Ahead of some:
Though unlikely to make the cut, Stephen Curry shows ability to hang with pros.
Stephen Curry’s debut in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event included several predictable happenings Thursday. He drew a large contingent of fans wearing No. 30 Warriors jerseys, and he sometimes struggled to keep his shots in play.
But the same extraordinary hand-eye coordination that makes Curry a dynamic basketball player also surfaced on the golf course. He shot a respectable 74, including three birdies, in the opening round of the Ellie Mae Classic, a Web.com Tour event in Hayward.
Put it this way: Curry beat Sam Ryder, one of the players in his group, by one stroke.
Ryder stands No. 2 on the tour’s money list, won his last start by eight shots and played in the U.S. Open in June. And there he was, posting a higher number than a man known for making three-point shots, not birdie putts.
“Steph kind of just hung tough,” Ryder said. “He never seemed to let the little stuff bother him.”
Tournament officials invited Curry to play on a sponsor exemption, hoping his popularity would raise the profile of this typically under-the-radar event. They issued more than 175 media credentials, com-
pared with fewer than 20 last year.
Not surprisingly, the crowd at TPC Stonebrae also was much bigger than usual: 2,500 on Thursday compared with 350 for last year’s opening round. That doesn’t rival the galleries at most PGA Tour events, but hundreds of spectators followed Curry’s group, traipsing around the hilly, difficult-to-walk course.
Curry acknowledged he was nervous wandering out of his element. In some ways, competing against Ryder and Stephan Jaeger rattled Curry’s knees more than facing LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in the NBA Finals.
“The feeling’s the same and the adrenaline rush is there, but you have a whole lot more time to think about what’s going on,” Curry said, comparing golf with basketball. “So as soon as he said my name on the first tee, that’s when I could barely feel my hands. I had to try to take a deep breath.”
Curry’s round did not begin auspiciously. His hooked tee shot on No. 10, his first hole, bounced off a steep hill left of the fairway and came to rest in a cup holder in a golf cart. Honest.
“That’s probably a first on tour,” Curry said later, chuckling. “Not an ideal way to start.”
Curry made three bogeys in his first five holes. His round was in early danger of spinning out of control, but he responded with his first birdie on No. 15, a par-5.
He sank a 6-foot putt and responded by pumping his fist, shoulder-bumping caddie Jonnie West and raising his arms in triumph.
Another highlight came on No. 18, where Curry’s tee shot found a fairway bunker. He wisely laid up short of the green, hit a half-wedge shot to 8-to-10 feet and saved par.
Curry’s back nine included his only double-bogey (on No. 5), followed by an unlikely birdie on the next hole. He coaxed home a 25-foot, curling birdie putt, then playfully told West to “go get that ball” out of the hole, just like Jordan Spieth did in the British Open.
Even a sloppy bogey on the final hole didn’t dampen Curry’s spirits. He satisfied his longtime curiosity about competing against tour pros, and he acquitted himself well.
“If you told me I was going to shoot 74 in the first round, I’d take that all day every day,” he said.
Curry is not the first athlete from another sport to take a crack at golf, or even this tournament. Former 49ers and Raiders wide receiver Jerry Rice played at Stonebrae three times (2010-12), but he broke 80 only once in five rounds.
Other accomplished hobby golfers, such as former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz, also have struggled when trying to compete against tour pros.
So what allowed Curry to hang in there Thursday?
“He’s the best shooter in the world,” Ryder said. “That hand-eye coordination translates to putting. I think a lot of good putters actually have good basketball-shooting skills.
“That’s the same kind of hand-eye ability, so that has a lot to do with his short game. A lot of it is just natural ability.”
Curry is still very unlikely to make Friday’s 36-hole cut. He is tied for 142nd in a field of 156. Only the top 65 players (plus ties) advance to the weekend.
Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ronkroichick