said heading into the event <\/a>the \u201cdo-or-die\u201d nature of the situation was motivating.<\/p>\n\u201cSometimes we, or I have fell in the trap of like there\u2019s always next week if it doesn\u2019t work out and that\u2019s not the case here, so I think that\u2019s not a pressure but more motivation,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
Dahmen, also fighting to make the season-ending playoffs where a US$100m (A$155m) in bonuses are on offer,fired a nine-under par 61 to seize a one-shot lead. Dahmen arrived at the event ranked 101st in the tour\u2019s FedEx Cup standings. The top 70 advance to the playoffs that start next week with the St. Jude Championship.<\/p>\n
Dahmen attacked the challenge with 10 birdies, including three in a row to cap his round at the seventh, eighth and ninth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you ever see 61 coming, but I saw good golf coming,\u201d Dahmen said, pointing to a stretch of some 45 holes without a bogey last week.<\/p>\n
Masters hero returns for Aussie Summer | 01:02<\/p>\n
A victory would move Dahmen into 48th place in the FedEx Cup standings, although the 37-year-old — who has one win on his resume — was quick to note there was a lot of golf left to be played.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe playoffs are a bonus for me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just going to go out and try to play good golf and I guess if I play really well then I get to play another week.\u201d Dahmen had a one-stroke lead over Sweden\u2019s Alex Noren, whose eight-under round was highlighted by an eagle at the par-five fifth hole.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Aaron Rai, Colombian Nico Echavarria and Americans Mark Hubbard and Cameron Young were tied for third on seven-under while Scott\u2019s fellow Australians Karl Villips (67) and Cam Davis (68) also started with under-par rounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A late birdie blitz has boosted Adam Scott\u2019s hopes of sneaking into the PGA Tour\u2019s lucrative end-of season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[6938,5487,2620,33062,2095,33057,64,63,33067,33065,33066,1208,2057,33058,653,2105,755,31660,33060,33059,31540,2041,31659,2067,3583,33064,31673,85,9210,33061,2614,33063],"class_list":["post-36559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-aaron-rai","tag-adam-scott","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-alex-noren","tag-america","tag-american-leader","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-birdie-blitz","tag-birdie-blitz-boosts","tag-cam-davis","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-final-fives-holes","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-golf","tag-greensboro","tag-joel-dahmen","tag-jude","tag-masters-hero-returns","tag-north-america","tag-north-carolina","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-opening-round","tag-packed-australian-summer","tag-sports","tag-staff-writers","tag-under-par-rounds","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-veteran-needs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36559","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=36559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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