New Zealand golfer Phil Tataurangi has surged to the top of the leaderboard after the first round of the Nationwide Tour's Fort Smith Classic in Arkansas.
Tataurangi, whose form has been poor lately, missing a series of cuts, posted a sensational 8-under-par 62 in grabbing the first-round lead at Hardscrabble Country Club.
His best-ever opening day was highlighted by a 7-under par 28 on the front nine that included a hole-in-one at the 135-metre 8th hole.
"As good as it's been in a long, long time," he said afterwards. "Like about seven years or something."
Tataurangi missed only two greens in regulation on a day when the American midsummer heat blasted down on the golfers.
"When it's your day it doesn't matter what golf course or where you're playing," he told pgatour.com after seven birdies and an eagle. "When it's your day you just want to get out of the way and make as many as you can and add them up at the end."
The New Zealander's round was the lowest opening round in the tournament's 12-year history.
"I guess if people were just looking at the scores they'd say it came out of the blue," said Tataurangi, who owns a scoring average of 73.13 which puts him No. 130 on Tour this year. "There's a lot of different ways to make lots of different scores."
Tataurangi admitted that his 2009 record has been far from consistent.
"I've had a stretch of playing poorly and I've just been chipping away at it and chipping away at it and the last three of four weeks I feel like I've been getting a bit closer," he told pgatour.com.
"Last Friday I shot 6-under in Knoxville but it didn't end up being good enough to play the weekend but it was something to build on. Starting out today I felt like I had a little bit of momentum going from last week. Even though it wasn't Sunday momentum but it was nice to carry it over."
Fellow New Zealanders Bradley Iles and Grant Waite shot 2-over-par 72s.
Golf: Tataurangi races to lead in Arkansas
Phil Tataurangi. Photo / Getty Images
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