Sam Ryder shot a bogey-free, seven-under-par 65 to open the Sanderson Farms Championship on Thursday. He is part of a four-way tie for the lead at the Country Club of Jackson in Mississippi.<\/p>\n
Eric Cole, Danny Walker and South African Garrick Higgo also made 65 after the first round.<\/p>\n
Max Homa is part of a large tie for fifth after he opened with a five-under 67.<\/p>\n
Amateur Michael La Sasso, the NCAA individual champion from Ole Miss, is tied for 13th at four-under 68, along with Australia’s Harrison Endycott.<\/p>\n
Endycott began his round on the back nine which he played in even par.<\/p>\n
But the 29-year-old from Sydney came home with a flourish, making birdies on the first, fifth, seventh and eighth without any bogeys to rocket up the field.<\/p>\n
Following the Ryder Cup last week, the PGA Tour resumed its FedEx Cup Fall series to determine the top 100 players who’ll retain full tour cards for 2026.<\/p>\n
While Endycott began the week in 237th, Walker (No.104) and Ryder (No.110) are among the players who are just outside the top 100.<\/p>\n
“I’m very aware where I’m at. You know it all year,” Ryder said. “You get a text every single week that tells you exactly where you are on FedEx. You can’t hide from it.”<\/p>\n
The top 50 players at the end of last season are already locked in for all signature events in 2026. Those who finish between Nos.51-60 will qualify for the first two signature events of 2026.<\/p>\n
There were two holes-in-one Thursday, both at the 183-yard fourth hole.<\/p>\n
Matt Kuchar rolled one in during his four-under 68 round while Denmark’s Niklas Norgaard got his on the way to shooting an even-par 72.<\/p>\n
Cole overcame a bogey on the opening hole and a double bogey at No.16 by making 10 birdies, including six in his final eight holes. The up-and-down day was not unlike his year at large.<\/p>\n
“I’ve had some good stuff in there for sure,” Cole said of his season. “Also haven’t played my best at times. So it’s kind of been a little bit hit or miss.”<\/p>\n
Endycott apart, Min Woo Lee (No.57) and Brett Drewitt are the only other Australians competing this week.<\/p>\n
Lee shot a two-under 70 for a tie of 54th, while Drewitt, from Taree, finished with a two-over 74.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Ryder shot a bogey-free, seven-under-par 65 to open the Sanderson Farms Championship on Thursday. He is part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-186486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}