Heat, hazards will come into play at TPC Potomac
BETHESDA, MD. It turned out there were good scores to be had at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm.
Whether that remains the case for the duration of the Quicken Loans National is a mystery.
Despite red numbers clogging the scoreboards Thursday during the first round of the PGA Tour’s annual stop north of the nation’s capital, players weren’t moved enough to believe the rugged course spread out over a former cattle ranch is a pushover.
The players know they had it good in the first round, as light winds did little to influence play and greens that were hand-watered Wednesday evening and Thursday morning proved manageably receptive for most of the day.
“I was able to hit a lot of fairways, which is key if you want to make some birdies. Obviously putted quite well. Those were two main things out here, hit a lot of fairways and give yourself some chances and hopefully the putts will go in,” said David Lingmerth, who set the pace with a 5-underpar 65.
Lingmerth, who won the 2015 Memorial at Jack Nicklaus’ place in Ohio, also called on good feelings during his round. He won the 2012 Neediest Kids Championship on the Web.com Tour here at Avenel.
“This is a great golf course. It sets up well for me,” he said. “Obviously, anytime you come back to a golf course where you’ve won, you have great memories from the get-go. It just brings back good thoughts in my head, and I know that I can probably contend here and play well. Had a solid first day, so now it’s just a matter of keeping it going.”
A lot of players had it going. Six players finished a stroke behind Lingmerth at 66: 2015 Quicken Loans champion Troy Merritt, Daniel Summerhays, Marc Leishman, Johnson Wagner, Sung Kang and Nick Taylor.
At 67 were seven players, including Patrick Reed. At 68 were 11 players. At 69 were six.
All this came after defending champion Billy Hurley, who practices and plays out of TPC Potomac, said this week that there “are no low scores here.”
For some, there weren’t any. Si Woo Kim, The Players champion, shot 79. Justin Thomas, who has won three times this season and shot 63 in the U.S. Open, took a quadruple-bogey 9 on the par-5 10th and shot 74.
In the field of 118, 19 players didn’t break 75.
And now the heat comes — the forecast calls for three consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 90 degrees.
“This is a big ballpark,” said Merritt, who was bogey free. “Guys have to play really solid. It doesn’t necessarily benefit the bombers or the short guy, it benefits the guy who hits it in play and can make a lot of pars.”
That part of making a lot of pars isn’t said very often at PGA Tour stops. But Aussie Leishman, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, likes to hear such talk and relishes the difficult condi- tions. To him, it feels like home.
“It’s getting pretty baked, which is great. It feels a lot like Melbourne actually,” he said. “You can hear that real, you know, the hard sound when the ball hits the green. You’ve got that purplish color, especially by the end of the day. It’s great, I’m enjoying it. ...
“The greens are very firm, fairways are fast so they’re hard to hit, and the rough’s brutal. So there’s a lot of hazards out there. Generally you try and stay clear of the hazards, but if you miss the fairway on the other side, it’s a tough task from there as well. So you’ve really just got to just pick a good target and commit to it. If you hit a bad shot, you’re going to get punished.” Especially in the rough. “The rough is gnarly,” Wagner said. “When you get in the rough, unless you have a wedge in your hand, you’re better off laying up in the fairway and trying to get up and down for par than doing something silly like trying to go for the green with a long iron, because there’s just nothing good that can happen trying to hit a long iron out of this rough.”