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SILVIS (Illinois), Sept 12: Jonathan Byrd and 1999 champion J.L. Lewis shot six-under-par rounds of 65 to take the first-round lead at the $3.5 million John Deere Classic on Thursday.
Byrd and Lewis are a shot ahead of Chris Riley and Fiji’s Vijay Singh.
Riley briefly shared the lead at six-under late in day, but bogeyed the 18th hole to drop back. Singh, who has two wins and 13 top-10 finishes this season, finished eagle-birdie to move into contention.
Eight players are at four-under 67 while Davis Love III, the in-form world number three and one of six contenders for the 2003 PGA Tour player of the year award, shot an opening round of 70 to be one-under.
Lewis, who won the John Deere Classic the year before it moved to the current TPC at Deere Run, began his bogey-free round at the 10th hole.
First round scores
65 Jonathan Byrd, J.L. Lewis
66 Chris Riley, Vijay Singh (Fiji)
67 Tom Scherrer, Garrett Willis, Chris Smith, Notah Begay III, Billy Mayfair, Skip Kendall, Bob Burns, Dennis Paulson
68 Joey Sindelar, Mark Wilson, Tommy Armour III, Aaron Barber, Jeff Maggert, Esteban Toledo (Mexico)
69 Mike Heinen, Craig Barlow, Harrison Frazar, Justin Leonard, Kevin Sutherland, D.A. Weibring, Brendan Pappas (South Africa), Robert Gamez, Paul Azinger, Pat Perez, Steven Alker (New Zealand), Kenichi Kuboya (Japan), Andy Miller, Chris Anderson
INZAI (Japan): A tired-looking Phil Mickelson narrowly made the cut at the Suntory Open after finishing his second round with a triple-bogey for a four-over-par 75.
Leading second round scores
133 Hiroyuki Fujita 67 66
134 Masayuki Kawamura 65 69
136 Paul Sheehan (Australia) 69 67, Jyoti Randhawa (India) 68 68
137 Tatsuo Takasaki 70 67
138 Naomichi Ozaki 71 67
139 Tadahisa Inoue 70 69, Tsuyoshi Yoneyama 72 67, Hideki Kase 71 68
140 Frankie Minoza (Philippines) 70 70, Masashi Ozaki 69 71, Katsumasa Miyamoto 70 70, Masashi Igarashi 71 69
Also 146 Phil Mickelson (U.S.) 71 75—Reuters
