Riley and Gordon share lead at Sanderson Farms; Lin ahead at Volunteers Classic

Riley fir ed a bogeyfree six-under-par 66 while Gordon madesevenbirdies and one bogey as he moved t o thetopofthe leaderboard. Both areoneaheadof seven player s t ied for t hir d on five under

Davis Riley got off to a hot start and kept bogeys off his card to the end for a 6-under 66 and a share of the lead on Thursday with Will Gordon in the Sanderson Farms Championship, the PGA Tour event he considers his fith major.

Riley grew up about 90 miles away in Hattiesburg and can remember playing the Country Club of Jackson when he was so young he was hiting fairway metals into the par 4s.

He is coming off a strong rookie season, narrowly missing out on the Tour Championship, and would appear to be off to a solid start. Riley wonders if being so open about his affection for the PGA Tour’s lone Mississippi stop has created too big of a burden.

It wasn’t an issue Thursday. He saved par with an 8-foot put on his first hole, handled the par 5s on the front nine and threw in a pair of 12-foot birdie puts.

On the closing hole, Riley hit a cut from the rough to navigate a tree and came up just short of the green. He pitched to 6 feet and finished off a bogey-free round.

Defending champion Sam Burns opened with a 70 one week ater he was part of the U.S. team that won the Presidents Cup.

Gordon did most of his work late in the round. He two-puted for birdie from 20 feet on the par-5 14th, drove to the edge of the reachable par-4 15th for an easy up-and-down and made birdie on the 17th from about 12 feet.

Riley and Gordon were a shot ahead of eight players, a group that included Christiaan Bezuidenhout of South Africa, who went 1-0-1 in his Presidents Cup debut last week.

Fatigue wasn’t too big of an issue from having only played two matches. It was the party Sunday night that about did him in, so Bezuidenhout took off on Monday and trying to carry some momentum into Mississippi.

Also at 67 was big-hiting rookie Brandon Mathews, who got married Saturday, and two other rookies in Trevor Cone and Kevin Yu.

Mark Hubbard narrowly missed a 12-footer on his final hole at No. 9 that would have given him a share of the lead.

Burns also played bogey-free, minus a bunch of birdies, none on the par 5s. He missed the fairway on three of the par 5s, and the one fairway he hit, he pulled his approach into a small bush-filled ravine. Burns hacked his way over the green, but at least saved par.

The Sanderson Farms was a good start to his season a year ago. He went on to win twice more, in playoffs at the Valspar Championship over Riley and at Colonial over Scotie Scheffler, and he made his first cup appearance.

LIN GRABS TOP SPOT: China’s Lin Xiyu grabbed a one-shot lead from in-form Thai teenager Athaya Thitikul in the opening round of the LPGA Tour’s Volunteers of America Classic in Texas on Thursday.

Lin fired a six-under-par 65 to head the field at The Colony Golf Club, north of Dallas, in a low-scoring first round.

The 26-year-old from Guangzhou, chasing her first win on the US LPGA Tour, vaulted into the lead with a brilliant eagle on the par-five 17th hole that took her to six under.

Lin’s round included five birdies, with the lone blemish a bogey on the par-four fourth.

The 19-year-old Athaya, meanwhile, coming off her second LPGA Tour victory at the NW Arkansas Championship last weekend, had to setle for a five-under-par 66 ater a bogey on her final hole of the day.

Teeing off on the back nine, Athaya surged up the leaderboard with a hat-trick of birdies on the 15th, 16th and 17th holes to make the turn at four under. Two more birdies on the first and eighth holes let her at six under, before a bogey on the ninth dropped her down to a share of second alongside Lizete Salas, who also posted a five-under-par 66.

England’s Charley Hull, Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn, Canada’s Maddie Szeryk and American Lexi Thompson were tied a further shot back on four under ater shooting 67s.