Scores, standings Charles Schwab Challenge 2023: Harry Hall leads with stars all around, Michael Block grapples

Block Party went to the Colonial Country Club on Thursday and it didn’t go as planned.

The hero of last week’s PGA Championship, pro club Michael Block, played in his first event after last week’s insane major championship at the Charles Schwab Challenge. We’ll cover his tough round below as well as dig a little deeper into the rounds of some of the top players in the field.

Next week’s majors always leave you feeling a little breathless, but there are plenty of stars in the field at Colonial to consider. Let’s get to a few of them, but let’s start at the top with our leader, Harry Hall.

Leader

1. Harry Hall (-8)

British Bryson (if you’ve seen pictures like the one below, you’ll know why this is his nickname) hit an eight under 62 hit on Thursday and won more than eight shots. shot on the field with his performance. In a word, consider the fact that there were only 4 players with 4 under, and Hall doubled them all. The only player between him and the under-4s was Harris English, who also had a great first day.

The question now is whether it is sustainable. The numbers say no. Hall leads the field placing Thursday, which is a sign for someone to regress in the next three rounds. Hall’s best ever on the PGA Tour is T8 at Shriners 2021. With the horses circling him in the Colonies, it’s hard – even after a hot start – to see him progress on that.

Even Hall seemed a bit surprised by the performance, saying he didn’t really see it coming. His only top 10 for 2023 is T7 at the Puerto Rico Open and T10 at the Mexico Open.

“I don’t tend to see anything coming,” Hall said. “But I’ve played some good golf this season and I’ve had a couple of top-10s. Yeah, it’s great to be on top of the leaderboards. Hopefully I can keep my distance from the section. the rest of the yard this afternoon.”

Others are arguing

2. English Harris (-5)

T3. Tom Hoge, Adam Schenk, Robby Shelton, Andrew Putnam (-3)

T7. Michael Kim, David Lipsky, Austin Smotherman, Ryan Fox, Si Woo Kim, Billy Horschel, Sam Bruns, Scottie Scheffler, Chez Reavie, Dylan Fritteli, Emiliano Grillo, Ben Griffin, Max Homa, Kevin Streelman, Ben An, Carson (-3) )

Well, now you understand why Hall holding here is not a good bet. Hoge led the course from tee to green, English nearly won a shot in every statistical category, Burns recovered from a brutal performance at the PGA Championship, and Scheffler practiced a “don’t take the shot” routine. but still shoot 67″ as usual.

It is clear that the world No. 1 stands out here, but the committee argues more that Hall must be concerned with competing on Friday and then the weekend. Scheffler is close to hitting three automatics at this point, which should lead to contention and victory or a top 10 finish.

His 10 tournaments so far this year look like this.

• PGA: T2
• Byron Nelson: T5
• Red blood cell heritage: T11
• Master: T10
• Match: Wednesday
• Player: 1
• Arnold Palmer’s Invitation: T12
• Phoenix Expansion: 1
• American Express: T11
• Championship Tournament: T7

Try your best. Excessive! It’s happening, though, because he has the best continuous tee-to-green game in the world right now. He’s a heavy favorite for a reason.

Stop the party is over

It crashed on Thursday. After a media tour for the ages, Block was the only player to shoot worse than 77, and he shot 81. He started bogey-bogey-bogey before seemingly plunging into the ship with a pair birdie on the way out. After a shot on the 10th that he somehow equalized, things went awry. He played a double-double-par-double with a score of 11 out of 81.

“It was one of those golf days,” Block said. “If you play golf, you know exactly what just happened. So I don’t really need to explain too much because, if you’re a golfer, you’ve had your day. You get the point. truth about this place the lies are not good and the trees are always in your way Even your good shots are bad, your bad shots are worse.

“That’s it. I’ll live with it. I thought it was going to happen in the third or fourth innings last week at Oak Hill, and it never happened. It happened now, and I’m not surprised by it, to tell you the truth.”

He went on to say that he is happy to see his children tomorrow night but added that he could spin 58 or 59 to make it to the next round.

Challenging rate Charles Schwab

Via Caesars Sportsbook

• Scottie Scheffler: 16/5
• Harry Hall: 10-1
• Homa max: 12-1
• Harris English: 14-1
• Sam Burns: 16-1
• Andrew Putnam: 22-1
• Tom Hoge: 25-1
• Rickie Fowler: 25-1
• Si Woo Kim: 25-1

Scheffler is the favorite because it looks like he can’t shoot anything worse than 67 at a regular PGA Tour event right now. However, my two favorites are Fowler and Kim with a score of 25-1. Kim specifically flushed it, and Fowler has been stealthily solid all year. I prefer 25-1 to Scheffler 3-1.

Rick Gehman with Kyle Porter through Round 1 of the Charles Schwab Challenge. Follow and listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts And Spotify.