Des Moines, IA – Seven-time Champions Tour winner Tom Lehman was one of four players to card a 3-under 69 on Friday and grab a share of the lead at the Principal Charity Classic.
Lehman is joined by Duffy Waldorf, Dan Forsman and Scott Hoch atop the leaderboard at the Wakonda Club.
"You get out here on this course and you go, 'Anything under par looks good'," said Waldorf. "If you had given me 69 before the round I would have said 'Oh yeah.'"
Insperity Championship winner Esteban Toledo highlights a group of eight players tied for fifth place at 2-under that also includes Bobby Clampett, Loren Roberts, Hale Irwin, Mark Calcavecchia, Corey Pavin, Jeff Sluman and Doug Garwood.
Defending champion Jay Haas is among a large cluster of players tied for 12th at 1-under.
Lehman opened his round with a birdie at the first to quickly get into red numbers, but followed five straight pars with a bogey at the seventh to fall back to even.
After four more pars, he poured in back-to-back birdies at the 12th and 13th before trading a bogey at the 14th with another birdie at the 15th.
He closed with a birdie at the last to move to 3-under.
Waldorf countered a bogey at the sixth with a birdie at the eighth to hit the turn at even par.
A streak of three straight birdies from the 11th was halted with a bogey at the 14th, but he quickly recovered with a birdie at the 15th to regain a share of the lead.
He parred his final three holes to stay there.
Forsman dropped a shot at the second before moving to 1-under with back-to- back birdies at the seventh and eighth.
He then birdied the 12th, 13th and 15th around a bogey at the 14th to move to minus-3.
That streak included a chip in from about 70 feet at the 13th after he followed an errant drive by hitting his second shot into a tree.
"It's a huge bonus," Forsman said about the birdie. "And yet, when it goes in, I said to my caddie, 'That's why we hit all those pitch shots this week.' It was tongue-in-cheek, but I was trying to plug that into the subconscious, so next time I'm in that position I'll have a similar outcome."
He also parred his final three holes.
Hoch was the last of the co-leaders to hit the course and traded a bogey at the third with a birdie at the fifth before picking up three more shots at Nos. 9, 11 and 13 to move into a share of first place.
A bogey at the 16th dropped him a shot off the pace, but he recovered with a birdie at the last to head into the second round atop the leaderboard.
NOTES: D.A. Weibring (2004), Tom Jenkins (2005) and Jay Haas (2007) are the only first round leaders or co-leaders to go on to win this event in the last 12 years ... Only one player in the field did not record a bogey on Friday ... The leader's 69 was the highest first-round score to ever lead the Principal Charity Classic. The previous highest score was 4-under 67 in 2009.
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