From pgatour.com
Sergio Garcia can’t explain it. Not that he has to at the Players Championship where he hasn’t missed a cut in nearly 20 years.
He won at TPC Sawgrass in 2008 and finished solo second and T2 on Pete Dye’s Ponte Vedra Beach masterpiece in 2007 and 2015, respectively.
And this time around, he entered with 24 career rounds in the 60s on the Stadium Course, the most all time.
Better make it 25.
Garcia capped a stirring 7-under 65 with an 18-foot eagle at the last to give him a two-shot lead over Brian Harman on Thursday.
In shared third on 4-under 68 were Matthew Fitzpatrick, Corey Connors and Shane Lowry while Arnold Palmer Invitational winner Bryson DeChambeau was in a tie for ninth on 69.
Starting on the back nine, Garcia went birdie-birdie-eagle over his final three holes for a closing 32.
“I don’t know, I just love it,” Garcia said later. “I’ve always said it, Valderrama and this course are some of my top favourite ones.
“For some reason 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 it definitely I feel more comfortable, and I’ve done well. All those things help.”
Masterful display
It was a fitting end to a masterful day on the par-5s, as the Spaniard played the four holes in 5-under with a pair of eagles and a birdie.
It was the first time in 77 career rounds at TPC Sawgrass that Garcia posted multiple eagles, and a first round of 65 or better since the final round in 2013.
On the eagle at the ninth, his last of the day, Garcia said: “I was able to hit a beautiful hold up 5-wood just right of the hole, landed in a perfect spot to be able to hold the green, which is never easy there.
“Left myself an, actually a really nice uphill putt, pretty much straight, maybe left edge. And I was fortunate enough to roll it in.”
Three Koreans opened at level par, headlined by 2017 Players champion Si Woo Kim.
The recent winner of the American Express raced out to a 2-under start with an eagle at the par-5 16th, but quickly lost the momentum when his tee shot at the island green found the water, leading to a double bogey.
A bogey at the first dropped him to 1-over before he pulled even for the day with a nine-foot birdie at the last.
Countryman Sungjae Im also was level par, as the world’s 17th-ranked player bogeyed early before getting it back with a 12-foot birdie at the ninth.
It was a similar story on the back nine, as he bogeyed the par-3 13th before pulling even with a birdie at the island green when he stuck his tee shot inside five feet.
K.H. Lee posted an even-par round of his own in the afternoon, though he opened with two quick birdies. But he had bogeys on two of his next three holes before finishing out even for the day.
Tough outing
Reigning champion Rory McIlroy, who won the last edition of this event in 2019, struggled mightily en route to a first-round 79.
A double bogey at the first gave way to an overall sluggish start, as the world no. 11 and 2019 FedEx Cup champion followed with bogey at the 13th.
Things unravelled further with a quadruple bogey at the par-4 18th, where McIlroy twice found the water to the left.
“I mean obviously the big number on 18 didn’t help, and then doubling the 1st wasn’t helpful either,” McIlroy said.
“It’s just hard to recover when you haven’t played good. I mean regardless if you take that 18th hole out, it still wasn’t a very good day.”
But McIlroy was not alone. Fellow past champion Henrik Stenson posted a 13-over 85, while Tony Finau — seventh in the FedEx Cup standings —opened with a 6-over 78.
That matched India’s Anirban Lahiri, as well as Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan, who was 5-over on the the back nine including a double at the par-3 island green after his tee shot found the water.
Also read: DeChambeau muscles to API victory; Lahiri gets a Players break
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