{"id":774423,"date":"2026-09-18T06:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774423\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T06:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:24:21","slug":"ryan-gerard-comments-on-the-wentworth-crowd-as-hes-asked-to-compare-the-bmw-pga-championship-with-the-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774423\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Gerard comments on the Wentworth crowd as he&#8217;s asked to compare the BMW PGA Championship with The Players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>   <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMWcxajNfc2h3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/wp-content\/themes\/grv-media\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> Follow us on Google Discover <\/a>  <\/p>\n<p>Ryan Gerard has lauded the fans at Wentworth after the first round of the BMW PGA Championship as the American was asked how the event compares with The Players Championship on the PGA Tour. <\/p>\n<p>Gerard is one of the notable names in the field this week in Surrey. The 27-year-old finished third in the FedEx Cup standings after a superb performance at the Tour Championship. And he is off to an extremely bright start at Wentworth. <\/p>\n<p>Gerard ended his opening round in third place on five-under par. He made six birdies and one bogey to leave himself one shot back of early pace-setters Aaron Rai and Joakim Lagergren. The highlight of his day came when he made a run of five birdies in seven holes. <\/p>\n<p>Ryan Gerard praises the fans at Wentworth after the first round of the BMW PGA Championship<\/p>\n<p>It was a real statement when you consider the depth of the field this week. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/topic\/rory-mcilroy\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"98400\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rory McIlroy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/topic\/patrick-reed\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"98738\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Reed<\/a>, and Viktor Hovland all got off to bright starts. <\/p>\n<p>It is a great boost to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/topic\/dp-world-tour\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"99180\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DP World Tour<\/a> to have so much star power for its flagship event. And speaking after his opening round on Thursday, Gerard was asked to assess how the BMW PGA Championship compares to the PGA Tour\u2019s biggest week. <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"grv-tpwp-permalink-overlay\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/talkingpoints\/talk-golf\/who-was-your-standout-performer-at-the-solheim-cup\/\" aria-label=\"Who was your standout performer at the Solheim Cup?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">        Who was your standout performer at the Solheim Cup? <\/p>\n<p class=\"grv-talking-point__subtitle\">Europe secured a 15-13 victory in the Netherlands!<\/p>\n<p>     <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789712661_561_GettyImages-2294576912-1024x720.jpg\" alt=\"GOLF-NED-EUR-US-SOLHEIM\" class=\"wp-image-122045\"\/>   <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s cool. I feel like we got some big crowds today. I don\u2019t know if they were watching us or just waiting for Rory to come in behind us, but a lot of people are really stoked to be here and that\u2019s awesome. You can feel the energy,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a great tournament. It\u2019s very well run from top to bottom, and they do a great job of treating it like a flagship event. Excited to be here and hopefully it\u2019s not my first but second of many that I play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Gerard benefitting from his previous visit to Wentworth<\/p>\n<p>It is the second time that Gerard has played at Wentworth. He finished in a tie for 38th last year having got off to a slow start and posting an opening round of 73. <\/p>\n<p>MORE THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP STORIES<\/p>\n<p>And Gerard explained how he has used that experience to help him this time around. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really like the golf course. I feel like I got used to a couple of the tee shots that are a little bit more weird and difficult. I hit a really good tee shot on 17, a really good tee shot on 18 and didn\u2019t take advantage of them. Those are holes I really struggled with last year off the tee because the angles are a bit strange,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like this golf course a lot. You just have to kind of be patient. The hole locations can get pretty gnarly, and I felt like we were putting the ball in the right spots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gerard was arguably unlucky to miss out on making the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/topic\/presidents-cup\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"99612\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Presidents Cup<\/a> team after an impressive year on the PGA Tour. He will hope that he can send something of a message to Brandt Snedeker with his performance this week.<\/p>\n<p>He is certainly well-placed to put himself in contention over the remaining three rounds. <\/p>\n<p>Join Our Newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=hitc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hitc.com\/wp-content\/themes\/grv-media\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> Add to Preferred Sources <\/a>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Ryan Gerard has lauded the fans at Wentworth after the first round of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[56641,5904,141813,101,45916,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-bmw-pga-championship","tag-golf","tag-ryan-gerard","tag-sports","tag-the-players-championship","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}