Photo courtesy of Darren Carroll/PGA of America
Through the morning session Thursday in the PGA Championship at the TPC Harding Park, Jason Day had the lead in the tournament with a 5-under, 65.
There were nine players at 4-under, with six more at 3-under. Defending champion Brooks Koepka is one of the players at 4-under, with Tiger Woods finishing at 2-under.
Here are comments from some of the players in the morning session.
Day got through the first round with no bogeys, a big move to start the tournament off on the right foot.
“Yeah, it was good. I got off to a great start. Got a little bit lucky between the bunkers on 10 but got to take the luck when it comes by,” said Day. “Today I drove it really nicely, and when I was out of position, I left myself on the right side of the fairways to be able to at least get somewhere around the greens, and if I did miss the greens I left it in the right spot. Yeah, pretty sound the whole way around. I hit a lot of good-quality iron shots coming into the greens – wasn’t overly aggressive. And there was a couple of shots on 9 and 17 where I hit it pretty tight, but overall, it was very solid.”
Koepka, who is seeking his third straight PGA Championship, hopes to find more success than last year at Pebble Beach when he was shooting for three straight U.S. Open titles. He ended up finishing second to winner Gary Woodland.
That has lingered with Koepka and he mentioned how much it would mean to get the win here and complete the three-peat.
“Yeah, it would mean extra because I wasn’t able to do it at the U.S. Open. I think that drove me nuts a little bit. I mean, obviously I played about as good — I played good golf, but I just got beat by Gary,” said Koepka. “You know, to do it here, it would be special. I think — I don’t know how many — I think there’s, what, six guys that have ever won three in a row. Yeah, not a bad list to be on. That’s the whole goal every time we tee it up in a major is to win them.”
Scotti Scheffler was one of the first out on the course and started on the 10th tee. Making the most of his game, Scheffler birdied three of his first holes, then finished his first round at 4-under.
“Yeah, it was a solid start. Put myself in a good position on 10, had a nice up-and-down there, and then 11, hit a great shot in there probably 20 feet, something like that, made the putt,” said Scheffler. “I was like, great. Wasn’t really expecting to birdie No. 11. And then 13 is another difficult hole that — hit an iron shot in there really close and made another birdie. So, it was definitely a great start to get off to.”
Woods was on and off but made some big par putts to keep him in contention through the first round. In fact, Woods pointed to the big par putts over the birdies.
“Not necessarily the birdies but the par putt I made on 18, which was nice. Making, I think, the big par putts is what enabled, over the course of a tournament, to keep momentum of the round going, and that was a big putt for me to make after making a mistake on my tee shot, missing it left,” explained Woods. “You know, kept it rolling from there. I made some good putts. For the most part of the day, I missed the ball on the correct sides. This golf course, you have to hit the ball in the fairway. You get a ball in the rough, into the grain, there’s no chance you can get the ball to the green. I felt like I did a decent job of doing that, and the golf course is only going to get more difficult as the week goes on.”
By Dennis Miller