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Reisenbeck leads pack
20-year-old opens with 72

Last summer, Ben Reisenbeck was one of the teenagers who entered the Northern Kentucky Men's Amateur to test his skills against some of the top veteran golfers in the area.

It turned out to be a humbling experience for the college student. He shot 15 over par in the opening round and didn't qualify for match play.

Reisenbeck redeemed himself in the first round of the Northern Kentucky Stroke Play Championship on Monday at Kenton County Fox Run. He shot an even-par 72 that put him on top of the leader board going into today's final 18-hole round.

"Last year was the first time I entered one of these (men's amateur) events," he said. "I played pretty bad in that one so I wanted to come out (Monday) and show these guys I could still play."

Reisenbeck, 20, is a student at Northern Kentucky University. He didn't play on the NKU men's golf team this spring because he transferred from Kentucky Wesleyan University and has to sit out one year before regaining his eligibility.

This is the first year that Reisenbeck was able to enter the Stroke Play Championship, which was formally known as the Northern Kentucky Mid-Amateur. The tournament used to be restricted to golfers age 35 and over, but that was dropped and the name was changed this year.

Forty-eight golfers played in Monday's first round and 27 of them qualified for today's championship final by turning in scores within eight strokes of the leader.

The other golfers had a choice to compete in the championship flight or switch to the handicap flight for today's final round.

The winner of last year's tournament, Jeff Egger, shot an 80 in the opening round to earn a berth in the championship division, but he withdrew from the field because he has to attend a family funeral today.

Reisenbeck shot 1-under 35 on the front nine and 1-over 37 on the back nine on Monday to take the early lead. He turned in a card with three birdies, 12 pars and three bogeys.

"I was pretty much down the middle (of the fairway) all day and it's easy to play well when you do that," he said. "I usually have trouble making putts, but I made a lot of them (Monday) and that definitely saved my round on a few holes."

Reisenbeck said he made a 15-foot putt for par on No. 18 to finish with an even-par 72. That put him one stroke ahead of Carl Hays and two strokes ahead of Brian Gooch and Jim Ferreri going into today's final round.

The championship division was scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. today followed by the handicap division.