Almost a year to the day from his duties as the United States Ryder Cup captain in Wales, Corey Pavin shot 7-under-par 65 at Prestonwood Country Club, good enough for the first-round lead at the 2011 SAS Championship. Pavin started fast with four birdies on his first five holes and went out blazing in 6-under 29. Pavin enjoys a one-stroke lead over defending champion Russ Cochran, World Golf Hall of Fame member Nick Price, Gary Hallberg, a four-time All-America selection at Wake Forest, and Kenny Perry who, like Pavin, is still searching for his first career victory on the Champions Tour.
• Pavin's 6-under 29 on the front nine at Prestonwood matched John Cook's 9-hole record on that side. Cook shot 6-under 29 on the front nine in Round 2 of the 2010 event. Pavin's 29 was one stroke off the low 9-hole score for the year on the Champions Tour.
• Chip Beck had a pair of eagles within a six-hole stretch, making 3s on both the par-5 12th hole and the par-5 17th hole on his opening nine holes. Beck became the 17th different player with two eagles in a round on the Champions Tour this year.
• Friday marks the second time in Pavin's Champions Tour career that he's led after the opening round. Last year near the end of the season at the Administaff Small Business Classic, Pavin led after Round 1 and went on to finish T5 at The Woodlands in Houston. The last time Pavin won an event as a first-round leader was at the 2006 U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee, the last of his 15 career victories on the PGA TOUR.
• Thus far in 2011, seven first-round leaders/co-leaders have won the 20 Champions Tour events that have been played. The last time a first-round leader/co-leader went on to win was Jay Haas at the 3M Championship in early August. First-round leaders/co-leaders have won the SAS Championship five times in the previous 10 years at Prestonwood, including three of the last four years.
• Defending champion Russ Cochran shot 6-under 66 and trails by one stroke after the first round. Cochran now is a cumulative 20-under-par for his seven career rounds at Prestonwood. Cochran was T5 in 2009 before winning last year.
• World Golf Hall of Fame member Tom Kite, playing his 39th year as a professional, made his 1,000th combined career start (PGA TOUR/Champions Tour) Friday. Kite became just the 12th player in history with at least 1,000 TOUR starts in a career and he's the first player since Hale Irwin (2010 Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am) to hit the 1,000 mark. Two years ago, Leonard Thompson played his 1,000th event at the SAS Championship. Kite shot even-par 72 today.
• J.L Lewis and Peter Senior had the only bogey-free rounds...There were 16 eagles made today vs. 12 eagles on Friday last year...Corey Pavin, Nick Price and Kenny Perry all made eight birdies in their opening rounds.
• This and That: Tom Jenkins and Steve Jones hit all 15 fairways off the tee today ... Bobby Clampett had the longest measured drive, 312 yards at the par-5 12th hole ... Cochran and Fred Couples hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation, the most in the field ... Pavin and Jeff Sluman had just 24 putts today.
• Jay Don Blake, the latest winner on the Champions Tour at the Songdo IBD Championship in South Korea, shot 4-under 68 Friday, his fourth straight round in the 60s. Blake is trying to duplicate Russ Cochran's feat from last year by winning in Asia and then winning the next official event played at the SAS Championship.
• There were 39 sub-par scores Friday compared to 33 sub-par scores on Friday last year. Here are the first-round scoring averages for each year of the SAS Championship.
