Weibring & Ahern share opening honours

D.A. Weibring shook off flu-like symptoms and fatigue down the stretch to birdie his final three holes in a 7-under 65 that gave him a share of the first-round lead at the SAS Championship on Friday.

Weibring, playing in his 10th Champions Tour event since turning 50 in May, also had a tremendous close to his opening nine, reeling off four consecutive birdies.

"I would like to be reasonably aggressive and see if I can put some low scores together," Weibring said. "But I am going to just deal with how I feel. Can I win this week? Yes."

Weibring, who needed just 25 putts with a new club, was tied with Jim Ahern, who won the Music City Championship at Gaylord Opryland in early June.

Ahern made the turn at 3 under, but put together a solid final nine holes for his 65 -- his best score since a 63 in the second round of the tournament he won.

"I would like to keep this pace going," Ahern said.

José Maria Cañizares was one shot back at 66.

The start of the opening round of the 54-hole tournament was delayed two hours while crews cleaned up debris left behind by Hurricane Isabel. But Friday's weather was nearly perfect with temperatures in the mid-80s.

"If somebody would have just flown in today and not heard the weather report and you told them a hurricane just came through here it would have been hard to believe," Ahern said.

About 75 workers headed out at 5:30 a.m., with lights on equipment, to begin working on the Prestonwood Country Club course.

While there was some minor flooding, a half-dozen tall pine trees fell into play and had to be removed, and another toppled onto the practice green.

"After seeing the weather that we saw (Thursday) it's pretty amazing that we played golf today," Bobby Wadkins said. "It's really, really wet out there. Your ball was just burying in the fairway."

"Is this the same country?" Hale Irwin joked as he looked up into the crystal clear sky.

Bruce Fleisher, who has won four Champions Tour events in the state since 1999, shot a 67 and was tied with Wadkins for fourth, two shots behind the leaders.

Eamonn Darcy had five straight birdies and an eagle in a seven-hole span on his opening nine to get to 6 under. However, the tour rookie from Ireland bogeyed three of his next five holes and was in a group at 4 under.

Two-time defending champion Bruce Lietzke was at 1-under 71.

Weibring's only bogey came on his 15th hole after hitting his approach into the sand.

He was starting to wither because of the flu, but regrouped after eating a banana and closed with three birdies.

"You know the beauty of it is when you're playing golf the way we hope to try to play, you are really focused on one shot at a time and one hole at a time," Weibring said.

"I had to work a little bit harder mentally on my back side because I wasn't feeling as well, but I was just trying to get three good birdie chances. I wasn't trying to get ahead of myself. Maybe if I felt better I would have been more aggressive and got in trouble."

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