Michael Sims recovered from an early hiccup to fire a one-under par 69 yesterday and put himself in position to make the cut at the $525,000 Nationwide Tour Fort Smith Classic in Arkansas.

The Tour rookie began yesterday's round on the back nine at the 6,674-yard Hardscrabble Country Club Course and was soon in trouble, double-bogeying the par-five eleventh.

But a birdie straight after on the par-four 12th represented a good comeback before the former Bermuda Open champion then birdied the 17th and the sixth without dropping any more shots to record a respectable round.

In virtually every Nationwide event in which Sims has played, the weekend cut has tended to be around the one-to-two-under mark, so barring any of his all too frequent blow-ups, the talented Bermudian now has a decent chance of making it through to the weekend rounds.

Last week, Sims failed in his attempt to make his second-successive cut at the $450,000 Henrico County Open in Richmond, Virginia.

He has made two cuts out of the nine tournaments in which he has so far competed on the Nationwide Tour.