3 things to know after Round 1 of the Sanderson Farms Championship

The PGA Tour is down south for this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi, and the scores are already sizzlingly low. Eighty-three of the 144 players in the field are under par after the first round, so over half the field will likely need to go low on Friday if they want to stick around for the weekend.

So what do we have to look forward to in Round 2? Here are three things you need to know from Thursday’s action in Jackson.

Four players share the lead

Eight-under 64 was the low round of the day, and four players hit the number to share the top spot on the leaderboard: Charley Hoffman, Kevin Chappell, Jimmy Walker and defending champion Sebastian Munoz.

Both Hoffman and Walker are seeking their first Tour victories since 2016 while Chappell’s lone Tour victory was the 2017 Valero Texas Open. As the defending champion, Munoz is the player with the best recent form, as he also finished T8 in the Tour Championship less than a month ago.

Munoz teed off in the afternoon on Thursday, and says the low scores he saw being posted before he even began his round were encouraging, rather than discouraging.

“I knew it was gettable, just seeing the guys get it that low,” Munoz said after his round. “I knew it was doable. I started with a birdie, almost jarred it from 100 yards, so that just kind of gave me the confidence, I got a quick start, 4-under through 5, and it kind of slowed down, but then I matched it again on the back. I don’t know, sometimes I just ride the momentum. One good shot kind of feeds me for two, three holes.”

The leaderboard is packed

There are currently 23 players within four shots of the lead. While Saturday is traditionally considered to be a tournament’s Moving Day, Friday’s round will be very consequential with the players so tightly clustered.

Two players are one shot off the lead at 7-under, five players are two shots back at 6-under (including 2011 PGA Champions Keegan Bradley), five players are three shots back at 5-under, and 11 players are four shots back at 4-under, including Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia.

Last week’s champion struggled

Some observers were surprised to see Corales Puntacana champion Hudson Swafford in the field this week after pulling off his first victory since the 2017 CareerBuilder Challenge in the Dominican Republic last week. Though he says he felt good heading into the first round, his game unfortunately cooled a bit in Jackson, as he fired an opening round of 3-over 75. Swafford will have some work to do on Friday to get himself back in the mix.