Atwal ties Wyndham scoring record with 61 to lead Snedeker by two shots

If Arjun Atwal keeps this up, he'll have a new PGA Tour card in no time. Atwal tied a tournament record with a 61 Thursday and took a two-stroke lead at the Wyndham Championship. Matching Carl Pettersson's 2-year-old mark at the par-70 Sedgefield Country Club course, Atwal was 9 under through the first round of the PGA Tour's final event before the playoffs. Brandt Snedeker shot a 63. John Rollins, Kevin Streelman, Lucas Glover, Boo Weekley, David Toms and Jeev Milkha Singh were at 64, and six players shot 65s during an occasionally wet day that left Sedgefield's greens soft and its leaderboard crowded. It was quite the encouraging start for Atwal, who lost his tour card last month and had to play his way into this event in a Monday qualifier across town at Forest Oaks Country Club -- where this tournament was held from 1977-2007. He played that course twice before, finishing sixth in 2004, and wound up shooting a 67 to share first place with three other qualifiers. No Monday qualifier has won a tournament since Fred Wadsworth did it at the 1986 Southern Open. "You get used to making a lot of birdies in the Monday qualifier -- otherwise you won't make it," Atwal said. "I kind of continued that today." The loss of his card capped a series of events that began when he injured his shoulders last year while lifting weights. He received a minor medical extension, but when he came up short on the money list following the RBC Canadian Open, his card was history. He isn't eligible for the FedExCup playoffs that begin next week in New Jersey, not even if he wins. But he can claim his card for 2011 with a victory -- either here or at a fall series tournament -- or a climb up the money lists of the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour. "I prefer to win," Atwal said with a laugh. Three more days like this, and he'll almost certainly take care of that. Atwal started his bogey-free round on the back nine, made the turn at 4 under and birdied three of his final four holes, sinking a 7-foot putt on No. 9 to cap things. His big day also included a rare birdie on the peskiest hole of the day -- the 18th. There were a course-low 10 birdies and a course-high 54 bogeys on the freshly lengthened, 507-yard par 4 that wound up knocking several players down a peg on the leaderboard. -- Jay Williamson, who birdied four of his first five holes to move to 6 under through 17, was on the 18th green in two shots but "just hit a terrible first putt" and ultimately three-putted for his second bogey of the round. He finished at 65. -- John Mallinger, who had vaulted up the leaderboard with three straight birdies midway through his back nine, birdied No. 17 to move to 6 under before finishing his 65 with a three-putt bogey. -- Toms had three straight birdies on Nos. 15-17 to go to 7 under. He recovered after sending his second shot into a greenside bunker, only to roll his par putt past the hole and bogey the hole. -- Snedeker, who was at 8 under through 17, sent his second shot onto the back fringe, chipped well past the pin and left his 35-foot par putt about 3 feet short to close with a bogey and fall off the lead. That put a slight damper on a brilliant back nine for Snedeker, the 2007 Greensboro winner who had six birdies in a seven-hole stretch, including five in a row on Nos. 13-17. "I realized that it's going to be a long tournament, a long week," Snedeker said. "A guy that shoots 9 under's not going to shoot 9 under for four straight rounds, so it's going to be kind of, wait until you get hot, and when you get hot, take advantage of it, and when you don't, try to minimize your mistakes." Day 1 was marked by threatening skies and early off-and-on showers -- a "nuisance rain," Williamson called it -- that softened up and slowed down the Donald Ross-designed greens. At times, they even might have been too slow for the players who left putts short. But at least the horn didn't sound, as it did repeatedly during a 2009 tournament memorable for its combined 9 hours of weather delays. The greens were "a little slower than we normally play on, but overall, it was pretty much attack mode out there," Rollins said. DIVOTS: Local favorite Brandan Gielow, who graduated from nearby Wake Forest, had a hole-in-one on the 164-yard, par-3 No. 6. ... Matt Bettencourt (wrist injury) withdrew midway through his round.