The leader shot seven under. One player finished two shots back, three others three back, and 17 claimed its victims. But the biggest news after the first day of the Players Championship is that, barring the bizarre, we will get a second day. And a third and a fourth. This time one year ago, we didn’t. Here are three things you need to know after Thursday’s darkness-suspended first round at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Sergio Garcia leads
Sergio Garcia nearly missed his tee time. He walked to the 10th hole for his 7:40 a.m. tee time at about 7:39.
From there, he missed basically nothing.
Garcia birdied his sixth hole, the par-4 15th, eagled his seventh, the par-5 16th, after hitting his second shot to within nine feet and finish birdie-birdie-eagle for a seven-under 65 and a two-shot lead over Brian Harman. Matthew Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry and Corey Conners are each three strokes behind.
“I don’t know, I just love it,” Garcia said of Sawgrass. “I’ve always said it, Valderrama and this course are some of my top favorite ones, and for some reason, they just, it just kind of fits my eye. I see what I want to do pretty much every hole and then it’s a matter of doing it, but definitely I feel more comfortable and I’ve done well. So all those things help.”
Bryson DeChambeau is four shots back
Harman exchanged birdies and bogeys three times on his front nine, then shot five under on the back nine for his 67.
“You know you’re going to have a stretch like that at some point to where the ball bounces into the wrong spot, you miss a putt, you just barely miss a fairway and have a really — it’s, that’s just part of the rub of this place,” Harman said. “So I knew I was playing well. I prepared really well, I played really great in the practice round, so I figured if I could just stay patient.”
Fitzpatrick, Lowry and Conners each shot 68. Four shots back are Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Westwood — who played in the final pairing at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, won by DeChambeau — along with Will Zalatoris, Denny McCarthy, Rory Sabbatini and Tom Hoge.
Players hit 35 balls into the water on No. 17
Byeong Hun An hit four straight into the water on the island-green, par-3 17th and made an 11. Kevin Na hit three straight into the drink, then chipped in for an 8. One threesome all took drops after their tee shots. In all, a whopping 35 balls found the water.
Several golfers suggested that the 17th green, which was redone this summer, is firmer than the rest. That conditioning, they said, likely contributed to the number of balls that landed on the green and ended up in the water long.
“Seventeen’s definitely firmer,” Gary Woodland said. “And that back pin, that’s just — it’s back there again tomorrow, too. It’s tough. But that green is definitely firmer than the rest of them.”
Several top players struggled throughout Sawgrass, too. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot a one-over 73, Patrick Cantlay shot a 74 and Rory McIlroy a 79.