SAN ANTONIO (AP) Kenny Perry birdied five of the first six holes and finished with a 7-under 65 to take the first-round lead Friday in the Champions Tour's AT&T Championship.
The Charles Schwab Cup leader birdied the first three holes, dropped a stroke on the par-3 fourth, then birdied the next two holes. He added birdies on Nos. 12, 14 and 15.
Perry has played the past few weeks with a higher lofted putter, but he has switched back to a less-lofted model he used when he won the Senior Players Championship and U.S. Senior Open in consecutive tour starts this summer. He had only 12 putts in a front-nine 32.
"I went back to the putter I used to win two senior majors with and immediately started holing putts," Perry said. "Seems like the last two weeks I've been having a root canal trying to make birdie. It was so much easier today. I putted beautifully."
The top 30 on the money list Sunday will advance to the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship next week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. Perry entered the regular-season finale 494 points ahead of second-place Bernhard Langer in the race for a $1 million annuity.