Memphis doesn’t have any world-famous thrill rides but Dustin Johnson created his own on Thursday at the St. Jude Classic.
First things first — he got off to a horrible start at the TPC Southwind. He played the back nine first and was two-over through his first five holes. Then at the 16th hole, the light switch came on.
Johnson eagled the par five to make up for dunking his tee shot in the water on the par three 14th where he took double-bogey. After the eagle, Johnson reeled off four straight birdies before a bad bogey at the par five third ended his mini-run. Two more birdies would come on the way in then a puzzling bogey at his final hole of the day, the ninth, where he failed to get up-and-down from just off the green, only 15-feet from the hole.
“Obviously I hit a lot of great shots,” Johnson said after his crazy day ended with him turning in a four-under par 66, that could have been a 63 without much trouble. “Bad swings on three and 12. A couple of bad swings cost me a bunch of shots. I felt like I played a lot better than that. I’m driving it in the fairway and hitting a lot of good iron shots.”
But he didn’t hit a good shot at the ninth, his 18th where from 110 yards, he missed the green with a wedge in his hand and hit a poor chip.
Despite those mistakes, he found himself just a shot off the lead shared by Tom Hoge, Shawn Stefani and Seung-Yul Noh. They all shot 65s.
Phil Mickelson got off to a less than spectacular start with an even-par round of 70. Same for another pre-tournament favorite, Brooks Koepka. Koepka joined Mickelson and 25 others at even par 70.
