PANAMA CITY, Panama – Following a hot start which consisted of three birdies in the first four holes, Jimmy Stanger sits alone atop the leaderboard after the first round of The Panama Championship.

Behind seven birdies (tied for the most in the field Thursday), Stanger’s 6-under 64 was all the more impressive given this week’s venue, Panama Golf Club, finished four Korn Ferry Tour seasons (2004, 2008, 2009, 2019) with the highest scoring average relative to par. The course also featured five of the 50 toughest holes relative to par from the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour season.

Stanger, a 26-year-old Tampa, Florida native, went off the first tee and made three birdies in a row on Nos. 2-4. Stanger parred the remaining five holes on the front nine and began the back side with consecutive birdies, including one at the 487-yard par-4 11th, Panama Golf Club’s toughest hole. Stanger also sandwiched birdies at Nos. 15 and 17 around his only bogey of the day, a five at the par-4 16th.

“It’s early in the tournament, so I’m just happy with what happened out there today,” Stanger said. “This is a really tough golf course. You’ve got to hit some quality shots. Hit some great shots the first three holes, and stayed in a good mindset, never really got ahead of myself, and never stopped hitting quality shots.”

Stanger, playing his fourth season on the Korn Ferry Tour and making his 86th start, holds an outright lead after the opening round for the first time in his career. He did, however, share the lead after a 6-under 65 in the first round of the 2020 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

“My mindset, it’s like being T1 through four holes,” Stanger said. “You really don’t pay attention to it. You’re excited to start off well, but you’re not thinking about it that much. It’s the same mindset the next few days. If I can just hit quality shots, make the move I want to in the golf swing, and get out of my own head… I definitely thought over the last putt, ‘Hey, you haven’t led a tournament after the first round.’ If I can keep those thoughts out of my head and focus on the moment, I’ll be just fine.”

A University of Virginia alum, Stanger finished the last two seasons inside the top 75 of the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points Standings to maintain fully exempt status, posting nine top-10s in 64 starts across the 2019 and 2020-21 seasons. His best finish on Tour came at the 2020 NV5 Invitational presented by First Midwest Bank, where he shared T2 with 2020-21 Korn Ferry Tour graduate Will Zalatoris and ended one stroke behind the champion and eventual 2020-21 graduate, Curtis Thompson.

Stanger appeared primed for a run at a PGA TOUR card last season after a T8 at the 2021 BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD SYNNEX, but in similar fashion to 2019, his final six starts of the regular season resulted in four missed cuts, a T62, and a T67.

“It’s crazy how when you’re playing good golf it feels like the most important thing and the best thing ever,” Stanger said. “When you’re playing bad golf it feels like the most important thing and the worst thing ever. If you can remember it’s not the most important thing, it allows you to go play freely.”

Second-round tee times will run from 6:40 a.m. through 1:35 p.m. ET off the first and 10th tees.