Best of WWT round 1

Cameron Percy smiled. He shrugged his shoulders. In his final occasion, a month in the past now, he tied for forty third. In his three occasions earlier than that, Percy missed three weekends. He is lower than a 12 months away from the PGA Tour Champions, 50-and-over circuit, too. And right here he was Thursday, the chief on the World Wide Technology Championship, after a PGA Tour-personal finest 62. 

Golf, proper? But maybe nobody is extra shocked on the developments than Percy himself. 

“I was lying in bed this morning and everything was hurting, and I’m like, what am I doing?” Percy mentioned on Golf Channel.  

“I’m 49 now; what am I doing with these young bucks and stuff?” 

Winning, for one. 

With that, here’s a have a look at the darkness-delayed first round of the World Wide Technology Championship, performed on the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal Diamante course in Los Cabos, Mexico. 

A 49-year-old leads 

Percy began quick, stored it going and completed robust. He birdied 1, 3, 5 and 9 and eagled 6 for a six-under 30 on the entrance 9, and he birdied 10, 11, 13 and 18 for a 10-under 62. For some time, he flirted with a 59. 

With a handful of gamers but to complete their first round on account of darkness, Percy leads by two over 4 gamers. 

“Yeah, just hit a really nice drive down the first and a beautiful 3-wood about 30 feet, I guess, and rolled it about six foot by, which I didn’t want to do, then and made it,” Percy mentioned. “Then holed like a 15-footer on 3, which was nice. Then I holed a pitch shot from about 75 yards and that sort of kicked me along to five-under, I think. Then played really nicely through 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. I hit the ball beautifully. Didn’t hit it quite close enough coming in, but I had a few looks. I couldn’t make ’em all.”

Notably, Percy is planning to play in a couple of weeks within the PGA Tour Champions Q School. 

“I’m 152 I think on the [PGA Tour’s] money list or FedExCup, sorry, so finishing top 150 at my age would be fantastic,” he mentioned. “That’s kind of — I need to at the very least try this, but when I can preserve the ball rolling like I did right now, I ought to be capable to end quite a bit increased than that, after which lead into Q-School with the Champions Tour. 

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.”

A 17-year-old contends 

Eight pictures again of Percy is Billy Davis. 

Who is 32 years again of Percy. 

The 17-year-old sensation Monday-qualified into the occasion, then went to work. He birdied the tenth gap, his opening gap. And 13, 16 and 18. Davis, the dual brother of 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur winner Anna Davis, was contending, then stumbled towards the top and was two-under with one gap to go in his first round. 

“I had a really good group today,” Davis mentioned. “They were all nice to me so I felt pretty comfortable out there to begin with. Still have to play No. 9 tomorrow, but we’re in a good spot.”

One wild stat 

The fairways at El Cardonal at Diamante are broad. Ahead of the World Wide Technology Championship, gamers talked about it brazenly. 

“My first impression is that it’s not very tight off the tee,” Maverick McNealy mentioned. 

“The fairways are wider,” Keith Mitchell mentioned. 

“Yeah, the first thing I think of when it’s a Tiger Woods design is that you kind of know that the fairways are going to be wide,” Sahith Theegala mentioned. 

“It’s fairly wide off the tee,” Ludvig Aberg mentioned. 

And so on and so forth. 

But this stat was wild. 

During play on Thursday, gamers hit a whopping 90.3 % of fairways. Thirty-two gamers have been an ideal 14 of 14 on fairways hit. Forty-seven gamers missed one. Every participant hit at the very least 9. 

How correct was that? 

The PGA Tour common coming into the week was 58.07 %. The Tour’s finest participant in driving accuracy share, Russell Henley, was at 71.4 %. 

The leaderboard 

Below is a have a look at the leaderboard. Golf Channel’s protection of round two begins at 4:30 p.m. ET on Friday.