MUÑOZ FIRES 2ND 60 OF YEAR
Sebastian Muñoz was standing in the middle of the fairway on the 18th hole thinking about his shot at a 59 in the first round of the Byron Nelson in McKinney, Texas. After missing the green, he became the first player in PGA Tour history with two rounds of 60 in the same season.
Muñoz made a nice flop shot from the right of the green, then holed the 12-foot birdie putt to wrap up his 12under round that included an impressive surge after his only bogey.
“I mean, I wanted to give myself a chance. It was 250 (yards) to the pin into the wind. I kind of wanted to hit like a bullet, like a little draw,” Muñoz said. “I knew if I want to hit it close, had to be a fade, soft-landed shot. I tried to do that. Overdid it and ended up with a 60, which is really good around here.”
Good for a four-stroke lead over defending champion K.H. Lee, Mito Pereira, Peter Malnati and Justin Lower. Kyle Wilshire, a Monday qualifier making only his third career PGA Tour start, was alone in sixth after a 65 that included a near hole-in-one when he banged the flagstick with his tee shot at the 230-yard, par-3 seventh.
Lee won the 2021 Nelson at 25-under par when his low round was a 65. He played in the same group Thursday with Scottie Scheffler and Justin Spieth, the major champions from Dallas whose first PGA Tour events were both as teenagers at the Nelson when it was still at TPC Four Seasons.
Scheff ler, the No. 1 player in the world, and Spieth both
shot 67. So did 11th-ranked Dustin Johnson, who started on the back nine with five birdies and then had four more, along with four bogeys.
Muñoz also had a 60 in the opening round of the RSM Classic at Seaside in Georgia in November, although that was a 10-under score. He went on to finish third.
This is his seventh time as a first-round leader, but his only PGA Tour win came at the Sanderson Farms Championship two seasons ago when he was 43rd after an opening 70.
TPC Craig Ranch, the second-year home of the Nelson, is about 30 miles north of
downtown Dallas and 30 miles east of the University of North Texas in Denton, where Muñoz went to school.
Elsewhere
Steve Stricker shot a 7under 65 to take a two-stroke lead over Miguel Angel Jimenez and Wes Short Jr. after the opening round of the Regions Tradition in Birmingham, Ala., the first of five PGA Tour Champions majors.
Stricker, the 2019 champion, closed his bogey-free round with a birdie on No. 18 at Greystone Golf & Country Club. Jimenez, the 2018 winner, started on the 10th tee and broke out of a 10-player logjam
at 4 under with a birdie on No. 8.
• Madelene Sagstrom shot a flawless 9-under 63 during a round she felt holes kept getting larger and grabbed a onestroke lead over Megan Khang after the first round of the LPGA Cognizant Founders Cup in Clifton, N.J. Nasa Hataoka, who won in Los Angeles in April before taking time off, was third after a 65 on the Upper Montclair Country Club course.
• English golfer Callum Shinkwin claimed a share of the lead with countrymen Dale Whitnell and Sam Horsfield after the first round of the Soudal Open in Antwerp, Belgium.