Davis started with a two-under-par 68 at the Canadian Open to raise hopes of a decent finish that just might spark a desperately needed career revival.<\/p>\n
The former Australian Open champion still sits four shots behind the six players sharing the first-round lead, including five-time major winner Brooks Koepka, but it’s a start after missing eight cuts in 2026.<\/p>\n
The stressed-out two-time PGA Tour winner took an extended break from the game last year, hoping a mental reset would lead to a turnaround.<\/p>\n
“The pressure of trying to keep my card out there has held me back quite a lot. It is pretty hard to enjoy it sometimes when you feel like your job’s on the line every week,” Davis said.<\/p>\n
However, his woes have continued. Davis’ so-far wretched season has yielded a meagre $US46,856 in prize money and left the two-time PGA Tour winner languishing in 197th spot in the FedExCup standings and 295th in the world rankings from a career-high No.38.<\/p>\n
A weekend Masters contender only two years ago, Davis has been a U.S tour mainstay since 2019, but is racing the clock to finish inside the top 100 in August to retain his card for next season.<\/p>\n
After turning in four-under, Davis’ round could have been even better, had he not dropped two shots on his back nine on Thursday (Friday AEST).<\/p>\n
In a welcome showing ahead of next week’s U.S Open, Koepka rolled in eight birdies, including at the first and last holes, at TPC Toronto to claim a six-way share of the lead.<\/p>\n
The former world No.1’s second U.S Open title in 2018 came at Shinnecock Hills, to where the year’s second major returns in 2026.<\/p>\n
Koepka has yet to seriously contend since returning to the PGA Tour following a three-year stint at LIV Golf.<\/p>\n
“I have played great this year. It is just the putting that’s held me back, trying to be mechanical,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But it was nice today to at least turn the brain off and go from there.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think the ball striking was as good as it’s been as of late … but it was nice to see the putter finally heat up.”<\/p>\n
Fellow Americans Sam Burns, Eric Cole and Sahith Theegala, Argentine Emiliano Grillo and Canadian Matthew Anderson also opened with 64s. \u00a0<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s Ryan Fox is tied for 19th at four-under, with Davis the leading Australian, one stroke ahead of Karl Vilips, who opened with a 69.<\/p>\n
With The AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Davis started with a two-under-par 68 at the Canadian Open to raise hopes of a decent finish that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-731708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731708","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=731708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}