Veterans lead the way in Panama Claro opener

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Former Nationwide Tour Player of the Year Ken Duke fired a 65 on Thursday.

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- Former tournament winners Miguel Carballo and Scott Dunlap posted 5-under 65s in the opening round of the Panama Claro Championship and grabbed a share of the lead in the Nationwide Tour's third event on the 2010 schedule.

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Carballo and Dunlap, winners in 2007 and 2008, respectively, are joined at the top of a crowded leaderboard by 2006 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year Ken Duke, David Branshaw, rookie Scott Brown and Sweden's Peter Gustafsson, the 2009 Tour de las Americas Order of Merit winner.

A total of 10 players are knotted one stroke back at 66 in nearly-completed round. Darkness forced the suspension of play at 6:28 p.m.with five players left to complete their day. Those players will return to the Panama Golf Club course in the morning and resume play at 8 a.m. The second round, scheduled to begin at 7:10 a.m., will start on time.

"I've always known what to do around here," said Dunlap after his bogey-free day. "On some courses you feel lost, you don't know what lines to take, you don't feel comfortable on the greens. Here, if I play badly, it's not because I'm confused, it's because I just don't play the shots."

Dunlap had all the shots he needed in Thursday's opener and was never in danger of dropping a stroke to par.

"It is as soft as I've ever seen it and we had no wind today so it's as scoreable as it will get," he added. "Still, I played with two guys who shot over-par, so just because it's as easy as it's ever been doesn't mean it's easy."

Duke collected more than $4.5 million in 93 PGA TOUR starts since he graduated to the PGA TOUR but is looking to regain the magic that propelled him to new heights in 2007-09.

"I went down and met with my coach, Bob Toski, and had a good session there," said Duke, who tied for 51stat the Moonah Classic in Australia after missing the cut at the Michael Hill New Zealand Open to start the year. "I told my caddie this week that I thought we might have something good going on."

The 41-year old relied on a steady diet of short irons to get him within birdie range and rolled in four from longer than 12 feet to put some red numbers on the board.

"It's a shotmaker's course," said Duke of the 7,150-yard layout. "There are some long holes out here but you have to feel your way around. You can't be too mechanical because you have a lot of half-shots and a lot of jumpers. It's not just hit it here, hit it there and hit it on the green. You're going to get some good bounces and you're going to get some bad bounces. You take what you get."

Late in the afternoon players got a rare drenching rain storm, the first in the tournament's seven-year history. The storm took many by surprise since there hadn't been any measurable rain in the area since December 29th. A little more than a tenth of an inch of rain fell and play was not stopped, but it was enough to send players and tournament officials scrambling for umbrellas as they played the last couple of hours under darkening skies.

Round 1 notes:
• Leading money winner Robert Gates posted a 4-over 74 Thursday morning. Gates won the season-opening Michael Hill New Zealand Open.

• Moonah Classic champion Jim Herman carded an even-par round of 70.

• The Nationwide Tour record for most players tied for the 18-hole lead is eight, including last year's tournament when the octet shared the lead at 3-under 67.

• Shaun Micheel posted a 1-under 69 in his first Nationwide Tour start the Tour Championship to close out the 1999 season. Micheel finished No. 9 on the money list that year and graduated to the PGA TOUR, where he has made 270 starts and more than $7.5 million since. Micheel earned his only career title when he captured the 2003 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. In his only PGA TOUR start this year, he posted four sub-par scores at last week's Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico and tied for 17th.