American Xander Schauffele sits atop the leaderboard within the first spherical of the PGA Wells Fargo Championship after a superb first spherical that included a controversial and fortuitous ‘line of sight’ drop.
The 30-year-old, at present No.3 on the FedExCup standings, pushed his tee shot proper on the eighth gap at Quail Hole, with the ball nestling in opposition to a fence in a closely wooded space of the course.
Watch each spherical of the PGA Championship LIVE & Unique to Fox Sports activities, accessible on Kayo. New to Kayo? Begin Your Free Trial In the present day >
Nevertheless, with a ShotLink tower positioned in his line of play, Schauffele was entitled to a line of sight drop inside two membership lengths, with the reduction level coming simply outdoors the timber on the pine straw. With a transparent have a look at the inexperienced, he despatched his second shot to about 34 ft and two-putted for par.
The ruling infuriated many golf followers, with anger directed each at golf officers for making the decision, and Schauffele for accepting it.
Schauffele admitted post-round he “acquired actually fortunate.”
“I introduced the foundations official in there with me as a result of I used to be like, you’ve acquired to be OK with this as a result of that is actually the one shot I can hit. So Austin and I moved two large rocks that weren’t embedded after which I acquired reduction out of the junk after which hit a reasonably good shot on the inexperienced from there.
“What was a really disturbing second become a reasonably stressless par.”
Schauffele continued whereas talking to Golf Channel: “The tower was within the luckiest spot doable after which we went left, that introduced me out the very fringe of the pine straw.
“I used to be tremendous fortunate. The birdie on the final was then the cherry on high for me.”
Schauffele completed day with a gap 7-under 64, three strokes away from Collin Morikawa, Alex Noren and three-time Wells Fargo champion Rory McIlroy.
Aussie Jason Day additionally made a shiny begin to sit at three underneath par, 4 photographs behind Schauffele
McIlroy is a three-time champion at Quail Hole, having taken his first PGA title on the format in 2010 and added crowns in 2015 and 2021.
Schauffele seeks his eighth profession PGA Tour triumph however the first for the 30-year-old American because the 2022 Scottish Open.
Heavy rain delayed the beginning by an hour for the sphere of 69 within the final main tuneup for subsequent week’s PGA Championship at Valhalla.
The saturated course made issues odd for Schauffele from the beginning. “It was a bizarre day as a complete,” Schauffele mentioned. “We had a delay. The course was soaking moist. I used to be in a position to kind of get into some rhythm sort of rapidly which was very nice.”
Wells Fargo Championship leaderboard after first spherical
64 – Xander Schauffele
67 – Collin Morikawa, Alex Noren (SWE), Rory McIlroy (NIR)
68 – Justin Thomas, Im Sung-jae (KOR), Jason Day (AUS), Sepp Straka (AUT), Lee Hodges, Russell Henley, Taylor Moore
69 – Jordan Spieth, Max Homa, Matt Kuchar, Nick Dunlap
70 – Gary Woodland, Denny McCarthy, Tom Hoge, Andrew Putnam, Kim Si-woo (KOR), Patrick Rodgers, Keegan Bradley, Kurt Kitayama, An Byeong-hun (KOR), Grayson Murray, Webb Simpson, Will Zalatoris, Cam Davis (AUS), Corey Conners (CAN), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA)