AVONDALE, La. — Brice Garnett and Scott Stallings birdied eight of their final 11 holes, Viktor Hovland and Kris Ventura birdied 9 of their remaining 12, and each groups shot 10-under 62 in Zurich Basic to share the first-round lead Thursday.
“Kris determined to warmth up his putter. That basically helped,” Hovland stated. “However I felt like we actually performed strong golf all 18 holes.”
Ventura made a 36-foot birdie putt from the perimeter on 15 and a 19-footer on 16 for his seventh and remaining birdie of the day within the best-ball format performed on the primary and third rounds. Gamers will alternate pictures within the second and remaining rounds.
Garnett hit strategy pictures inside 7 ft on the primary, second, fourth and fifth holes and made all 4 birdie putts after his staff made the flip following a back-nine begin. Stallings’ birdie putt from practically 18 ft on the eighth gap pulled his staff right into a tie atop the leaderboard.
“We had a story of two nines,” stated Stallings, who made half of his staff’s 10 birdies. “It was good we did not birdie the identical gap ever, and that is what you need to do. We did an amazing job of that right this moment.”
Hovland began the Norwegian tandem’s run up the leaderboard by touchdown a shot from the bunker left of the inexperienced inside four ft to birdie the par-5 seventh.
Ventura birdied Nos. eight, 9 and 11 – highlighted by his 9-foot putt on the par-Three ninth — earlier than Hovland put a 194-yard strategy on 12 inside 2 ft to arrange one other birdie. Hovland additionally birdied the par-5 18th.
Seven groups shot 63, together with two-time Zurich champion Billy Horschel and his teammate, Louisiana native and former LSU participant Sam Burns.
Tony Finau and Cameron Champ, who had a back-nine begin in the identical group as Horschel and Burns, birdied the seventh and eighth holes to affix the third-place groups.
Cameron Smith, who received the Zurich throughout its first 12 months as a staff occasion in 2017, made a 38-foot eagle putt on the par-5 second gap to assist him and fellow Australian Marc Leishman publish a 63. Smith additionally had six of his staff’s seven birdies.
“I am going to most likely purchase dinner tonight after that exhibition he placed on,” Leishman stated. “He is undoubtedly owed that.”
Louis Oosthuizen practically put his strategy shot within the water on 18, however then chipped in from a steep embankment for birdie to tug himself and his teammate, fellow South African Charl Schwartzel, right into a tie for second.
Additionally at 63 had been the groups of Brendan Steele and Keegan Bradley; Sebastian Cappelen and Mark Hubbard; and Kyle Stanley and Kyoung-Hoon Lee.
Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay – the one staff with two gamers ranked on the earth’s high 10 – completed amongst a handful of groups at 64, together with the tandem of Bubba Watson and Scottie Scheffler.
A cool breeze from the north that had quite a few gamers carrying lengthy sleeves — unusual in late April in south Louisiana — additionally had a chilling impact on the anticipated risk-taking that may happen within the best-ball format. That was significantly the case on the 403-yard 13th gap, the place gamers elected to goal for the green to the correct of a large cypress tree fairly go straight on the inexperienced over a waste bunker to the left of the tree.
“This course is not actually designed to play on this wind,” Horschel stated, additionally noting he did respect temperatures within the 60s for a lot of the spherical. “It was good to see Sam have a very good spherical as a result of he is been enjoying effectively … and I simply made positive I did not do something silly.”
Defending champions Ryan Palmer and Jon Rahm shot 65.