PARKER – Thanks to the winds whipping through Colorado Golf Club, club selection at the Senior PGA Championship has been a bit of “a guessing game,” according to Bernhard Langer.

Langer made some pretty good guesses in Thursday’s first round. The World Golf Hall of Famer fired a course-record, 6-under-par 66 to grab a share of the lead with Robin Freeman.

Brad Bryant and Tom Lehman are two strokes behind the leaders, and a group of four that includes Fred Couples and Bill Loeffler, a club pro from Castle Rock, sit three strokes back.

“Wind makes it very difficult, especially when it’s gusting and it’s not consistent out here,” Langer said. “We listened to the forecast, it said south winds, but sometimes it was southeast, then it went to southwest. So you’re standing at a few shots, and you’re just guessing and hoping you’re hitting the right club.”

Most of the players at the top of the leaderboard benefitted from morning tee times. The wind was stronger in the afternoon, and its cumulative effect was to dry out the greens considerably, making scoring more difficult later in the day.

“I’m glad that I got my round, a good round, in this morning,” Loeffler said.

But those who teed off in the morning Thursday will start in the afternoon Friday.

All eight players who shot 10 over or worse Thursday teed off in the afternoon. And only two of the eight players who shot 3 under or better started later than 9:10 a.m. — Tom Kite (3-under), who went off at 2:25 p.m., and Lehman, who went off at 2:15 p.m. Lehman made a late charge going birdie-eagle-birdie on Nos. 15-17.

Freeman credited his putting for his low round, which included seven birdies and a bogey. Using a putter with a new, fatter grip “that takes my hands out of the stroke,” Freeman had what he called “probably the best putting round I had in maybe ever.” He made three birdie putts of 20 or more feet and three others from 12, 15 and 16 feet.

Langer, who started his round on the back nine, played his first six holes in 5 under, making three birdies and holing out a sand wedge from 92 yards on the 326-yard par-4 14th for eagle. He later birdied his 16th and 17th holes (Nos. 7 and 8) and just missed a birdie putt on his final hole that would have given him a 65.

“I played almost as good as I could play, pretty much,” he said.

He also had some good fortune. On the par-3 17th, his eighth hole, he clearly was unhappy with his tee shot, which he seemed to hit thin. But it just made it to the green, missing severe trouble to the front and left, and settled safely beneath the hole in birdie range.

“Is that the prettiest shot you ever saw?” he sarcastically asked the gallery.

“It is now,” a fan responded.

Bernhard Langer reacted after missing a putt on the seventh green during Thursday’s round in Parker. Photo by AP PHOTO