Lucas Glover, Camilo Villegas, and J.J. Spaun are tied for the lead after round one of the Players Championship – each sitting at 6 under par.
Glover, the 2009 U.S. Open champion, adds a familiar name to the leaderboard at TPC Sawgrass. Villegas and Spaun, while perhaps less prominent, have shown strong performances, with Spaun notably leading the field from tee to green without dropping a shot.
“Hitting a lot of fairways, making a lot of putts,” said Glover, when asked about his form. “No secret, honestly. You probably can say that most places on Tour.
“But for me, my cut-made-to-top-10 ratio is really high, so I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
“But yeah, I played nice. Somebody said 11 out of 14 fairways, and one good lie I was able to get on the green, two bad ones I wasn’t. Then just a silly mistake on 11. Other than that I played nice and made putts.”
The tie at the top is unexpected, as it excludes the top betting favorites like Scottie Scheffler (-3), Collin Morikawa (-2), Hideki Matsuyama (+2) and Justin Thomas (+6).
Although Rory McIlroy is in the mix at -5.
“Yeah, I certainly didn’t drive it the way I wanted to,” said McIlroy. “Didn’t hit it in as many fairways as I would have liked.
“Yeah, I think with the greens being so receptive, you can get away with it a little bit. I’m not going to be able to get away with it for the rest of the week. Sort of rode my luck out there a little bit. But I’m trying to hit this cut shot into play. Missing right off the tee here on any hole is way better than missing left.
“Just sort of hitting this cut sort of up into the wind, and obviously you don’t need to hit it too far here, so yeah, just going to go hit some balls here and figure it out and try to hit a few more fairways tomorrow.”
Min Woo Lee, Billy Horschel, and Akshay Bhatia were also at 5 under.
Top-10 Leaders: THE PLAYERS
Pos-Player-To Par (Score)
1. Camilo Villegas -6 (66)
1. J.J. Spaun -6 (66)
1. Lucas Glover -6 (66)
4. Rory McIlroy -5 (67)
4. Min Woo Lee -5 (67)
4. Billy Horschel -5 (67)
4. Akshay Bhatia -5 (67)
8. 12 Players Tied -4 (68)
Credit: PGA Tour Media, Grok, Getty Images
