HUALALAI, Hawaii >> The only golfer among the 43 in the field at the Mitsubishi Electric at Hualalai with a long putter in the bag was Bernhard Langer. And things didn’t always go as planned for the 2015 Schwab Cup champion.

Usually a fixture among the leaders here in this elite field, Langer struggled in Thursday’s opening round with a 2-under 70, leaving him five shots removed from leader Joe Durant in this 54-hole event.

This is the first tournament on the Champions Tour where you can’t anchor the putter. What Langer did was practice with the putter anchored as he has done it for years, then move it away a bit from his body and putt.

It appeared several times on the back nine that Langer was close to anchoring it in his chest, with his left wrist brushing up against his shirt, but he felt comfortable he was well within the rules.

From the 12- to 15-foot range Langer seemed to strike it comfortably, but putts in the 4- to 6-foot range were troublesome.

“Bit unlucky with my putts,” Langer said. “Thought I hit a bunch of good putts that just didn’t drop. I just left a few short. The ones that I hit good, they look real good, but they just didn’t break the way I read them. They just didn’t go in. It was just one of those days where I made only one putt from 12 feet away. All the others were 4- or 5-footers.”

Langer conceded this putting change was a work in progress and that what he was attempting to do was a big difference from the method now ruled illegal by the USGA.

“It’s a change because I’m not anchored,” Langer said. “I’m loose up here (at the top of his putter). It’s different, definitely. I practice my putts anchored and then moving it out when I putt. It probably is a work in progress. I would think so.”

Whether he remains with this current style is hard to say. It has been 19 years since he competed with a regular putter and it’s possible he will move in that direction. He also could use the Matt Kuchar style, something Langer said he invented years ago.

“I can’t determine that yet, whether I will stay with the long putter,” Langer said. “It’s too early. There are still options to go to the Kuchar method like I putted for seven years. In my career with the long putter, I actually started that way. I started that method years ago. I won the 1993 Masters that way.”

The reason for the switch?

“I changed to that method because I had the yips,” Langer said. “I’ve had the yips four times in my career. I changed from regular to cross-handed, to what I call the split cross-handed, which is the way Kuchar putts now. I might go to that or I might try regular. We’ll see. I’m a little concerned about it. But you work at it. You find a way to get the ball in the hole.”

Love maxes out at three

Davis Love III is playing in his third consecutive tournament to start the season. Only six golfers who began their campaigns at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions played in the first three PGA Tour events of the 2016 calendar year.

Love can’t make that claim, but he’s close. He played in the two tour events and is now opening his Champions Tour portion this weekend at Hualalai.

“I think three is probably my limit just because of old injuries and being 52 years old and walking,” said Love, who is tied for second, just one shot off the lead, after opening with a 6-under 66.

“I’m not riding — yet,” Love said. “If my feet hurt tomorrow, I can hop in a cart, which is nice on this tour. I did have a big surgery last spring, so they’re kind of limiting when I came back how much I could play and three’s probably a good number. I’m going to try to take a couple of weeks off after this and then play three in a row on the regular tour, so that’s probably going to be my limit for a while.”

Inside the numbers

With the tradewinds kicking in near the latter half of the round, the scoring average wasn’t as low as in years past. The 43 seniors in the field averaged 70.535, definitely on the high side for the Jack Nicklaus-designed course.

There was a tie for the hardest hole between the par-3 5th (3.767) and the par-4 11th at 4.372. On the par 3, there was only one birdie by Love, 29 pars, 10 bogeys, two doubles and one triple by Jerry Smith. The par-4 11th surrendered only one birdie to Durant, 27 pars, 13 bogeys and two double bogeys.

The easiest hole was the par-5 10th with a scoring average of 4.233 with two eagles, 31 birdies, eight pars and two bogeys.