Bay Hill in his only prior US PGA start, fired nine birdies against a lone bogey to grab a one-stroke lead at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
"It was a great round," Gouveia said. "Really solid off the tee, hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens, holed some good putts."
Sharing second after opening 65s were Germany's Matt Schmid, Colombian Camilo Villegas, England's David Skinns and Americans Trey Mullinax, Michael Kim and Max McGreevy.
The event is co-sanctioned by the US PGA and DP World tours for the first time as is this week's Scottish Open, where most of the world's top players are competing ahead of next week's British Open at St. Andrews.
Gouveia reeled off three birdies in a row starting at the fifth hole, closed the front nine with a 32-foot birdie putt at the par-3 ninth for back-to-back birdies and holed back-to-back four-foot birdie putts at the par-5 11th and 12th.
After a 10-foot birdie putt at the par-3 16th, Gouveia missed a five-foot par putt to bogey 17 but finished with a 14-foot birdie putt at the 18th.
I.Pfeiffer--BlnAP
