RENO, 7 Aug 2015, (AFP) - The 28-year-old tour rookie had four birdies on the front nine and birdied five of the first seven holes on the back nine to grab the lead in the unique tournament, which features a Modified Stableford scoring system assigning point values to shots rather than registering a score relative to par.
Rodgers had eight birdies and a bogey to stand second on 15 with another US player, Ricky Barnes, on 14 points after eight birdies and two bogeys.
Most of golf's top players are at the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational this week at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, as a final tuneup for next week's PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
Americans David Toms and J.J. Henry shared fourth on 13 points followed by a pack on 12 that included Argentina's Andres Romero, Sweden's Jonas Blixt and Americans Billy Hurley, Robert Garrigus and Tom Hoge.
Leading finishers after Thursday's opening round of the US PGA Barracuda Championship, which uses a Modified Stableford scoring system that awards points rather than measuring scores relative to par (USA unless noted):
18 - Zack Sucher
15 - Patrick Rodgers
14 - Ricky Barnes
13 - David Toms, JJ Henry
12 - Robert Garrigus, Billy Hurley, Andres Romero (ARG), Jonas Blixt (SWE), Tom Hoge
11 - Tim Petrovic, Chris Smith, Steve Flesch, Cameron Beckman, Dicky Pride, Ben Crane, Jason Gore, Jason Allred, Derek Fathauer
10 - DJ Trahan, Trevor Immelman, Ken Duke