Merritt leads Barbasol as Lincicome struggles
>> NICHOLASVILLE: Brittany Lincicome found herself 16 shots off the firstround lead of Troy Merritt at the Barbasol Championship on Thursday, but that didn’t dim her pleasure in her PGA Tour debut.
“She had a smile on her face all day,” Sam Ryder, one of Lincicome’s playing partners, said of the eighttime LPGA winner, who became just the sixth woman to tee it up on the PGA Tour. “She was just a great sport out there.”
Lincicome said she largely managed to conquer her nerves, but a double-bogey at the par-three 18th, her ninth, and a triple-bogey six at the par-three seventh — her 16th, led to a six-over-par 78.
“I was pretty happy with my game over all,” said Lincicome, playing this week on a sponsor’s exemption. “I just had two bad holes. But I drove it well. I did all the things I said I needed to do, but just my putter let me down today.
“I was a lot calmer than I thought I was going to be, which was a relief. After the first tee shot I was like, ‘OK, let’s go. We can do this.’”
But the odds were against her making up enough ground in Friday’s second round to become the only woman besides Babe Zaharias in 1945 to make a PGA Tour 36-hole cut.
While the spotlight was on Lincicome, Merritt put together a sparkling round of 10-under-par 62 at Keen Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
“I put my old putter back in play last week and started making some putts,” said Merritt, who had eight birdies and an eagle. “[I] felt pretty good on Tuesday, and then felt pretty good in the nine-hole pro-am yesterday. Today just continued hitting the same shots and made the putts and didn’t make any silly mistakes. Posted a 62.”