Seniors savor a round of 'Tiger golf'

Fan favorite Tom Lehman shot a 7-under 65 in Round 1 of the 3M Championship on Friday. He gave the crowd a thumbs-up as he finished, but his strong play wasn't even enough to put him into Saturday's final group.

Instead, that group will include Jay Haas, John Huston and Peter Senior. Haas and Huston shot matching 64s, and Senior was the first of four players -- joining Gary Hallberg, Rod Spittle and Lehman -- to card a 65 at TPC Twin Cities on a Friday that was ideal for aiming at the flagstick and getting the ball to sit.

"It's like Tiger golf out there," Senior said. "The greens are soft and the guys just dial in their numbers and can get it in there pretty close."

Haas had the most eventful day of the bunch. After three pars to open his round, he plunked a 5-iron on the green 183 yards from the No. 4 tee box and watched it bounce a foot into the cup for the ninth hole in one in tournament history.

"I probably hit my best shot ever that went into the hole," Haas, a 14-time winner on the Champions Tour, said of his first ace on the 50-and-over circuit. "It was a pretty shot right from the start. Good shots -- great shots, even -- don't necessarily always go in the hole. But this one was pure, and it looked good the whole way."

Haas then birdied three holes in a row to finish the front nine at 5-under 31. He got it to 6 under with a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 11 before taking back-to-back bogeys.

Unfazed, Haas birdied his final four holes. He nearly capped it all off with an eagle but yanked the putt from 10 feet.

A year after David Frost won the 3M with a record 25-under total, that mark is considered untouchable by most. But 20 under is being tossed around as the likely winning mark when the 54-hole event finishes Sunday.

"There's a lot of birdie holes out there," said Lehman, a consultant on the design of the course in the late 1990s. "The fairways are wide, and so when it's soft it makes it effectively even wider. You pick out the center of the fairway and swing."

There were 38 rounds in the 60s on Friday. Of the 80 players in the field, 53 finished under par. Friday's average score was 70.087, more than a half-stroke lower than last year's opening-round number.

Brad Faxon shot a respectable 4 under in his Champions Tour debut, yet he is tied with nine others in 18th place.

About the only thing that stood in the way of even lower scores was cushy fairways that led to a handful of players -- especially with earlier tee times -- dealing with caked mud on their golf balls.

Few had any problems whatsoever.