The world No.1 birdied the first five holes at TPC Southwind and \u200cadded a sixth at No.7, in the first leg of the playoffs on \u200cFriday in Memphis.<\/p>\n
Bogeys at Nos.8 and 12 around one birdie at \u200cNo.10 took him off the pace for a possible sub-60 round, but he carded four more birdies over the final six holes to break from the pack.<\/p>\n
At 11-under (129) at the halfway mark, Scheffler caught Friday’s early leader, South Korea’s Sungjae Im, and gained a three-shot \u200cadvantage as \u200che seeks \u2060his first win since January.<\/p>\n
“You always want to try to get off to a good start,” the American said. “I was able to do that today.<\/p>\n
“Really, just a dream start. Probably one of the best starts I’ve had on tour, to be honest with you.”<\/p>\n
Scheffler was No.1 in the FedEx \u200bCup points race entering the week, so a victory changes nothing about his position.<\/p>\n
Im, however, is No.53 in points and trying to climb into the top 50 to qualify for next week’s BMW Championship. His second consecutive 66 puts him in striking distance entering the weekend. Im \u2060birdied the first three holes Friday and went \u200cout \u200bin 5-under (30) before two bogeys, sandwiching one birdie late in his round.<\/p>\n
Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg \u200bshot a \u200c65 to get to seven-under, and Viktor Hovland (64) of Norway was tied with him \u200bfor third.<\/p>\n
The back nine proved to be the nemesis for Adam Scott (70) and Min Woo Lee (71).<\/p>\n
Scott is tied 14th at four-under and could have been much higher in the field had it not been for bogeys on the 15th and 17th.<\/p>\n
Lee fell 14 spots into a tie for 27th after finding trouble on the par-four 12th, where he made double-bogey, before dropping a further shot on the 16th.<\/p>\n
But both Australians are well inside the top 50 – Lee currently 18th and Scott 26th.<\/p>\n
Germany’s Matty Schmid, who is tied 54th and currently sits at No.70 in the rankings, needs all the help he can get to keep his season alive.<\/p>\n
Schmid (70), at three-over, aced the fourth to do his chances a world of good.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune followed his 69 with a 70 to be at one-under, his round including an eagle on the 16th thanks to a great deal of fortune.<\/p>\n
None of the five first-round co-leaders matched their opening rounds of \u200b65. Jordan \u200bSpieth carded a one-under 69 \u200bto get to six under, where he was \u200ctied with reigning FedEx Cup champ Tommy Fleetwood (66) and Colombia’s Nico Echavarria (66).<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy fared better after a rough four-over \u200b74 to begin the tournament, but back-to-back bogeys at Nos.17 and 18 left \u200bhim with an even-par 70 \u2060and four-over for the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world No.1 birdied the first five holes at TPC Southwind and \u200cadded a sixth at No.7, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-855824","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\/855824","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=855824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}