Jerry Pate shares the lead at the Montreal Championship
Jerry Pate registered a four-under par 68 in the opening round of the Champions Tour’s Montreal Championship, at the Vallee du Richelieu Vercheres, in Sainte-Julie, to share the second spot on Friday, June 22, 2012.
Pate carded a total of seven birdies against three bogeys to settle two strokes behind the leader Russ Cochran.
Cochran also had the same number of birdies in his round. However, he managed to avoid as many bogeys as Pate had.
Overall, Pate looked satisfied with his performance, particularly considering the fact that it was the only fourth start of his campaign on the 2012 Champions Tour.
"I only play about six or eight times so I don't play enough to keep my short game sharp, and that's by design," said Pate, who only has two victories to his name on the Champions Tour, his last in 2008.
"I choose not to play as much as I used to, but I love the game," said the winner of US Open and Canadian Open in 1976.
"I love to come out here. I especially love to experience coming to Canada. I've always loved Canada. I won the Canadian Open in my rookie year in Windsor and I love the golf courses".
He now plans to work a little hard on his short game that can help him earn some extra birdies along with avoiding bogey putts.
In the meantime, Michael Allen, Rod Spittle and Larry Mize also joined him on the leaderboard after carding a similar score.
Mark Calcavecchia was further a stroke back at three-under par 69 to tie for the sixth place, along with the Hall of Famer Hale Irwin.
Spittle, who recorded the tournament record of 10-under par 62 in the final round of the last year’s edition, amusingly said that he was finding last year’s scorecard and trying to see if the tournament officials might count this year too.
The Canadian Claude Tremblay recorded the first ever hole-in-one in the history of the event, when he airmailed the ball on the 224-yard 13th and found the cup in the end.
Yet, he looked disappointed with his overall score of a five-over par 77 and tied for the 75th place on the leaderboard.
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