South Africa’s Rory Sabbatini carded eight birdies without a bogey on Thursday to claim the first-round lead with a 63 at the $7-million Barclays Classic.
Sabbatini surged heading into the turn, posting four birdies in a six-hole stretch at the Westchester County Club’s West Course.
”You know, the course, it’s playing easy right now,” Sabbatini said.
”There’s no wind out there, and you know, it’s pretty much shooting darts at the flags. The greens are receptive and where you land the drives, that’s where the ball is going to hit.
”So in a sense it’s making it play pretty easy. A little longer, but still pretty easy.”
South Korean KJ Choi also made eight birdies, including four on the final five holes, but his bogey at the third accounted for his only blemish.
He finished on seven-under 64, tied for second with American Rich Beem.
Beem started on the back nine and was one-under through eight holes before carding an eagle on 18. He also finished strongly, recording birdies on four of his final five holes.
Beem, too, said the conditions were ”very optimal for scoring”.
South African Ernie Els — a two-time winner of this event — Brian Gay, Steve Flesch and Sweden’s Carl Pettersson were tied on six-under 65.
The Barclays is the first leg of the inaugural FedEx Cup play-off series.
There is plenty of incentive since a $10-million bonus will be awarded to the points leader of the series played over four straight weeks, ending with the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
Each tournament in the series features a $7-million purse and a $1,26-million first prize. The other tournaments in the play-off series are the Deutsche Bank Championship, the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship — by which time the field will be whittled from this week’s 144 players to 30.
World number one Tiger Woods won’t make his entrance in the series until next week. Woods, winner of the PGA Championship two weeks ago at Southern Hills, decided he needed one more week of rest.
Three-time Barclays winner Vijay Singh, who started on the back nine, ran into trouble with three bogeys and a double-bogey in a four-hole stretch. He was at four-over, tied for 116th.
It was a disappointing beginning to the play-off series for the player who stood second to Woods in points as the series began.
Phil Mickelson, who is tied with six other golfers at four-under, said players couldn’t afford to get caught up in the points race but needed to stay focused on the tournament at hand.
”We don’t think too much about the points right now because the only way to get points is to play well and finish high up in an event,” Mickelson said. ”So the best thing to do is try to win, and if you win, you get a lot of points.” — Sapa-AFP