May 24, 2018 3 min read

Nevada club professional Stuart Smith admitted sleeping on the lead of the biggest tournament available to him might be a problem.

“I can’t say, ‘Oh, it won’t bother me.’ But to me, it’s fun,” Smith said after shooting a 5-under 66 on Thursday for a share of the first-round lead in the Senior PGA Championship.

Smith closed his morning round with a double bogey on the par-4 18th, and Scott McCarron, Tim Petrovic, Wes Short Jr., Barry Lane and Peter Lonard matched the 66 in the afternoon.

One of 41 club pros in the field at Harbor Shores for the senior major, Smith is the director of golf at Somersett Country Club in Reno.

“To see my name on the board out there, it’s not like I’m blind to the leaderboard, that was cool,” said Smith, who is playing in his fourth Senior PGA and third at Harbor Shores – where he has made the 36-hole cut the previous two times.

“All my members are taking pictures and I know at home my members are pulling up that screen and like I tell them, going to the middle and looking down. So it probably took them a while to find my name today.”

Petrovic, who was among the leaders in the Regions Tradition last week before a poor final round, said it was a little bit of a surprise when he heard Smith was at 7 under through 17 holes.

“There was a little bit of buzz, we were talking about it,” he said. “I heard somebody say 7 under and I said ‘who is it? And we looked up, but we didn’t know who the player was. In a tournament like this, you know how it is, there’s always one guy, one smart-alec that shoots 7, 8 under in the first round.”

Smith, who birdied five consecutive holes starting at the seventh, played college golf at UCLA and knocked around the mini tours and South Africa for several years without ever gaining his tour card. He was college teammates with some of the players in the field, including Corey Pavin, Duffy Waldorf and Steve Pate, but said he no longer seeks the tour life.

“It’s just not me anymore,” he said. “So that’s why maybe I do have an advantage this week because it’s just fun to me. It’s like my wife said – just enjoy the ride.”

Petrovic had seven birdies in his round while McCarron and Lonard played bogey-free rounds. Short holed out from the fairway for eagle on the par 4 12th and made eagle on the par 5 ninth hole, his last hole of the day.

Na leads at Colonial: Kevin Na chipped in from the rough more than 90 feet away for a closing birdie for another first-round lead at Colonial. The incredible birdie ended a round of 8-under 62 for a one-stroke lead over Charley Hoffman at the Fort Worth Invitational.

This is the sixth time Na has the 18-hole lead on the PGA Tour, and the third at Colonial. His only victory came seven years ago in Las Vegas. Na started his round Thursday with six consecutive pars before going 6 under in a five-hole stretch.

Four atop LPGA event: Moriya Jutanugarn, Caroline Masson, Danielle Kang and Amy Olson shot 6-under 66 to share the first-round lead in the LPGA Tour’s Volvik Championship.

Jessica Korda, Minjee Lee, Nasa Hataoka, Lindy Duncan, Morgan Pressel, Megan Khang and Jodi Ewart Shadoff were a stroke back at 67 at Travis Pointe.