Nov 13, 2014 By Jim Downey jdowney@heraldstandard.Com 2 min read

Robert Rohanna was cruising along in the first round of the 88th Hyundai-BBVA Chile Open, flirting with the top 10 at 3-under through 15 holes.

Rohanna’s round hit a speedbump, more precisely, a dogleg, on No. 16 that led to a bogey-bogey-bogey finish to close the first round at even-par 72.

The Waynesburg Central graduate sits right on the bubble in a 14-way tie in 52nd place. The low 50 scores and ties advance to the third round. Sixty-five golfers are at even- or under-par.

Armando Favela, Julio Zapata and Juan Ignacio Lizarralde share the first-round lead at 6-under 66.

Rohanna opened on No. 10 and closed out his first nine with birdies on Nos. 15 and 17 to go with seven pars to go out in 2-under 34.

He opened his back nine with a birdie-3 on No. 1 and then carded five straight pars before hitting a trouble spot.

“The dogleg holes, they are goofy. One to the left, one to the right,” Rohanna said via Facebook Messenger. “I hit solid and dead straight shots and got behind trees. You just can’t do that on those holes.”

That accounted for the first two bogeys.

“Then, I hit a poor wedge on No. 9 and missed the green,” added Rohanna, who played his back nine hole in 2-over 38.

Outside of the final three holes, Rohanna felt he had a solid round.

“Yeah, I did. I’m putting well and hitting it decent,” said Rohanna. “I didn’t really hit it that close today, so that made it more difficult to make a lot (of putts).

“But, I had a pretty solid round going until the end. I really hit one bad shot and made three bogeys.”