ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Max Greyserman found himself in a peculiar spot, away from golf for five weeks and suddenly fighting to keep his full PGA Tour card. He responded Thursday with a 7-under 64 to share the lead with Eric Cole in the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville.<\/p>\n
Greyserman got up-and-down for par on his sixth hole at The Cliff at Walnut Grove by stuffing a wedge to 2 feet, and he followed by running off four straight birdies on a rain-softened course that allowed for good scoring.<\/p>\n
Cole, making his 131st career start on the PGA Tour and still searching for his first win, had the lead after a birdie on the par-5 eighth. But he closed out his round by finding trouble off the tee and having to punch out, ultimately missing a 20-foot par putt.<\/p>\n
The field included seven players who will be competing in the Presidents Cup next week \u2014 five of them on the International side. Jacob Bridgeman, who makes his debut at Medinah for the U.S. team, had a 66. Nick Taylor of Canada had the leading score among Internationals at 67,<\/p>\n
The Biltmore Championship Asheville is the tour\u2019s first stop amid the Blue Ridge Mountains since Ben Hogan won in 1942. It\u2019s also the first of eight tournaments in the FedEx Cup Fall that determine the top 100 who retain full status for 2027.<\/p>\n
That hasn\u2019t been a problem for Greyserman the last two years. The 31-year-old from New Jersey has been eligible for the last eight majors, and he has played in 12 of the $20 million signature events dating to 2025. <\/p>\n
But he has one top 10 this year \u2014 a tie for ninth, 11 shots behind at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson \u2014 and is starts the fall series at No. 103 in the FedEx Cup. He has dropped from No. 32 in the world to start the year to No. 90.<\/p>\n
This is his first tournament since the Wyndham Championship five weeks ago. He took off two weeks to spend time with his 8-month-old son. He headed to New Jersey for a week of a little practice, and then was gone two more weeks on a vacation to Italy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe that\u2019s key,\u201d Greyserman said. \u201cDon\u2019t practice and just have a good time and just show up here.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the matter of a new course no one had really seen. With heavy rain and high temperatures around the Blue Ridge Mountains that caused agronomy issues, tour officials decided there would be lift, clean and place for all four rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it\u2019s maybe more freeing when you play a course for the first time because you don\u2019t have any bad memories to pull up,\u201d Greyserman said. \u201cYou just have no memories, so it\u2019s nice and fresh. I think that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole finished at No. 49 in the FedEx Cup, so he\u2019s locked into all the signature events for next year. He also loves to play golf \u2014 he has averaged 34 tournament the last three seasons \u2014 and can\u2019t think of a better place to be.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the matter of trying to win. Because of a transition season in 2027 for the big PGA Tour overhaul, any winner from the eight FedEx Cup Fall events are assured of being in the Championship Series level when the new schedule begins in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just like to play a lot of golf. I enjoy competing,\u201d Cole said. \u201cI worked a lot, really hard and a lot of years to get to the PGA Tour, so any chance I have to play and compete out here is something that means a lot to me, something I don\u2019t take for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full golf coverage here <\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Max Greyserman found himself in a peculiar spot, away from golf for five weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-899984","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\/899984","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=899984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}