CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Brandon Cissom has played Cleveland Country Club too many times to count but certainly more than 100 rounds.
Danny Gleeson played it for a third time Saturday. Seems as if he’s got it figured out.
Both shot 5-under-par 67s and are tied for the lead after the first day of the Cleveland Invitational.
“It felt like a weekend game,” said Cissom, who played with buddy Ryan Hulton in what turned out to be a twosome. “It felt like me and Ryan were playing by ourselves after the other WD’d after the first hole.”
Gleeson had a different experience.
He drove a cart in a competitive tournament for the first time in his life. Before the Cleveland Invitational, he’d played only in junior tournaments. He’s been in the Chattanooga area for only a month after his father’s business transferred him from Raleigh, N.C.
“I have a lot of good friends there, so it was hard to move,” said Gleeson, who has joined the Baylor golf team. “I didn’t get to play golf for a couple weeks, so I was rusty.”
He showed no signs of rust Saturday. He hit every fairway and 16 straight greens and needed only 29 putts. He missed birdies on the last two holes by a combined four inches short on greens that many golfers described as slow.
“I only hit my driver three times, so I kept it in play and hit a lot of greens,” Gleeson said. “This was a different tournament for me. But it was awesome. It was really stress-free and a lot of fun.”
Gleeson grew up around TPC Walkefield Plantation, which is the home of about a dozen pros on the PGA and Nationwide tours.
The set of Titleist AP2 irons that he’s using this weekend were a gift from Brad Fritsch.
“I always got in putting contests with those guys,” Gleeson said. “We had closest-to-the-pin contests on the range. I won a putter off [Garth] Mulroy and I got free stuff all the time.”