Naples, Florida ..

The Wisconsin-born long-time friends of Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly ignored 21 degree F temperatures back home to turn up the heat on the opening day of the 2016 Franklin Templeton Shark Shootout here at Naples, Florida.

Stricker and Kelly have known each other for longer than either can remember and they gelled superbly to post a combined 16-under par tally in the scramble/best ball format in the $US 3.1m event.

They were out in the first group and remained atop of the board at day’s end and one shot clear of the pairing of Harris English and Matt Kuchar.

Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly with a combined age of 99 lead the Shark Shootout. (Photo – www.golfbytoumiss.com)

In fact, Stricker and Kelly’s effort was just a shot shy of matching the tournament record in the scramble format.

The combined age of the pair is one year shot of 100 compared the the youngest pairing of Bryson DeChambeau and Lexi Thompson that is 44.

“We’re feeling good right now,” said Kelly.

“We’ve made that joke with a bunch of amateur guys that there’s a couple of tandems here that their ages don’t add up to either one of our ages.  Yeah, trust me, it’s nothing we haven’t already thought about.”

And where asked could they remember the first time they played in each others company Striker remarked:  “Jeez, it had to be in high school, somewhere along the line”.

It prompted Kelly to say:  “It was before high school as I was just telling Steve my mom puts together scrapbooks every year.  I mean thick ones, it’s incredible.  The stuff she finds, it’s just amazing.

“She has an article of Steve holding a trophy and me looking at him like smiling.  That one goes back to our junior golf days.”