MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Scottie Scheffler birdied the first five holes and shot a 9-under 61 on Friday to take a three-stroke lead in the FedEx St. Jude Championship.<\/p>\n
The top-ranked Scheffler had 11 birdies and two bogeys in 38 Celsius heat at TPC Southwind in the playoff opener. He had an 11-under 129 total.<\/p>\n
Scheffler tied the tournament course record. He has played the TPC Southwind more times (seven) without winning than any other course on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Viktor Hovland and Sungjae Im were tied for second at 8 under. Hovland had a 64, and Im shot his second 66.<\/p>\n
Ludvig Aberg was 7 under after a 65.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth shot 69 to get to 6 under. He was part of a four-way tie for the first-round lead. Spieth is outside the top 50 in the FedEx Cup who advance to the BMW Championship next week.<\/p>\n
Scheffler entered the week with a 794-point lead over Matt Fitzpatrick in the FedEx Cup standings. Fitzpatrick was 3 under after a 67.<\/p>\n
So much emphasis is on getting into the top 50 because that locks up all the $20 million signature events for next season. <\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy played alongside Scheffler the first two days. He followed an opening 74 with a 70, leaving him tied for 60th at 4 over.<\/p>\n
Sudarshan Yellamaraju of Mississauga, Ont., is the top Canadian. He’s tied for ninth with four others at 5 under. Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., is in an eight-way tie for 19th at 3 under. Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., is in a two-way tie for 52nd at 2 over.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full golf coverage here <\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Scottie Scheffler birdied the first five holes and shot a 9-under 61 on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-859164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}