MacKenzie takes charge with 64 in Greensboro

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) -- Former extreme adventurer Will MacKenzie, boosted by a run of seven birdies in nine holes, charged one stroke clear at the Wyndham Championship in North Carolina on Thursday.

The 32-year-old North Carolina native fired an eight-under-par 64 to set the first-round pace under clear skies at Forest Oak Country Club in Greensboro.

Lucas Glover celebrated his selection this week to the U.S. Presidents Cup team as one of two captain's picks with a 65, finishing level with fellow Americans Steve Marino and Jeff Overton and Britain's Brian Davis.

Japan's Shigeki Maruyama and 2004 British Open champion Todd Hamilton were among a group of seven players bunched on 66.

MacKenzie, a professional kayaker who enjoys snowboarding, surfing and rock climbing, made the most of ideal scoring conditions and ultra-smooth greens after bogeying the par-four first.

He birdied the par-five second after almost holing out with a wedge approach and picked up further shots at the fifth, eighth and ninth to reach the turn in three-under 33.

MacKenzie, a promising junior player who gave up golf for almost a decade after his sophomore year in high school, then reeled off birdies at the 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th in the final event of the PGA Tour's regular season.

"I hit that wedge in there [in two] really close and that just turned my day around," he told reporters.

"I finished with solid birdies at the end of the front nine and played great on the back nine. And I made some putts, a couple of 25-footers and all my short ones."

MacKenzie, whose only PGA Tour victory came at last year's Reno-Tahoe Open, accepts his former lifestyle marks him out as an unusual character on the world's most lucrative circuit.

"People might think that, since I quit golf for a while and lived the life of an outdoor enthusiast, I break the mould and I'm sure I do," he said.

"I want my peers to respect me as a golfer and I think most of them do, but I also like to cheer them up a little bit and do silly things like stand on my head from time to time."

MacKenzie lies 82nd in the FedExCup points standings and knows he needs to climb higher if he is to feature in the big-money playoff events starting next week.

"I'm a little bit on the outside looking in right now so I need to play well these next couple of weeks to keep playing as long as possible in the playoffs," he said.

The Wyndham Championship will determine the top 144 players in the standings to qualify for next week's Barclays Championship outside New York.

The field will then be cut to 120 for the following week at the Deutsche Bank Championship before 70 players qualify for the September 6-9 BMW Championship.

The playoffs end with the top 30 competing at the September 13-16 Tour Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, where a $10 million bonus in deferred compensation will be earned by the overall champion. E-mail to a friend

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