Kyle Stanley leads Tour Championship by two strokes
ATLANTA — Kyle Stanley and Jordan Spieth got off to strong starts in the Tour Championship with entirely different goals in mind.
Stanley ran off four straight birdies on the front nine, one of them from 40 feet away, then added two more late in his round on a steamy Thursday afternoon at East Lake Golf Club for a 6-under-par 64. In his first appearance at the PGA Tour’s season finale, he had a two-shot lead over a group that included Brooks Koepka, this year’s U.S. Open champion.
Spieth had a 67, and while it was a grind, he had no gripes about that.
He is the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup, and no one from the top five had a lower score. That kept Spieth on track in his bid to join Tiger Woods as the only two-time winners of the $10 million bonus since the postseason event began in 2007.
The top five seeds only have to win this tournament to take the bigger prize, though there have been three occasions in which someone else won at East Lake and walked away with golf’s biggest payoff when the leading players faltered.
That explains why Spieth spent more time looking at the leaderboard than he typically does in the opening round.
“I don’t know the scenarios, so it really doesn’t make a difference for me to watch the scoreboard other than to figure out how to get to the leaders,” he said. “It’s a weird scenario teeing off last when it’s the first round
and there’s only 30 guys.”
And it didn’t help to see what Stanley was doing.
The No. 22 seed and a long shot even to make the FedEx Cup, Stanley thought East Lake was plenty tough during the practice rounds. He just didn’t make it look that way, stuffing a wedge to two feet away from the hole on No. 3 to start his run of four straight birdies. He extended his lead by hitting a tee shot over the water to a front pin on the nervy par-3 15th and making his 18-foot birdie, then holed a 10-foot birdie on the 16th.
“I don’t have too good of a game plan for this golf course seeing it for the first time,” Stanley
said. “But I felt like maybe that would be key, just hitting a lot of fairways and giving myself chances on second shots.”
Stanley isn’t too wrapped up about the $10 million bonus, though Bill Haas won it in 2011 as the No. 25 seed. He was two shots ahead of Koepka — who played bogey-free — Paul Casey, Webb Simspon and Daniel Berger, who made eagle on the final hole.
Spieth was among five players at 67, a group that included two other top seeds, Justin Thomas (No. 2) and Jon Rahm (No. 5).
The good starts by Spieth, Thomas and Rahm are not helpful for most of the players closest to them on the leaderboard.
Koepka is the No. 9 seed, with Casey at No. 10, so they need the top seeds to stumble.
Dustin Johnson, the No. 3 seed, is not out of the picture after his bogey-free round of 68. His problem was that he made only two birdies, the first one on the par-3 11th hole and the other with a two-putt birdie on the par-5 18th.
Marc Leishman, at No. 4 coming off his victory in the BMW Championship last weekend, opened with a 71.
Atkins, Lindheim lead
BEACHWOOD, Ohio — Matt Atkins and Nicholas Lindheim each shot a 6-under 64 and shared the lead after the opening round of the DAP Championship, the third of four events in the Web.com Tour Finals.
Andrew Putnam and Brent Stegmaier were one shot back at Canterbury Golf Club, with six players sharing fifth place.
Former Baylor School standout Keith Mitchell was in the next group, tied for 11th after a 67, while Athens, Tenn., native Eric Axley opend with a 70 and had a share of 42nd.
Former Dalton High School golfer Blake Adams and Chattanooga’s Stephan Jaeger were part of a the crowd tied for 105th at 74, while former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga golfer Jonathan Hodge was another stroke back and tied for 116th. Jaeger, an alum of both Baylor and UTC who has already earned his PGA Tour card for next season, made an eagle on the par-5 ninth hole but managed just one birdie and had five bogeys plus a double bogey.
Tied in Portugal, too
VILAMOURA, Portugal — George Coetzee and Joost Luiten shared first place at the Portugal Masters after each shot a 7-under 64 in the first round at Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course.
They were a stroke ahead of Nino Bertasio, Gregory Havret, Jason Scrivener, Callum Shinkwin and Ashun Wu.
Luiten had seven birdies in a bogey-free round in the morning, and Coetzee matched him in the afternoon after starting with six birdies in his first eight holes.