Southern Pines, NC – Through 18 holes of the eGolf Tour’s Pine Needles Classic, a stellar 68 players bettered par on a day that Mother Nature would call postcard ready. At day’s end, no one bettered the efforts of co-leaders Bruce McDonald and Adam Long, who each tamed Pine Needles Resort to the tune of matching 64s and a share of the tournament’s first-round lead.

The Pine Needles Classic is the third of 24 scheduled events on the 2012 eGolf Tour schedule, and is being contested this week at both Pine Needles Resort in Southern Pines, NC and Seven Lakes Country Club in West End, NC.

After morning fog delayed play at both courses, picture-perfect weather in the greater Pinehurst, NC area set an ideal stage for scoring, especially at host Pine Needles – site of three U.S. Womens’ Opens.

McDonald, a native of Zimbabwe but long-time resident of Mount Pleasant, SC, got off to a hot start in his opening round at Pine Needles. An eagle at the par-5 first quickly moved the former College of Charleston golfer to 2-under on the day. McDonald bogeyed the short par-3 third, but the over-par blemish would be his last of the day.

A bounce-back birdie at the par-4 fourth brought McDonald back to 2-under for his round, and a birdie at the par-4 eighth helped him to a front-nine 32. On the closing nine at the famed Donald Ross-designed venue, McDonald posted birdies at 10, 13, 15 and 18 for a stellar inward 32, which in turn solidified his 7-under 64.

“It was a nice day out there. Obviously, to start with an eagle on No. 1 was big, as that got the day off to a good start. From there, it was sort of a birdie-every-few-holes kind of day, so I never really got into any trouble,” said McDonald, 30. “The golf course is in tremendous shape, so a low number was out there.”

After making just two starts on the eGolf Tour in 2011, McDonald spent the vast majority of his winter in South Africa competing on the Sunshine Tour. With a T18 at the Dimension Data Pro-Am as his best finish, McDonald took full advantage of his opportunity to compete against top-flight international play amidst warm weather in South Africa’s summer months. The time spent working on his game is already paying dividends.

“I have been playing well and really working hard on my game after the winter in South Africa,” he said. “I think today was just a continuation of that. I’ve been hitting it well and I’ve been able to play a lot of tournaments, so I guess it just kept going today.”

In November of last year, McDonald was selected to represent his native Zimbabwe in the prestigious Omega Mission Hills World Cup of Golf. Playing alongside PGA TOUR veteran Brendon de Jonge for four rounds of play, team Zimbabwe posted a respectable 11th-place finish in the 28-team event, bettering the likes of rival South Africa by a single shot.

For McDonald, a developmental tour player since turning pro in 2003, the chance to match his game up with the world’s best players proved to be a grand experience that may have helped lead into his opening 64.

“I took a lot of confidence from the World Cup experience,” said McDonald. “To be in that environment and playing alongside some of the game’s best players – guys like Ian Poulter and Justin Rose – you just realize that their games are not that much different from ours out here. That was a week I’ll never forget and hopefully it can carry over into this year.”

Adam Long

Long, a former Duke University golfer and 2012 Nationwide Tour member, began his opening round in a blitzing manner with birdies at Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 6 to vault up to 4-under par through roughly an hour-and-a-half of play. The 24-year-old from Lake St. Louis, MO added yet another birdie at the short par-4 ninth for an outward nine of 30.

An errant bogey at the otherwise-simple par-5 10th dropped Long back down to 4-under on his round, but he bounced back with birdies at 13, 15 and 17 to move to 7-under for the day. A par at the downhill par-4 18th left Long with a 64 on the round – his third round of 64 or better in two years on the eGolf Tour.

After a T35 finish at the tour’s Oldfield Open, Long is making his second eGolf Tour start of the year this week at the Pine Needles Classic. On the Nationwide Tour, the soft-spoken Midwesterner has made two starts thus far – at the Pacific Rubiales Colombia Championship and last week’s Chile Classic – with his best finish being a 73rd-place effort in Chile.

Tied for third, one shot behind McDonald and Long, are Chesson Hadley of Raleigh, NC and four-time eGolf Tour winner Dustin Bray of Asheboro, NC, who each posted rounds of 6-under 65 – both of which came at Pine Needles.

Hadley, a former “All America” selection at Georgia Tech, began his opening round in ideal fashion at Pine Needles with an eagle-birdie start to quickly move to 3-under through two holes. Bogeys at Nos. 3 and 4, however, slowed his momentum somewhat before birdies at Nos. 8 and 10 moved him back to 3-under for the day. A string of pars from 11 through 14 gave way to a torrid finish, as Hadley birdied 15, 16 and 18 to grab the tournament’s early-morning lead.

Chesson Hadley

His opening 65 was yet another good progress report for Hadley, who is two weeks removed from a T5 finish at the tour’s Oldfield Open – where he posted four consecutive 70s for a 6-under 280 total.

Easily one of the tour’s best up-and-coming players, Hadley is coming off of a 2011 campaign in which he notched five top-10 finishes on the eGolf Tour, including three top-3 results. After failing to advance past the first stage of PGA TOUR Q-School last fall, Hadley briefly considered ending his professional career roughly 18 months after it began, but opted to give it another go in 2012. Through 18 holes at Pine Needles, the decision seems to have been a good one.

For Bray, a former Nationwide Tour member, an opening 65 is yet another sign of solid play for a guy that serves as a veritable ATM machine on the eGolf Tour. Entering the week in Southern Pines, the former University of North Carolina star had made 17 of his last 18 cuts on the eGolf Tour, with 10 top-25 finishes during that span.

On Wednesday at Pine Needles, Bray began his round with a birdie at the docile par-5 first and a bogey at the lengthy par-4 second, before posting birdies at Nos. 6 and 7 for a front-nine 33. Birdies at 10, 13, 14 and 15 moved Bray to 6-under for the day, where he eventually finished after closing with pars on the last three holes.

In 2006, Bray was the eGolf Tour’s leading money winner, winning three times during the year before earning his Nationwide Tour card at Q-School in December. Bray played the Nationwide Tour full time from 2007 through 2009, racking up 61 starts along the way and a career-best runner-up finish at the 2008 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational. In 2009, he claimed his fourth eGolf Tour title when he parlayed a first-round 60 at the Walnut Creek Open into a two-shot victory.

The low rounds of the day at tournament co-host Seven Lakes Country Club came from two eGolf Tour rookies, Eric Lilleboe of Okemos, MI and Kyle Scott of Decatur, GA, Argentina’s Nelson Ledesma, and local favorite Ryan Linton of Pinehurst. The quartet posted matching rounds of 5-under 67 to play their way into a tie for fifth through day one.

Second-round play in the Pine Needles Classic will begin at 8:10 AM on Thursday morning at both Pine Needles and Seven Lakes. The tournament is open to the public and free of charge.