Bird is the word on first day of Rosauers Open

Deuces weren’t necessarily wild at Indian Canyon Golf Course on Friday, but they were abundant.

Especially on the scorecard of Kyle Kelly, who birdied all four of the par-3s on the perfectly manicured 6,255-yard Canyon layout to shoot an 8-under-par 63 and earn a share of the first-round lead in the 17th annual Rosauers Open Invitational golf tournament.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Kelly, an assistant pro at Spokane Country Club, who used his remarkable play on the par-3s to match the opening-round 63 turned in by Scott Johnson, the head professional at Horn Rapids Golf Course in Richland. “Four twos on your card at the end of the day looks pretty good.”

Kelly made short birdie putts on three of the Canyon’s four short holes and chipped in for his deuce on the difficult 224-yard eighth, which plays downhill to a deep, but narrow, green. But he also birdied all three par-5s, along with the difficult par-4 16th, to offset a bogey on the 403-yard uphill fifth.

“Anytime you make that many birdies, you’re going to have some fun out there,” added Kelly, a former standout at Eastern Washington University. “I’ve been playing pretty well for the last couple of months, but just haven’t been able to put it all together.

“Finally I did, and I picked a great time to do it.”

The three-day, 54-hole Rosauers tournament is the richest PGA sectional event in the country and features a total purse of $120,000. The winner’s check is worth $11,000 and Kelly has put himself in excellent position to claim it.

But he expects to be pressed hard over the last 36 holes by Johnson, a former standout and teammate of Phil Mickelson’s at Arizona State, and Michael Combs and Jeff Coston, a couple of past Rosauers champions. Combs and Coston – along with Scott Krieger, the head pro at Broadmoor Golf Course in Portland – are tied for third at 64.

Matt Bunn, the head pro at The Highlands Golf & Country Club, is three strokes off the lead at 66 and tied for fifth with West Side amateurs Logan Toskey and Luke Bennett, who torched the front nine with a 5-under-par 30 on his first trip around the hilly, tree-lined Canyon course.

Local amateurs Peter Sisich, from The Fairways Golf Course, and Alex Prugh, from Manito Golf & Country Club, were part of a six-player logjam another stroke back at 67.

Johnson, like Bennett, shot 30 on the front nine after opening with three consecutive birdies. And he backed it up by making four more birdies on the back for a solid 33.

Combs, the defending champion, who also won the event in 1996, never posted a score higher than 4 in putting together his 64.

“I don’t know, I had a lot of putts go in the side door today,” said Combs, a 37-year-old teaching pro at Canyon Lakes Golf Course in Kennewick, who finished second in both the Giusti Memorial and Oregon Open earlier this year. “It seemed like every putt that hit the hole just kind of flopped in.

“The Canyon is always nice to me, it seems.”

But it was Bennett, a 20-year-old amateur from Bremerton, who seemed to have the most fun – especially on the front nine where he recorded seven 3s to go along with a par on the 329-yard third hole and a bogey-5 on No. 5.

“It was a blast,” said Bennett, a junior-to-be at Western Washington University, who is playing out of Homestead Farms Golf Club in Lynden, Wash. “It’s hard to say exactly what I was feeling. I’d never seen the golf course before.”

Which might explain the bogey he made at No. 5, when he spun his approach shot off the front of the severely sloped green, with the flagstick tucked in the back right of the putting surface.

“It’s amazing, the elevation changes and everything,” said Bennett, who started his round birdie-eagle. “Fortunately, I was playing with two great guys, and one of them (MeadowWood’s Chris Curran) got off to the exact same start as me and we were, like, feeding off each other.

“It was unbelievable. We were commenting that, maybe, we hadn’t hit enough shots on the first couple of holes to get loose. That start was really something else.”

But Bennett cooled on off the back, where he shot an even-par 36, and had to settle for a share of sixth place with Bunn and Toskey, who is playing out of Bellevue Country Club.

Bunn highlighted his front-nine 31 with a hole-in-on on No. 8, and somehow managed to keep his wits about him long enough to tour the back nine in a respectable 1-under 35.

“I missed the green on No. 8 both days in the pro-am,” Bunn explained of his ace, “so today I just tried to hit it at the hole. It hit a little short and a little right of the pin, took and nice little hop right and kerplunk!”

“If was funny, because nobody in our group said much of anything. We just kind of went about our business. Of course, I guess that is what you’re supposed to do. That was the final destination I had in mind.”

Coston, who won the Rosauers in 1997 and finished second in 1996, 1999, 2000 and 2002, put together a no-bogey round that included seven birdies.

“I hit it good, I putted good, I felt good, I even smelled good,” said the 47-year-old teaching pro from Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club in Blaine, who went on to playfully plug his Paul Sebastian cologne. “I love this course, I love the heat, I love everything about the tournament. It’s the best tournament of the year.”

But the opening round did have its downsides – like host professional Gary Lindeblad’s decision to withdraw following the death of his father-in-law on Thursday night, and the wrist injury sustained by The Club at Black Rock head professional Birch Criswell, who withdrew midway through the back nine.

The tournament field will be cut to the low 65 professionals and ties, along with all amateurs within that range, after today’s second round.