On his senior Major debut, Richard Bland took full advantage of his special invite by shooting a first-round 64 to tie the lead after day one of the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.
The Englishman carded five birdies and an eagle in his seven-under round to share the first-round lead with Australian Richard Green at Harbor Shores in Michigan.
Bland is benefiting from a mid-season break in the LIV Golf schedule to tee it up at the Senior PGA Championship.
He's able to compete at the tournament thanks to a one-time exemption granted to players who have turned 50 and who have won a DP World Tour event in the last five years. Bland won the 2021 British Masters.
And 51-year-old Bland is really taking advantage after making an explosive start in his PGA Tour Champions debut.
In a high-quality leaderboard, former Masters champion Mike Weir, former PGA Championship winner KJ Choi and multiple seniors tour winner Steve Stricker are in a tie for third two shots behind.
“It's nice to start the senior career with 7-under," said Bland. "Very happy with the way I played. I drove the ball really well, which is a strength of mine, which you need around here."
Bland says he received an invite to play in last year's event, but was unable to take part due to it clashing with a LIV event, so is happy to be allowed to take that up this year.
"I got invited last year. Completely out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it," said Bland. "I got an e-mail from Bob Jeffrey. Unfortunately I couldn't play it. Clashed with a LIV event.
"And then when I looked at the schedule this year, I saw that it was a free week, so I kind of reached out and said, look, I appreciated the gesture for the invite. If it could be run to this year I would love to come play."
Bland is currently 24th on the money list with $1.9 million in earnings, which is $700,000 more than PGA Tour Champions leader Steven Alker.
Challenging Bland is Green, who hit every fairway and 17 of 18 greens as he shot his lowest score of the season.
"It was an exceptionally good day. You know, it's a very challenging golf course, and one that can really bite you at times," said Green.
"So the start of the day it was to go out there and treat it with as much respect as possible and play good golf shots, and I was doing that, which was nice. Got off to a great start."
Former Open champions Darren Clarke and Stewart Cink are just a shot further back on five under, alongside former World No.1 Vijay Singh.
