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JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) – California rookie Sahith Theegala put his tee shots on the line and made it easy from there on Thursday for an 8-under-64 and a one-shot lead over Nick Watney and Harold Varner III at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Theegala missed three fairways but was only out of position once at Jackson Country Club. He birdie putt on every hole but one and ended his round birdie 15 feet on the ninth par-4.
It was also a big start for Watney, coming off one of his worst seasons. Watney hit a few long putts, including a 45-foot eagle on the second par 5 hole, for his lowest start to a PGA Tour event in 15 months.
Varner, whose wife is due next week, had another solid putting round with nine birdies.
“The place is pretty neat right now, if you hit a lot of good golf shots you’ll get a lot of stares and you just have to be patient,” Varner said. “And the way I’m saying it right now, I just need to put it on the green.”
Defending champion Sergio Garcia, the only Ryder Cup player on the pitch last week, birdied twice in a 70-bogey-less round that left him six shots behind. He’s been exhausted since last week, when he set the Ryder Cup record for most games won in a European loss. His only frustration was having too many chances in the 20ft range.
His birdie putts were 3 feet and 10 feet, one of them a par 5.
“Very happy not to ride bogeys. Obviously it’s always a very positive thing, a first round of the season without bogeys, very proud of that,” said Garcia. “But at the same time, I feel like I’ve driven the ball pretty well and not enjoying it.”
Theegala is on the growing list of young Americans with a solid pedigree. He won all three NCAA College Player of the Year awards in his final year at Pepperdine, which was cut short by the pandemic. He reached the PGA Tour on his first try in the Korn Ferry Tour final.
On his second start as a rookie he found the tree-lined course to his liking and said his course was best described as “really stress free”.
It started from the tee.
“I drove it really well. I was working really well,” Theegala said. “I got my slider back. I was hitting a pretty good cut – probably a 25 to 30 yard cut – there and this course kind of allows it because the trees around the tee aren’t that close.
“I felt really comfortable all day,” he said. “Being in the fairway helps so much.”
His putter was working great too. Only three of his eight birdies were inside the 15-foot range, and those were on par 5. He also made a 15-foot stop from the bunker on the fourth hole of par 3, the only time he was threatened with a bogey.
Watney has already reached the Tour Championship five years in a row and played in the Presidents Cup until he was slowed down by a herniated disc in his lower back. He missed the cut in all but six of the 25 events he played last year and worked hard in the month between seasons.
It was mostly his putting, and it started with his head.
“I think I missed a lot of putts before I even stroked the ball,” Watney said. “Lots of doubts about my reading, stroke, or posture, just a lot of unnecessary thinking. So I tried to develop a process of self-confidence. And so far so good.”
Two hits behind were Canada’s Roger Sloan, Si Woo Kim and Kurt Kitayama, a 28-year-old Californian in his first year on the PGA Tour.
Former US Open champion Gary Woodland, Sunjae Im and Corey Conners were among the 67-year-olds.
Kitayama went to UNLV and after two difficult years on the PGA Tour development circuit, he took his game overseas. He started on the Asian Tour, got his European Tour Card through a qualifying school, and won the European Tour twice.
He got a PGA Tour card for the first time when he finished 23rd in the Korn Ferry Tour final.
Since then Kitayama has returned to England to compete in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, his caddy has tested positive for coronavirus and he had to find a new caddy for the start of his PGA Tour season two weeks ago in Napa. , in California.
There was no golf last week because of the Ryder Cup.
“Having a week off was pretty nice to settle in,” he said.
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