Charl Schwartzel fired an opening round of seven-under 65 to take the solo lead after 18 holes of play at the Memorial Tournament on Thursday.
Schwartzel started playing the back nine today and made his first birdie at his second hole, the par-5 11th hole. He would make bogey on the 13th hole after putting past the hole with his seven-foot birdie-putt, and subsequently missing the short par-putt.
The former Masters champion altered his grip on the putter after missing the makeable putts on this hole and apparently the tweak worked like magic. He would make birdie on his next four holes and made the turn at four-under 32. He would then birdie four consecutive holes for the second time in the round when he birdie holes four through seven.
But his momentum got stopped at the par-3 eight—his 17th—hole when he found trouble off the tee finding the front green-side bunker. His sand shot went past the green to the rough on the left side.
His third shot—for par—would go over the hole, on the green, but left him with 10 feet to work for bogey. He would leave his bogey-putt one foot short and settled for double-bogey.
But just like he did after he made his bogey on the 13th hole, he bounced back and birdie. On the ninth—his 18th and final hole—he hit a nice approach shot that left the ball 12 feet from the hole, and he sank that birdie-putt to end his round with an exclamation point, and possibly a momentum keeper for Friday.
All eyes today were on the defending champ Tiger Woods, who was making his 301st PGA Tour start and is at 1988-under-par lifetime. He failed to get much closer to the 2000-under-par for his career after shooting a one-under 71 today, six shots behind Schwartzel.
Woods was averaging over 301 yards on his tee shots and hit 72 percent of his GIRs, but it was his putting that betrayed him today. He missed several makeable putts that could have resulted on a lower score for his opening round.
He also played in the afternoon, which played an average of 1.36 shots higher than in the morning. Woods must be looking forward to his 8:26 am ET tee time on Friday.
Scott Piercy got off to a strong start on the front nine with birdies from the fourth through eight holes to make the turn at five-under 31. He would add another birdie on the 11th before his first bogey of the day on the 12th hole.
He made two more birdies to move to seven-under, but the bogey on the 18th hole dropped him from a share of the lead with Schwartzel at the end of the round.
PGA Tour rookie, Russell Henley, birdied the 18th hole to join a four-way T-3rd at five-under alongside Josh Teater, Kyle Stanley and Charlie Wi who also birdied the 18th hole today. Henley made two bogeys and three pars on the front nine, making the turn with a one-under 35. But he played a bogey-free back nine at four-under 31, bringing momentum towards Friday’s second round.
Matt Kuchar is one shot behind at four-under in a T-7th with Bill Haas. Kuchar kept his solid play of late, making only one bogey today at the par-3 eight hole. Kuchar, uncharacteristically, overshot badly his 11-foot birdie-putt and was left with 14 feet to work for par.
Justin Rose and Billy Horschel are among the 14 players T-13th at two under. That group also includes Fred Couples—who played in Woods' group—and Canadian Graham DeLaet.
Woods is T-27th with 14 other players at one-under. In that group are Keegan Bradley—who also played on Woods’ group—Bubba Watson, Martin Laird and Carl Pettersson.
Brandt Snedeker struggled mightily today and finished in the group of 17 players that played even-par and are T-41st for the opening round. Among the other notables on that group are Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, K.J. Choi and the surprise of the day, Chinese 14-year-old wunderkind, Guan Tianlang.
Tianlang was actually at two-under—alongside Woods at the time—when he made bogey at the par-3 16th hole and subsequently at the par-4 18th. He misread the birdie-putt on his third shot at 18th and sent the ball outside the green to about 96 feet away. But he almost save par with his chip-shot, leaving the ball short by a foot.
The biggest disappointments of the opening round were Rory McIlroy, who is near the bottom, T-107th after a disheartening opening round of six-over 78; and Lee Westwood who shot a four-over 76.
Other players over-par and that need to get a good round to play on the weekend are: Adam Scott, Luke Donald, Ernie Els, Hunter Mahan, Zach Johnson and Dustin Johnson at one-over; Webb Simpson at three-over.
Nick Watney is at the cold bottom with a round-low of 10-over. Action resumes tomorrow at 7:20 am ET and Golf Channel will have the coverage from 2:30 pm through 6:30 pm. ET.