Tom McKibbin was inside the top-15 after the opening round of the Boy’s Junior Orange Bowl Championship at Coral Cables just to the south of Miami in south-east Florida.
McKibbin, 15 posted two birdies but also four bogeys on the par-73 Biltomore course.
The Holywood golfer birdied the 5th and 13th holes but dropped shots at three, six, eight and the 12th.
The young Ulsterman trails six shots behind French-born but now American Alex Vogelsong who posted a four-under par and one shot clear of the duo of England’s Barclay Brown and Norway’s Alexander Stemmelsdal in the 52-player field and with the event being played over four days.
Vogelsong and has spent most of his life living in Palm Beach, Florida and a little while back shot a 64 to set the high-school course record at the Bear’s Club and his coach got Jack Nicklaus to sign the scorecard.
The inaugural Boy’s Junior Orange Bowl was staged in 1964, and with the girl’s event added in 1977.
Since then, the event has produced such professional starts as Andy North, Craig Stadler, Hal Sutton, Mark Calcaveccia, Boy Tway, Billy Mayfair, Willie Wood, Jose Maria Olazabal and Tiger Woods.
Woods won the 1991 event as a then 15-year old and the same age as McKibbin now.
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