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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Advantage early-late tee times at The Players Championship.
This was the theme to Thursday’s rain-soaked, weather-delayed opening round at TPC Sawgrass, where Tommy Fleetwood and Tom Hoge took an early lead with 6-under-par 66s.
Kramer Hickok, Joaquin Niemann, Keith Mitchell and Anirban Lahiri are one shot back after shooting 67s. Brian Harman, Sam Burns and Abraham Ancer are two shots back at 4-under par.
Those were the lucky ones, because they completed their respective rounds while many of the players must complete the first round Friday.
A total of 66 players of the 144 in the field completed their round. Six players from the early side of the draw didn’t finish, meaning they return at 7:15 a.m. Friday to play one or two holes before getting the rest of the day off. Twelve players never even hit a tee shot.
There’s much to make up on Friday, and the weather forecast doesn’t look like it’ll cooperate. At this point, a Monday finish is very much a possibility.
Fleetwood called it “a great first day’’ for himself, saying, “I’m chuffed to be in on that score.’’
His performance was somewhat surprising considering that Fleetwood nearly didn’t get into the field as his world ranking sat below the required top 50. He entered the week at No. 50.
“Close enough,’’ he joked. “I haven’t played well. If you’re not playing very well, especially out here, the standard is so, so high and it keeps getting higher, when you’re off the pace and you’re lacking confidence, the game becomes very, very difficult.’’
Harold Varner was playing very well until he got to the par-3 17th, the famous island hole. He was 7-under par at the time, 5-under on the back nine, and he had a two-shot lead.
Then he hit his tee shot into the water — he was the only player to do so all day among the 69 tee shots — and took triple bogey to drop to 4-under, which dropped to 3-under after a bogey on 18.
“It’s a game, that’s why we play it,’’ Varner reasoned afterward. “No one is going to die out there. [I was] just was in between clubs and didn’t execute the shot.’’
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