The final push is on to determine the final 30 for next week’s Tour Championship and it was playing partners Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott who pushed the hardest on Thursday at the BMW Championship.
Bradley and Scott, two major champions from the past, got out early and had their way with the South Course at the Wilmington Country Club. Bradley’s putter set the stage for a seven-under par 64 and he had that number on the leader-board before world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and world No. 3 Rory McIlroy started their first round action.
Bradley scorched the front nine with six birdies then basically treaded water coming home. Twenty-seven putts helped him set the first round tone and his good scoring rubbed off on Scott.
Scott was just a shot back, signing for a six-under par 65. “It was really a fun day today playing with Adam,” Bradley said after his round. “It’s always great playing with Adam, but we both were playing really well, hitting good shots, making putts.”
“We basically drafted off each other,” said Scott, putting it in NASCAR lingo.
Whatever they did, they are one-two after the first 18 holes and need a good week. Bradley comes in at 44th on the FedEx list, Scott is 45th. Only the top 30 will move on to next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake which means 48 of the 68-man field won’t make it.
Justin Thomas was the biggest name in the Bradley-Scott rearview mirror. J.T. opened with 66 and should have been at 65 with Scott had he not missed a two-footer for par at the 15th hole. Tied with Thomas at five under were Shane Lowry and Harold Varner III. Varner was notified this week that he’ll be inducted into the East Carolina Sports Hall of Fame this fall.
There was another big name who had a chance to be sitting at six-under with Scott and that was McIlroy. McIlroy has been on site since last Saturday and has more practice time on the first-time venue than anyone else in the field. McIlroy had it to six-under for the day but on the par three 15th, he hit an awful tee shot that sailed left, didn’t fade and splashed into the greenside pond. McIlroy walked off with a triple-bogey six that dropped him back to three-under par and that’s where he’d finish. His 68 left him tied for 13th with Scheffler, who struggled early but overcame a bogey and a double on his first nine holes.
Will Zalatoris, who finally broke through with his first career win last week in Memphis, had a hard time getting started. A double and a bogey had him two-over at the turn but a nice back-nine run got him to two-under but he gave one back with a bogey at 18 for 70. He’s the FedEx points leader thanks to that win last week.
Tiger Woods And EA Sports Are Back Together:
Tiger Woods was the cover star for EA Sports and its video games since 1998. In 2015, they parted ways.
EA Sports obviously knew it made a mistake.
Woods is back and is the cover guy/star of the new PGA Tur 2K23 game.
“Excited and honored to be the cover athlete for #PGATOUR2K23!” Woods tweeted and teased that more information on the game will be given on Monday.
Tiger signed a new deal with EA Sports as an Executive Director and consultant for the 2k video game.
2 Comments
forky76
I notice you failed to report the other partner to PGA Tour 2K23, Take 2 Interactive.. freshly capitalised with $3.3 billion from the Saudi PIF. I’m not going to say it, but plenty others would call it a bit hypocritical to take all this saudi money to front a video game, while at the same time denounce the source of all the LIV money.
Tom Edrington
Forky: The difference IS, those departing the PGA Tour are now CONTRACT EMPLOYEES of the Saudis……I’m sure we’d all take a check in the mail from those infidels, but I for one, would certainly NEVER sign a contract to be an EMPLOYEE of The Regime……big difference