{"id":922612,"date":"2026-10-10T03:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922612\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T03:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:58:13","slug":"aussie-veterans-sizzling-champions-tour-opening-round-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922612\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie veteran&#8217;s sizzling Champions Tour opening round \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian veteran Rod Pampling has turned back the clock with a blistering start to the  Champions tour tournament in Palm Coast, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>The 57-year-old Queenslander fired an eight-under 64 opening round on the Ocean Course at Hammock Beach on Saturday AEDT to be just one shot behind leader Ryan Armour in the Constellation Furyk &amp; Friends.<\/p>\n<p>Seeking a third win on the 50-and over tour and first since 2023, Pampling headed a bunch of four Australians within three shots of the lead.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791604693_27_.jpeg\" alt=\"dd\"\/>Australia\u2019s Michael Wright is two shots off the lead. (<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.aap.com.au\/search\/20220114001613247438\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jono Searle\/AAP PHOTOS<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Having started on \u200cthe back nine and holed an eagle putt at the par-5 14th, Pampling was nine under par through 15 holes before going bogey-par-par to finish up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously the tees are up a little bit, but hit driver, 4-iron,\u201d Pampling said of his eagle. \u201cThat was one of the big putts. That was like a maybe 25-, 30-footer. Yeah, first one for the year as well, so there is a lot of \u200bfirsts this week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tour \u201crookie\u201d Armour rattled off 10 birdies in his 63 to lead from Pampling and fellow American Paul Goydos (64). He joined the tour soon after turning 50 in February.<\/p>\n<p>He had a \u2060slow start to his season, but in his past five starts he \u200bhas three top-five finishes and hasn\u2019t placed lower than T14.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThese guys are still good. They\u2019re so great at this game. You\u2019ve got to be on your game to compete.\u201d  Freshly 50 @RyanPalmerPGA knows how good the competition is on PGA Tour Champions and what he needs to do to compete. https:\/\/t.co\/nlpPf3Nclk<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PGA Tour Champions (@ChampionsTour) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChampionsTour\/status\/2108324059800854630?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">October 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>(It) \u200ctook a while for me to get used to it again. As soon as I had more reps under me, you know, it felt normal,\u201d Armour said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just didn\u2019t play enough my 49th year, and then when I turned 50 I was still kind of in dad mode, and now I\u2019m in play and grind (mode) and I\u2019m enjoying the processes again \u200cof trying to get \u200cbetter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michael Wright was one of three players tied fourth after posting a 65, with fellow Aussies Greg Chalmers and Mat Goggin a shot further back. <\/p>\n<p>with Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian veteran Rod Pampling has turned back the clock with a blistering start to the Champions tour tournament&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,405163,85,2614],"class_list":["post-922612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-overseas-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}