Scottsdale, Arizona – A tough start to the season allowed Wyndham Clark to dig past notes and listen to old books – anything has lifted his ideas off the negative side.
The mentality reset paid off in the first round of the Phoenix Open, especially after Tee shot into the water, which could potentially derail his day.
Clark hit his T-shirt on par 4 par 17 and hit PAR on Thursday with 64 under 7, taking one in the first round Lead.
“You don’t necessarily control the score and what happens to golf, but you can control your own thoughts,” Clark said. “So, it’s a good reminder for me, ‘Hey, when I try my best, I looked at half the glass half empty than mine. ”
Clark is one of the players who filled it in a perfect weather after rain turned TPC Scottsdale into a wet, wild chaos.
He opened with a birdie and ranked 8th in a row in a win, with 24 players hitting 68 or higher before the game was suspended by the darkness.
Lee Hodges’s back nine had two Hawks – his frontline – and shot 65 points from the first place. He tied with Taylor Moore, who stretched seven holes.
Justin Thomas has six birdies and is one of six 66 players. Jordan Spieth escaped some difficult spots from his second game since his offseason wrist surgery, shooting 68 in his second game.
The top-ranked Scottie Scheffler traveled wildly, and his second time since piercing his hand as a Christmas dinner, he started the 10th fairway bunker.
Clark finished eighth in the FedEx Cup standings last year and tied for 15th in the Sentinels. He was underperformed over the next two weeks, missing La Quinta’s layoffs and defending champions at Pebble Beach last week.
Clark made a good start, starting with the birdie and then started four consecutive four-shots with the eighth. The 2023 U.S. Open champion eliminated another birdie twice on 5 13 and hit his third shot in 5 15 to reach 7.
Clark was obviously frustrated after shooting his t-shirt into the water on a 4-shot No. 17, but hit the grand shot to save PAR and then in a 18-shot No. 18.
“It goes without saying that it’s a birdie hole, and it’s unfortunate to hit it in the water instead of the real birdie look,” he said. “But it’s great to get rid of a par – that’s huge.”
Clark also maintained his first round lead at the 2020 Phoenix Open and joined Dudley Hart (2005, 2007) and Steve Jones (1991, 1997) He was only a golfer since 1990, and he led the game alone in the first round.
From the last nine, Thomas took advantage of benign conditions in the morning wave and overcame bogey with a continuous birdie of 14-15 on the third stroke 12. He ran twice for the Birds in the 5-5-shot third and rolled a 45 in the fifth shot of 4-shot 5 after having to hit his approach one shot Feet of bird.
Thomas finished 32 on No. 9 with a 15-foot birdie in his last nine games.
“I think it’s important to be patient here because you can do a lot of birdies, but if you might be a little aggressive or take some unnecessary risks, you can make a bogey very quickly,” Thomas said. “I Just drew my own way and tried to get some if possible.”
Scheffler drove a bogey, failed to take advantage of the three-three-shot three-shot advantage, and brought another bogey when he popped up a bunker shot on the fifth of the 4-shot. Scheffler never seemed to stay for a long time and was one of the biggest roars in the first round when he shot a 104-yard Fairway Bunker for Eagle in Game 10.
Two-time Phoenix Open Champion ranked double bogey in three strokes after a T-shirt shot into the water, but rolled 7-foot Eagle Putt in 13 strokes with 5-5 strokes, he stood stand up. He got up. The bird fell from the right side of the 4th pole 17, missing another one at the age of 18.
The famous TPC Scottsdale hit 13 points with a famous 3rd stroke of 16, which was ranked 10th in Thursday’s course. There are 14 birdies, 93 pars, 23 bogeys and 2 pairs. The closest to the hole is the 1-foot-3-inch Kurt Kitayama. Within 5 feet, he was the only player in the first round of the 16th tee.
Information from ESPN Research and Associated Press are used in this report.
