Kissimmee, Fla. – Georgia’s Seth Reeves fired a 6-under par 66 on Tuesday at Reunion Resort and Spa’s Jack Nicklaus Signature Course to take the round one lead at Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada qualifying school.
The 25-year old, a former NCAA All-American at Georgia Tech, carded eight birdies against just two bogeys to lead by three over Ted Smith, Bobby Wyatt and Sam Love through two rounds.
“Q-School is a marathon as guys say, so to get off to a good start and know I can shoot this number out here helps a lot,” said Reeves. “Even if things get a little rocky, I’ll have that in my head now and I know that I can make birdies out here. My goal is to just be pretty chill and see what happens.”
The long-hitting lefthander made birdie on three of the four par-5s at Reunion and took advantage of his length off the tee by giving himself birdie opportunities where other players scrambled for pars.
“I just was pretty relaxed starting out today. I drove the ball well and I hit it fairly long, so to be able to get some drivers in my hand and let ‘em loose and drive it well gave me the opportunity to have some shorter irons into holes, and I took advantage,” said Reeves.
Ottawa’s Andrew Jensen opened with a 1-over 73 and was tied for low Canadian at T24 with Toronto’s Sebastian Szirmak.
“It’s massively important to play the way I did, knowing that bogeys aren’t terrible and attitude is everything,” said Jensen, a Bell Let’s Talk Ambassador. “You really need to make keeping double bogeys off the card a priority, and when you do make birdies it’s a big help. There aren’t a lot of gimme birdies out there. Even starting bogey-bogey today, I didn’t panic out there and knew that you need to be a tactician a bit around the golf course.”