Rested Rahm fires 62 for lead
MEMPHIS — Traveling from Northern Ireland to Tennessee left everyone who played four rounds at the British Open fighting jet lag.
Jon Rahm’s putter helped him recover pretty quickly.
The 24-year-old Spanish golfer matched the lowest round of his PGA Tour career with an 8-under-par 62 on Thursday at the FedEx St. Jude Invitational, taking advantage of nearly perfect greens to open a threestroke lead in the World Golf Championships event.
“I was pretty exhausted Monday and Tuesday, and that’s why I decided not to do much on the golf course and just make sure mentally I was going to be ready to compete,” said Rahm, who is No. 8 in the World Golf Ranking.
The former No. 1 amateur in the world spent about an hour on the putting green Wednesday. He didn’t step foot on the front nine, his back nine, until he made the turn Thursday, and he had five birdies on that side.
Rahm rolled in five putts of at least 16 feet for birdies in a bogey-free opening round at TPC Southwind, finishing with a seven-footer to save par. The former Arizona State standout also opened with 62s last year in his CareerBuilder Challenge victory and in January in the Farmers Insurance Open.
Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson was tied for second with fellow American Patrick Cantlay, Japan’s Shugo Imahira and Hideki Matsuyama and Australia’s Cameron Smith. Seventh place was even more crowded, with that six-man group that opened at 66 including European Ryder Cup hero Ian Poulter of England.
Justin Thomas, the winner of this tournament last year in its final time at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, opened with a 68 and was tied for 18th in a group that included top-ranked Brooks Koepka. Second-ranked Dustin Johnson, the St. Jude Classic winner on this course last year, and third-ranked Rory McIlroy were among those another stroke back in 24th.
Baylor School graduate Keith Mitchell was tied for 52nd after an opening 73 that included five bogeys and two birdies.
Lingmerth leads
RENO, Nev. — David Lingmerth had nine birdies to take the lead Thursday in the suspended first round of the Barracuda Championship, the PGA Tour’s lone modified Stableford scoring system event.
The Swede had 18 points at Montreaux Golf and Country Club under the format that awards eight points for an albatross, five for an eagle, two for a birdie and zero for par, and subtracts a point for bogey and three for double bogey or worse. Play was stopped at 5:10 p.m. local time because of lightning, then called off for the rest of the day.
Tyrone Van Aswegen, Tom Hoge and Robert Streb were tied for second with 13 points, and 2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang had 12. Bronson Burgoon was the top player still on the course — he had 10 points with five holes to play.
Former Baylor School and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga standout Stephan Jaeger was tied for 28th with six points through 13 holes. Harris English, another Baylor alum, was tied for 92nd with no points after a round that included two bogeys and a birdie.
Eric Axley from Athens, Tennessee, was tied for 121st with minus-4 points through 16 holes.
English weather
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — England’s Paul Broadhurst was joined by a quartet of Americans — Ken Duke, Scott Dunlap, Scott Parel and Wes Short Jr. — on top of the leaderboard at the Senior British Open when first-round play was suspended due to fading light.
The leaders were at 3 under at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club, which is playing as a par-70 course. Parel needed to play a hole and Duke two holes to complete the round. Short made an eagle on the par-5 11th, Broadhurst did the same on the par-4 13th and Dunlap enjoyed a bogey-free round.
Weather caused about a three-hour delay during the day, with play suspended twice because of lightning.
The six golfers a stroke back in second completed the round. That group was Woody Austin and Tom Gillis of the United States, former Ryder Cup captains Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and Colin Montgomerie of Scotland and Sweden’s Magnus P. Atlevi.
Ooltewah’s Gibby Gilbert III was 1 over through 14 holes, making a double bogey on the par-4 third but cutting into the damage with a birdie on the par-5 11th.
American on top
EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Paula Creamer was leading a major again after shooting a bogey-free 7-under 64 in the first round of the Evian Championship.
The last time Creamer topped a major leaderboard before Thursday was when she won the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open by four strokes for her ninth title on the LPGA Tour. At Evian Resort Golf Club, where she had a signature win as a teenager, the 32-year-old American moved one shot clear on the par-5 18th after making a birdie, her seventh of the round.
Tied for second were the United States’ Brittany Altomare, who was the 2017 Evian runner-up, and a trio of South Koreans: seven-time major champion Inbee Park, second-ranked Jin Young Ko and Mi Hyang Lee.
Creamer won the 2005 Evian Masters by eight strokes over Lorena Ochoa and Michelle Wie.