2023 Players Championship: Scottie Scheffler’s wits, Rory McIlroy’s woes, nine-point lead from Round 1

A pair of young stars are in contention after the first round of the 2023 Players’ Championship. Collin Morikawa dashed out of the gate on Thursday morning at TPC Sawgrass, scoring a bogey-free under-65 to take the lead. one stick ahead of Chad Ramey. Coming up this week amid a boom or bust five tournament streak that includes two misses and three top 10 finishes, Morikawa seems to be bursting out early.

However, he’s not the only young major champion to feature in the PGA Tour’s top event as the defending Player of the Year. Scottie Scheffler’s day wasn’t as flashy as Morikawa’s, but it was enough for him to sign 4 under 68. Starting the day with nine straight strokes, the world No. 2 hit five backstrokes. 9 birdies to win the championship. the first page of the ranking.

Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth and Cameron Young completed the action on Thursday with solid efforts in a tougher afternoon wave and will look to hold the pedal for the metal early Friday. Also needing to do some damage are world No 1 Jon Rahm (-1) and world No 3 Rory McIlroy (+4), who are near the bottom of the standings.

Here are 10 thoughts from the opening round of the 2023 Players Championship.

1. Chad Ramey? Get to know Ramey now as this probably won’t last. Ramey hit five hits with his batting on Thursday, which is completely unsustainable. He hasn’t had a single top 20 finish in his last 25 starts worldwide, and he’s missed three straight cuts. So of course (of course!) he beat Rory by 12 in Round 1.

What the former Mississippi State Bulldogs golfers have to offer is a fascinating extra episode after 18 holes. Can someone who has played PGA Tour golf below standard the past six months beat Morikawa, Speth and Scheffler at TPC Sawgrass to win the Player?!

“It gives me confidence, and deep down I believe I belong here,” said Ramey, the only person to win the PGA Tour at the Puerto Rico Open last March. “I believe I can beat them. I guess it’s just a matter of proving to others that I can. But it’s great to see my name there with them because I won an opposing event. , but a win is a win in my book, so I won’t complain.”

2. Crush Morikawa: When Morikawa hit, he access times. So far, his 2023 is a microcosm of that. In his last five starts, he has two missed cuts and three top-six finishes. The stat that is cited (which I quoted) in good plays like this is his putting skill. While this is technically true, it also doesn’t tell the whole story. Data Golf notes that Morikawa is one of the best in the world at combining a great putting week with a great batting week, which is what he looks like he will be doing this week.

On Thursday, Morikawa won right away on a green stroke, but he led the field in iron play and tee play in general. It’s a dreaded formula and one that has led to his career-deserving victories over the past few years alone. Especially for someone who says he plays with a lot of freedom.

“I would say, for the most part, I’m back to playing the way I used to.” he say. “I’m trying to enjoy it. I’ll say, this week, what I found earlier this week, my swing probably hasn’t been this good since 2019 when I first debuted. I played great, 2020, 2021 , but position wise I just like where I am and release everything, just allow me to look up at my goal and hit the ball and hope it comes where I want.”

3. Smart Scheff: Player #2 in the Official World Golf Ranking is somehow still underrated. Scheffler has come into this week almost two full shots per tournament in hitting the ball better than the second-best batting striker in the world so far in 2023. That’s amazing. It continues on Thursday. Scheffler has won nearly five strokes on the court from tee to green, and he does it by playing smart shot after smart shot and making shots as they go. appear.

Here’s an example on the 8th hole par-3. Scheffler played on the left side of the green, its main part, while teammates Rahm and McIlroy hit shots from long and to the right, showing that they were capable of ripping through this right pin. They combined to play 1 while Scheffler hit the 1-foot side. This is a microcosm of his intellect, but add it up over 18 or 72 holes — and combine it with his batting talent — and you start to understand why he won. many golf tournaments like that.

4. Min Woo Cramps: I feel horrible for Min Woo Lee, but at the same time, I find myself chuckling when I see a grown man curling up on the back of a lawn chair while another grown man with bangs slicked back white hair — which some on Twitter said resembles President Joe Biden — worked the muscles in her calves. What a scene! Lee, who has the best mustache in all of sports, shared a slight lead before taking the lead by bogey on the final two holes. Still, it’s a brave effort for someone who looks like he’s almost impossible to be late.

He blames the cramps on a lack of electrolytes, and it looks like he’ll be fine for the next couple of innings.

Speaking of Min Woo… His younger sister, Minjee, is ranked in the top 5 in the world on the female side. How crazy is it to have a sibling in the top 50 in both men’s and women’s golf?! “Out of the same tees, I will [beat her]. But when she played against women and I played against men, it was pretty close,” said Min Woo. So I thought for over 100 laps, I thought she was going to beat me because I could hit it aside and she didn’t hit it out of the fairway. Yeah, it’s pretty close, I think.”

5. Rory is in trouble: We talked about the right miss McIlroy was off the teeing ground on Thursday morning, but what really pushed him out of the tournament was an ice-cold putt. He hit just one over four-foot hit on Thursday and is near the bottom of the field in terms of hits. That was a problem on the West Coast as he lost seven strokes in two tournaments, and it was an even bigger problem on Thursday in the first round at TPC Sawgrass.

6. Fireworks number 17: We saw a bit of everything in 17th place in Round 1. The day started with a sick Hayden Buckley ace.

This leads to the best way you can describe an ace.

Then, at the end of the day, Nick Watney made four putts to hit a quadruple bogey with three of those putts coming from within 4 feet. One of them was a one-handed miss from 9 inches. Number 17 may be overrated as a hole of golf, but it always seems to provide drama.

7. Rough: What several players mentioned on Thursday was the rough play of the penalty. Good driving is almost always a prerequisite for good golf at this championship, but it looks like that will be especially true this time around.

McIlroy said: “I feel this is a punishment because I have witnessed it so brutally for a long time. “You’re going to have to go back to the tournament time in May, when we had a hard time in Bermuda, because it’s such a penalty. Yeah, you don’t hit it on the fairway here, you’re going to struggle.”

Morikawa added: “It’s just the way the greens are angled here and obviously where they put the pegs you can’t hit them. You won’t have spin. So when the ball is down as much as so, I mean, you’ I’m just trying to put it on the front edge and try to make a 4. So that’s why it’s really important. I missed, I was in the cellar or the cannula or the first cut. So I made some, that’s really good, and you can use that to your advantage. “

The greens burn as the day goes on (the afternoon waves are stronger than the morning by almost a hit), and Morikawa notes that he doesn’t think to water them for the rest of the week. This places an even greater premium on finding streams over the next few days.

8. Roller coasters and adjoining roller coasters: The most interesting group of the afternoon was the Justin Thomas-Jordan Spieth-Max Homa group. Spieth did it on Monday 9 with one of the dirtiest hits of the day in 11th place, and JT got a taste of Spieth’s euphoric lifestyle (in the process).

Thomas shot a 73 with two birdies and an eagle (like Spieth certainly), and Spieth somehow became a short with a third under. Traditionally he hasn’t played well on this course and his left miss means a 7 is always close to Sawgrass, but his 69 on Thursday was a great score in the morning wave. more difficult dimension.

9. Quote of the day: “Sadly, golf is never really easy. I wish it felt a little easier more often.” — Scottie Scheffler, front four behind