Axley, Jaeger start well
BEECHWOOD, Ohio — Two golfers with Chattanooga-area ties were high up the leaderboard after Thursday’s opening round at the DAP Championship, the second of four Web. com Tour Finals events that will determine 25 PGA Tour cards for the 2018-19 season.
Eric Axley and Stephan Jaeger were part of a three-way tie for third after each opened with a 4-under-par 66. Axley, a native of Athens, Tennessee, avoided bogeys in his round. Jaeger, a Chattanooga resident who played at Baylor School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, made two bogeys but also four birdies and an eagle on the par-5 16th.
Kramer Hickok led after a 63, making eight birdies and a bogey while matching the course record at Canterbury Golf Club. A 26-year-old former University of Texas player, he already earned a PGA Tour card with a 23rd-place finish on the Web.com Tour’s regular-season money list.
Hickok missed a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th, leaving him tied for the course record with with Bobby Wyatt, who set the mark in the 2016 event.
“I had no idea,” Hickok said. “I really wanted it to drop. I actually misread it a little bit. I hit my line perfectly, but it went a little right on me. It would’ve been cool to set the record, but I’ll take 63.”
Justin Hueber was a stroke behind Hickok, and Adam Schenk was alongside Axley and Jaeger. There were 11 golfers tied for sixth at 67.
This playoff series features the top 75 players from the Web.com regular-season money list — Hueber was 42nd — plus Nos. 126-200 from the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup regular-season final standings — Jaeger was 165th and Axley 217th — and nonmembers with enough money to have placed in the top 200.
Hickok and the other top-25 finishers on the Web.com Tour’s regular-season money list are competing against each other for tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for 25 cards based on series earnings. Entering this event, Axley was tied for 54th and Jaeger was tied for 65th.
Ryder Cup battle
AARHUS, Denmark — Eddie Pepperell shot a 2-under 70 in the opening round of the Made In Denmark tournament to make the best start of the three players bidding to secure the final qualifying spot on Europe’s Ryder Cup team.
Pepperell, who needs to win the event to stand a chance of moving into the automatic qualification places, was playing in the same group as European captain Thomas Bjorn and ended the day six strokes behind leader Jonathan Thomson of England at Silkeborg Ry Golf Club.
Matthew Fitzpatrick (72) and Thorbjorn Olesen (73) are the other two players battling for the last spot via the world points list. A top-seven finish would guarantee Olesen a spot, while Fitzpatrick would jump ahead of him with a win if Olesen finished outside the top seven.
Olesen and Pepperell have never played in the Ryder Cup. Fitzpatrick made his debut in Europe’s loss to the Americans two years ago at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota.
Thomson made nine birdies in his 64, which was his career-best score on the European Tour. His two-shot advantage was over six players: Matt Baldwin, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Lucas Bjerregaard, Josh Geary, Brett Rumford and Hunter Stewart.
Alex on the mark
PORTLAND, Ore. — Marina Alex matched the Columbia Edgewater Country Club course record with a 10-under 62 to take a two-stroke lead over Brooke Henderson and Minjee Lee after the opening round of the Cambia Portland Classic.
Alex, 28, is a former Vanderbilt University standout in search of her first LPGA Tour win. She birdied the last four holes and five of the last six in a back-nine 30.
Henderson, the tournament’s 2015 and 2016 winner, birdied five of the last six holes. The 20-year-old Canadian star is coming off a victory in the CP Women’s Open, her country’s national championship.