The PGA Tour\u2019s McIlroy problem<\/a><\/p>\nHot at the leaders\u2019 heels on 66 was a pack including major winners Adam Scott, Gary Woodland and Hideki Matsuyama plus defending playoff champion Tommy Fleetwood.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeat is the biggest challenge,\u201d Scott said. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust pacing yourself. I don\u2019t think you can drink enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sweat a lot out there. The thing that comes with that is the mental errors. But overall, I played a pretty good round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Temperatures are set to soar even further in coming days.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth uses a towel to wipe his face during the first round of the St. Jude Championship. (AP Photo\/George Walker IV)Source: AP<\/p>\n
American Daniel Berger was absent due to a back injury, leaving 69 golfers trying to reach the top 50 in points to qualify for next week\u2019s second playoff event in St. Louis.<\/p>\n
Spieth, who reached the playoffs without a top-10 finish in 2026, won the 2015 Masters and US Open and 2017 British Open but has not taken a PGA title since the 2022 Heritage.<\/p>\n
He reeled off five birdies in seven holes starting with a 12-foot putt at the ninth. He sank a 40-foot putt at the par-three 11th, a 24-footer at the 13th and closed the run on a 17-foot birdie putt at 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tried to come into this week and be as patient, nonreactive, as possible, dumb it down to try to win,\u201d Spieth said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust knowing I\u2019m a lot better golfer than I\u2019ve been in a very long time and continue to believe in that.\u201d <\/p>\n
At 54th in points, he needs a good result to advance in the playoffs but called his round \u201cabout as stress-free as it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth has a share of the early lead at the St. Jude Championship. (Photo by Caleb Bowlin\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Thorbjornsen battled illness and the heat but had an eagle off an eight-foot putt at 16 and two birdies on the last four holes, closing with a 40-foot chip-in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little tough dealing with the heat and there\u2019s still a sickness, kind of hacking up on every hole, but I was very solid tee to green,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Knapp birdied his first three and last three holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like that part of it. Opening with three birdies is always nice,\u201d Knapp said. \u201cI hit the ball really well all day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Right on the edge\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
Kim birdied three of the first five holes and two of the final four. \u201cNice to get off to a good start,\u201d Kim said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully I can keep it going.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kitayama was three-under over the first three holes and also birdied two of the last four.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally liked how I hit it,\u201d Kitayama said. \u201cI gave myself a lot of good looks.\u201d <\/p>\n
World number one Scottie Scheffler shared 17th on 68.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel like I hit a ton of fairways. I was in the first cut a lot,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI did a good job of being patient and not trying to force it too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was right on the edge of having a good day kind of all day.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-time major winner Jordan Spieth, trying to end a four-year victory drought, fired a seven-under par 65 to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-854601","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\/854601","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=854601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}