{"id":431356,"date":"2026-01-23T03:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/431356\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:28:09","slug":"min-woo-lee-co-leads-amex-with-a-62-with-jason-day-one-behind-as-scottie-scheffler-picks-up-where-he-left-off-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/431356\/","title":{"rendered":"Min Woo Lee co-leads AmEx with a 62, with Jason Day one behind as Scottie Scheffler picks up where he left off \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Photo: Jed Jacobsohn\/Getty Images]<\/p>\n<p>Imagine that, Scottie Scheffler\u2019s name is near the top of a leaderboard.<\/p>\n<p>Coming off a six-win season that included two majors, the world No.1 said earlier this week that he doesn\u2019t come to tournaments seeking to shake off rust, he comes prepared to win. Diligent practice at home is what prevents rust from accumulating.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.australiangolfdigest.com.au\/pga-tour-liv-golf-brooks-koepka-2026-marketing-campaign-commercial-slogan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The PGA Tour\u2019s new 2026 marketing campaign (featuring Brooks Koepka)\u00a0is a clear jab at LIV Golf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Playing in his first competitive round of the year, the reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year birdied five of the first six holes at La Quinta Country Club, one of the easier tracks at the American Express tournament. He made another birdie on the eighth hole to turn in 30 and made three more on the back nine to end at nine-under 63 with nine birdies and no bogeys.<\/p>\n<p>Min Woo Lee and Pierceson Coody both shot 62 at the Nicklaus Tournament Course to hold the overall lead. Eight others tied Scheffler at 63, including Jason Day and Patrick Cantlay. Day played the most difficult of the three host layouts \u2013 the Stadium Course \u2013 and so can be considered the \u2018effective\u2019 leader. His 63 was two shots better than any other player on the layout that will host the whole post-cut field on the final day.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Scottie&#8217;s first missed green of the day \u2026 still makes birdie.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa Golf Channel <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NdU1rxpuzS\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/NdU1rxpuzS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PGATOUR\/status\/2014458641391272269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got off to a good start today I was really sharp on the front nine. Made some nice putts. Hit some good iron shots. A lot of good tee balls,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t as sharp as I hoped to be on the back nine, but I scrambled pretty well and I was able to post a good score.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scheffler actually struggled to find fairways during the first round, hitting only five of 14. But he was typically robotic on approach shots finding 17 of 18 greens. He made birdie on the one hole where he missed the green.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019ll now move to the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Friday because playing the final two rounds on the Stadium Course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou got to keep pace out here,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI think the hardest part about these tests where you have to shoot so low is you can only shoot so many under par in a round of golf. I think, when you look at the harder tests there\u2019s always a couple guys each round that are able to shoot something really low. The easier tests, where the scores are crazy low, if you start falling behind it\u2019s a lot harder to keep up, so you have to keep pace out here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Jed Jacobsohn\/Getty Images] Imagine that, Scottie Scheffler\u2019s name is near the top of a leaderboard. Coming off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,5499,225803,5488,44,1747,225804,1657,85,225805],"class_list":["post-431356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-jason-day","tag-la-quinta-country-club","tag-min-woo-lee","tag-news","tag-pga-tour","tag-pga-west","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports","tag-the-american-express"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431356","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=431356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}