-The first round of THE PLAYERS began with withdrawals through injury from Ryan Fox and Collin Morikawa and is unfolding with a slight novelty compared with most previous editions played on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass: scores are slightly tighter in a first round in which the course (its conditioning) used to be a little more forgiving. It’s true the day is a bit daft, to the point play had to be suspended because of a downpour, but it’s not dreadful, nor has the wind been blowing excessively. One figure: last year a score of -1 finished Thursday in 47th place and 19 years ago (2007) it did not finish better than 23rd, a mark it will very likely not reach today. That half-inch higher and certainly consistent rough must have something to do with it…
– Scottie Scheffler (PAR), for example, hasn’t even managed to beat the course, although his problems go a little beyond the demands of the conditions. The World No. 1 still hasn’t found his best version. Today, for example, he suffered badly from the tee. He looked very uncomfortable with the driver in his hands. Then, after signing his card, he explained that this week he went out to compete with last year’s driver, leaving the new one on the bench — the one he’d been playing the previous tournaments with — and that somehow he hasn’t fully readapted for a mere matter of feel: with the new one, last week at Bay Hill, he was missing too much to the left, and this week, with the old one in his hands, he missed a lot to the right, probably trying to protect himself almost unconsciously…
– Anyway, that means Scheffler remains tangled up, for one thing or another, and isn’t firing on all cylinders. Today the driver was his main battleground, other times it’s the putter, and at Bay Hill, especially in the first three rounds, it was the irons that weren’t sharp. The matter, whatever the case, is fixable, because right now, at the time of writing this report, he’s five shots off the provisional leader, Maverick McNealy (-5), who last year missed the cut right here, but who in 2024, notably, teed off on Sunday in the penultimate group with serious chances of victory, and finished ninth after signing a 72.
– One of the standout names from the morning groups is Justin Thomas (-4). He returned last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational after a long absence due to a back injury and missed the cut by some way. He wasn’t yet tuned up or ready for top-level competition… But it didn’t take him long to be, because 68s weren’t handed out at the gate of TPC Sawgrass today. Ludvig Aberg (-3), Tommy Fleetwood (-3) and Viktor Hovland (-3) have flexed their Ryder Cup muscle and are also positioned up top initially. The Norwegian deserves special mention because today he only hit eight greens in regulation, yet he submitted a flawless scorecard, bogey-free. In other words, he made all ten recoveries, an unprecedented feat in the history of this tournament.
