Reilley Rankin’s new-found eagerness to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative paid spectacular dividends in the opening round of the $100,000 Greater Richmond Golf Classic.

Rankin, a 31-year-old LPGA veteran, shot a bogey-free 66 yesterday to take a one-shot lead in the Duramed Futures Tour event at Richmond Country Club. Her effort included six birdie putts of at least 10 feet. She finished with a flourish: a 10-foot birdie at No. 16 followed by a 25-footer at No. 17 lifted her to the top of a crowded leader board.

Rankin has struggled in eight appearances on the LPGA Tour this year. She said her arrival in Richmond was preceded by visits with coaches Frank Nobilo and
Gary Gilchrist. Those sessions, she said, were as much mental as physical. She emerged with a productive plan for practice — something she said she has long lacked — and a radically different approach to the game in general.

“For so long I’ve been focusing on the negative parts of my game. What I don’t have. What I don’t feel good about. What I feel like I need to improve,” said Rankin, an intuitive player who relies more on feel than textbook technique. “What I’m trying to do now, basically, is focus on the positive: What I do have; what I can do well; what I feel good about.”

She had much about which to feel good following yesterday’s round. Rankin, solid on the front nine and lethal on the back, played her final seven holes in 4 under par. That surge placed her one stroke ahead of Melissa Eaton-Jackson and two ahead of Jennifer Song, Amelia Lewis and Australian Stephanie Na heading into today’s second round. Seven players, including Lauren Doughtie of Suffolk, sit one stroke further back at 3 under.

Rankin, a Futures Tour standout until she moved to the LPGA following the 2003 season, said the Richmond tournament couldn’t have come at a better time. She was eager to test her new philosophy in the heat of competition, she said, but the LPGA last played a domestic tournament (the U.S. Open) in early July and won’t play another until next weekend.

“A lot of people have seen me [at RCC this week] and said, ‘Huh? What? What are you doing here?’ ” Rankin said. “Believe me: There’s no feeling on my part that I’m too good for this. I just want to play. I knew after [Thursday’s pro-am] that coming to Richmond was the best decision I could have made.”

Thursday’s practice, she said, “was amazing. All of a sudden, everything is different. The game has never seemed so simple and I’ve never been as focused in my whole life.”

Epiphany notwithstanding, Rankin is far from home free. Her closest pursuers seem quite capable of posting gaudy numbers on a course rendered vulnerable by afternoon downpours on each of the past three days. Yesterday’s storm created a 20-minute stoppage in play.

“The greens are really soft,” Song said. “Sometimes you hit a shot into a green and the ball doesn’t move. It ends up in its own ball mark.”

The leaders took immediate advantage. Eaton-Jackson, who tied for second at last week’s Pennsylvania Classic, stacked six birdies atop a single bogey. She, too, cited a significant change in her mental game: the acquisition of a sponsor for the remainder of the season.

“It makes such a big difference when you don’t have to worry about money,” said Eaton-Jackson, a native of South Africa. “It’s a huge relief. Now, the only thing I’m thinking about when I’m on the course is winning.”

So precise was Na’s iron play that she sank four birdie putts of 12 inches or less. Among them: a 9-iron tee shot to within 4 inches on the 149-yard 15th hole.

Song made three bogeys but more than compensated by piling up seven birdies. She made three consecutive birdies late in her round — including a 25-footer at No. 16 and a 28-footer at No. 17 — to move to 5 under. She surrendered a stroke when she missed a slippery 4-foot par putt at No. 18.

“I guess you can’t make them all,” she said.

Vic Dorr Jr. is a staff writer for the Richmond Times Dispatch.