Masters champion Rory McIlroy, second in the standings coming in, carded a four-under par 66 that included an 30-foot eagle at the sixth and the moment of the day \u2014 an unlikely birdie at 18, where his shot out of a greenside bunker flew the green, hit the grandstand and bounced back onto the putting surface to leave him a 17-foot putt.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/content.foxsports.com.au\/fs\/electrode\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Henley had made a strong start with two birdies and an eagle on the front nine, adding back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13 before he drained a 42-foot birdie at 16 to launch his closing burst.<\/p>\n
He added a 34-foot birdie at 17 and got up and down from a greenside bunker for birdie at the par-five 18th.<\/p>\n
His 207 total feet of putts made included three from beyond 30 feet. \u201cI putted as good as I can putt,\u201d Henley said. \u201cI felt like I was clear on my reads. Last week I felt like I played really well and didn\u2019t give myself a bunch of looks because I couldn\u2019t figure out how far the ball was going and struggled a little bit on the looks of those greens.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Today) just felt a little more clear in my mind on what I thought the ball was going to do … just kind of free-wheeled it a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell Henley of the United States follows his shot from the 18th tee during the first round of the TOUR Championship 2025 at East Lake Golf Club.Source: AFP<\/p>\n
He walked off the 18th green with a three-shot lead but Scheffler — who has won five times in his last 10 starts and nabbed major titles at the PGA Championship and British Open this year — closed with back-to-back birdies in a bogey-free seven-under par 63.<\/p>\n
He was a stroke in front of five players sharing third on six-under 64. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hit some fairways and I holed some nice putts as well,\u201d said Scheffler, who got his round going with birdies at the second and third and added another at the sixth.<\/p>\n
Unhappy with his approach at the 10th he nevertheless rolled in a 27-foot birdie putt, and after a birdie at 15 managed to get up and down for par from the dangerous right rough below the elevated green at 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew going down there right of 16 was a huge penalty,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cWe had talked about it in the practice rounds, and our job was just to get the ball back on the green, which I did, and it was nice to hole that long putt.\u201d He drilled another 27-foot birdie at 17, then blasted out of a greenside bunker to four feet at 18 and made that putt for solo second moments before approaching thunderstorms would have halted play.<\/p>\n
Two-time major winners Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa were in the tie for third on 64 alongside fellow American Patrick Cantlay, Scotland\u2019s Robert MacIntyre and England\u2019s Tommy Fleetwood.<\/p>\n
Thomas was in the lead at seven-under through 15 holes, but made a double bogey at 16, where his chip from the right greenside rough failed to reach the green.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, the defending FedEx Cup champion, topped the standings heading into the three playoff events and further solidified that spot with a victory at the penultimate event, the BMW Championship, last week.<\/p>\n
Last year Scheffler\u2019s position atop the points list meant he started the Tour Championship at 10-under and with a two-stroke advantage over the number two on the list.<\/p>\n
This year, all 30 players who made the finale started even with the winner to collect $US10 million.<\/p>\n
A whopping A$155m in total will be split between the field but there are no Australians in this year\u2019s event with the last remaining hope, Jason Day, falling short of qualifying.<\/p>\n
TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 1 SCORES<\/p>\n
First-round scores on Thursday in the US PGA Tour Championship at East Lake Country Club in Atlanta, Georgia (USA unless noted, par-70):<\/p>\n
61 – Russell Henley<\/p>\n
63 – Scottie Scheffler<\/p>\n
64 – Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Robert MacIntyre (SCO), Tommy Fleetwood (ENG)<\/p>\n
66 – Rory McIlroy (NIR), Ludvig Aberg (SWE), Akshay Bhatia, Ben Griffin<\/p>\n
67 – Brian Harman, Sam Burns, Cameron Young, Jacob Bridgeman, Nick Taylor (CAN)<\/p>\n
68 – Im Sung-jae (KOR), Viktor Hovland (NOR), Harris English, J.J. Spaun<\/p>\n
69 – Justin Rose (ENG), Hideki Matsuyama (JPN) <\/p>\n
70 – Harry Hall (ENG), Corey Conners (CAN), Keegan Bradley, Andrew Novak, Christopher Gotterup , Shane Lowry (IRL)<\/p>\n
71 – Maverick McNealy<\/p>\n
74 – Sepp Straka (AUT)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American Russell Henley rode a hot putter to a nine-under par 61 and a two-shot lead over top-ranked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[6954,2095,6950,49720,4131,64,63,64933,64925,15814,43486,64932,6929,38616,6930,64931,63710,1208,2057,64934,64930,755,64929,64922,15812,64926,5499,6920,6919,6925,42338,2041,2067,3583,64927,43480,64923,64928,64924,756,64935,64936,1656,85,9210,30775,42307,47476,42347,42336,47482,2614],"class_list":{"0":"post-86884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-akshay-bhatia","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-andrew-novak","11":"tag-arnold-palmer","12":"tag-atlanta","13":"tag-au","14":"tag-australia","15":"tag-back-to-back-birdies","16":"tag-ball-back","17":"tag-ben-griffin","18":"tag-birdie-putt","19":"tag-bogey-free-seven-under","20":"tag-brian-harman","21":"tag-collin-morikawa","22":"tag-corey-conners","23":"tag-east-lake-country-club","24":"tag-east-lake-golf-club","25":"tag-england","26":"tag-europe","27":"tag-freak-birdie","28":"tag-freak-birdie-video","29":"tag-golf","30":"tag-golf-finale","31":"tag-greenside-bunker","32":"tag-j-j-spaun","33":"tag-jacob-bridgeman","34":"tag-jason-day","35":"tag-justin-rose","36":"tag-justin-thomas","37":"tag-maverick-mcnealy","38":"tag-nick-taylor","39":"tag-north-america","40":"tag-northern-america","41":"tag-northern-europe","42":"tag-ominous-start","43":"tag-playoff-events","44":"tag-points-list","45":"tag-practice-rounds","46":"tag-putting-surface","47":"tag-rory-mcilroy","48":"tag-sam","49":"tag-scheffler","50":"tag-shane-lowry","51":"tag-sports","52":"tag-staff-writers","53":"tag-standings-heading","54":"tag-state-of-georgia","55":"tag-three-shot-lead","56":"tag-tommy-fleetwood","57":"tag-tour-championship","58":"tag-two-shot-lead","59":"tag-united-states-of-america"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86884","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=86884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}