Blythewood, SC – Former amateur star Nick Taylor of British Columbia, Canada made his first start in over a year on the eGolf Tour today at the seventh annual Columbia Open presented by Groucho’s Deli. With nine birdies in his first 15 holes at host Columbia Country Club, Taylor posted an 8-under 64 to take the opening-round lead through 18 holes of the 72-hole event.

The Columbia Open presented by Groucho’s Deli is the eighth of 24 scheduled events on the 2012 eGolf Tour schedule, and is being contested this week at both Columbia Country Club and Cobblestone Park Golf Club in Blythewood, SC.

Taylor, making his first eGolf Tour start since competing in back-to-back events in Morocco in March of 2011, entered the week in suburban Columbia, SC on the heels of solid play on a mini-tour in Arizona. A match play win just one month ago spawned confidence in the Abbotsford, B.C. resident, and certainly carried over to Wednesday’s opening round.

Starting on the front nine of the Ellis Maples-designed Columbia Country Club course, Taylor wasted little time in posting red numbers with three birdies in his first three holes to quickly move to 3-under par.

“I actually blocked my tee shot right on No. 1 and had to hit a punch-out runner through the trees and onto the green,” said Taylor, 24. “I was able to get it to 15 feet and make the putt, then I hit it close on the next couple of holes and was really off and running.”

A two-putt birdie on the par-5 seventh led to another close tee shot on the par-3 eighth, which Taylor converted to move to 5-under for his day. A par at the uphill par-4 ninth gave the former University of Washington standout a 5-under 31 heading to Columbia’s closing nine.

Birdies on Nos. 10, 13, 14 and 15 took a red-hot Taylor to 9-under on the day, but a bogey at the difficult par-4 16th – his first of the round – dropped him back down to 8-under par.

“I hit a bad drive on 16 and couldn’t really recover from there,” Taylor said after his round. “Really the only thing that wasn’t perfect today was my driver, but I was able to get away with it a few times.”

Closing pars at 17 and 18 kept Taylor at 8-under and allowed him to post an early 64, which held throughout the duration of the day to give him the opening-round lead.

“This was my lowest stroke play round of the year, so it felt good to post a good one out there,” he said.

The par-3 eighth at Columbia CC

Taylor’s 64 comes as little surprise to those who have followed him from amateur golf through the collegiate ranks and beyond.

A prodigy originally hailing from Manitoba, Canada, Taylor enrolled at the University of Washington in 2006 and made a name for himself on the national scene, garnering “All America” honors in three of his four years as a Husky standout.

A win at the prestigious Canadian Amateur in 2007 gave way to a runner-up finish at the 2008 NCAA Championship, and Taylor’s star was on the shine.

At the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, Taylor rode a second-round 65 to a T36 finish, which allowed him to claim low-amateur honors for the week. Later that year, he was honored with the Mark H. McCormack Medal for being ranked as the top amateur golfer in the world.

In 2010, as a senior at Washington, he was honored with the Ben Hogan Award, given annually to the nation’s top college golfer. During his senior campaign, Taylor collected nine top-10 finishes and was named Co-PAC 10 Player of the Year.

Taylor played amateur golf thereafter until turning professional in the fall of 2010, where he failed to advance past the first stage of PGA TOUR Q-School.

“I was disappointed not to get through Q-School on my first try, and struggled with my game a bit after that,” Taylor said. “In 2011, I started to play a lot better and really got my game on track with where it should have been.”

After failing to advance past the first stage of TOUR Q-School again in 2011, Taylor made it to the second stage of European Tour Q-School before narrowly missing out on advancing to finals.

“I didn’t feel like I was playing great at the time, but I knew I was close,” he said. “I’ve played well this year out west and feel like I can keep it going this week.”

Taylor’s 64 set an early trend on day one amidst temperatures that hovered in the low-90s in central South Carolina. A staggering 74 players managed to break par on Wednesday between the two courses, with each of them eyeing Taylor’s spot atop the opening round leaderboard.

In a tie for second place, one shot behind Taylor, is Sweden's Henrik Norlander and Michael Maness of Greenville, SC. Both players opened their weeks with matching rounds of 7-under 64 at Cobblestone Park.

Henrik Norlander

Norlander, a rookie on the eGolf Tour, posted eight birdies against a lone bogey at the par-5 ninth at Cobblestone Park en route to his 7-under 64 effort. The round marked a career-low for the 25-year-old Norlander on the eGolf Tour.

Norlander entered the week in Columbia with four made cuts in his last five starts on tour, but with a T20 at the Pine Needles Classic in March serving as his best finish on the year. Norlander was a member of the NCAA Champion Augusta State University golf team in 2010 and 2011, where he was also a three-time "All America" selection and one of the Jaguars' key contributors.

Maness, who is playing the eGolf Tour this year full time after taking a lengthy hiatus from competitive golf to caddie on the PGA TOUR, posted his best round of the year on Wednesday with six birdies in his first eight holes en route to a 7-under 64.

Maness' hot start nearly was derailed at the par-5 18th (his ninth) when he blocked his approach shot into a greenside pond. The former USC Gamecock golfer converted a 20-foot par putt after dropping from the hazard on his way to an outward nine of 6-under 30.

On the course's back nine, his front, Maness moved to 8-under with an eagle at the par-5 fifth, but gave back all of what he earned minutes later with a follow-up double-bogey at the par-4 sixth. From there, he managed to finish par-birdie-par to close out his 7-under effort. The round marked a career-low for Maness, who last played the eGolf Tour in 2009 before venturing into the caddie profession.

Chris Thompson

As a PGA TOUR caddie, Maness worked his way onto the bag of star player Bill Haas - also a resident of Greenville, SC. Maness spent a few years on Haas' bag, before the two parted ways just prior to Haas claiming the 2011 FedExCup title. After placing his own bag back on his shoulder, Maness has played the eGolf Tour full time in 2012 with two made cuts in seven starts and a 47th-place finish at the Championship at St. James Plantation serving as his best finish.

Six players are tied for fourth at 6-under par through 18 holes, with Michael Sims (Bermuda), Cam Burke (Ontario, Canada) and Mikel Martinson (Lubbock, TX) posting 66s at the par-72 Columbia Country Club, and Matt Hill (Ontario, Canada), Chris Thompson (Lawrence, KS) and Drew Weaver (High Point, NC) posting 65s at the par-71 Cobblestone Park Golf Club.

Thompson, a two-time winner on the eGolf Tour and defending champion of this event, entered the week in Columbia after narrowly missing out on a spot in this week's Wells Fargo Championship on the PGA TOUR. The former Kansas University star was in a 10-players-for-two-spots playoff in the event's Monday qualifier, survived at sunset to remain in a three-for-one playoff on Tuesday morning, before losing out on the event's final spot to former eGolf Tour player Nick Flanagan of Australia.

Thompson, who earned his first eGolf Tour title at the 2010 HGM Hotels Classic at Rock Barn, won last year's Columbia Open title with a 23-under 264 total. His first-round 65 on Wednesday gave Thompson an astonishing 29-under total over his last five rounds contested in the event.

Second-round play in the Columbia Open presented by Groucho’s Deli will begin at 7:50 AM on Thursday morning at both Columbia C.C. and Cobblestone Park G.C.. The tournament is open to the public and free of charge.