KU golfers Zach Peterson, left, and Walt Koelbel, right, chat as a fellow golfer lines up a putt. Peterson and Koelbel shot a 66, putting them one stroke back after the first day of stroke play at the KGA Four-Ball Championship on Tuesday at Alvamar Golf Club.

Journal World Photo.Jason Grimsley, a former Kansas City Royal, watches his tee shot at the Kansas Golf Association Four-Ball Championship. Grimsley participated in Tuesday's first round at Alvamar Golf Club.

It took Brandon Hermreck a few holes to brush off the butterflies on the first day of stroke-play qualifying for the Kansas Golf Association Four-Ball Championship at Alvamar Golf Club.

But once he calmed down, Hermreck and teammate Zechariah Potter – the defending Four-Ball champs – rolled to the top of the leaderboard with a 6-under 65.

“I haven’t played much golf lately, and he (Potter) just got back from the NCAA regional and he had been competing,” Hermreck said quietly to prevent Potter, who was nearby, from hearing about his anxiety early on in the round. “But I didn’t think I was going to be nervous or have jitters or anything, but it took me six holes to get into the round … The first round last year we shot a 69 and we were towards the middle or towards the back, so this definitely feels good.”

After shooting 1-under through those first six holes, the duo from Wichita State University went 5-under during the final 12 – with just one bogey coming on the ninth hole – and finished tied with Brett Iliff and Adam Blue for the first-round lead.

Potter capped off the strong finish with a chip-in eagle on the 17th to finish the three par-5 holes for the round with a combined 4-under.

“I really have a good feeling about this week – at least for Wednesday anyway – because we ‘ham and egg it’ pretty well,” Hermreck said. “If he’s out of a hole, I’m in a hole. … I’m out of a hole – a lot – and he’s very, very clutch.”

However, after having won the title last year as the No. 8 seed, Potter and Hermreck were adamant that the significance of the qualifying rounds was nothing more than cutting the field to 32 teams to set up the match-play bracket.

“Obviously you can’t win the golf tournament today, so we’re just going to try to play every hole how it is,” Potter said. “Whatever we qualify doesn’t really matter because match play is a totally different story.”

At this point, it seems there is really only one thing the pair is worried about heading into Wednesday: high winds.

“The Marshal told us today out there that it’s going to be 30-50 mile-per-hour winds, so that’s going to be very, very tough,” Hermreck said. “But we’re basically – unless we shoot a million tomorrow – we’ve probably already made the cut. And that’s really all we’re focused on. It’s just going to be a test. We’ll have to go in and battle and just put up a good score.”

The second and final round of qualifying is scheduled to start with the morning wave teeing off at 8 this morning and the afternoon groups getting underway at 12:30 p.m.

¢ No putter needed: Steven Hastert of Topeka needed just one club on the 4th hole during the afternoon session of qualifying. Hastert used a seven-iron to land a hole-in-one on the par-3 that was playing about 178 yards.

“I owe everything to my partner (Bryan Cronin of Olathe). He actually re-clubbed me, and I hit it right of the flag, and it spun back and disappeared,” said Hastert of his ace, which was witnessed by his teammate Cronin along with Brad and Brent Waggoner of Osawatomie. “I didn’t believe it until we heard somebody in the group ahead of us yell.”

With a 1-over first round, Hastert and Cronin could still sneak into the field of 32 with the current cut at 1-under par.