Séamus Power started well, carding a four-under-par 67 to sit inside the top-25, four shots back of leader Doug Ghim at the John Deere Classic.
The Waterford man made five birdies and a solitary bogey at TPC Deere Run, as he looks for a win to secure a spot at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Ghim holed out for eagle on the par-four sixth hole and kept bogeys off his card on a day of low scoring on Thursday, opening with a nine-under-par 62 in a bid to become the latest first-time PGA TOUR winner at the John Deere Classic.
Ghim had a one-shot lead over Max Homa and Austin Eckroat at TPC Deere Run, where the winning score has been 20-under par or lower 12 of the last 15 years, and the conditions were so ideal Ghim wasn’t even sure his 62 would hold up as the lead by the end of the day.
Homa ran off four straight birdies early and was tied with Ghim for the lead until he missed his final green at the ninth and failed to get up-and-down, his only bogey of the round. Eckroat had a pair of eagles, one on the par-five second with a shot to 12 feet, the other when he holed out with a gap wedge from 137 yards on the par-4 fifth hole.
With a little more wind in the afternoon, the best anyone could do was 65 by four players, including Cameron Champ and Mexico Open winner Brian Campbell.
“Honestly, any time you can get to 20 under or better, you’re going to have a chance,” Ghim said. “It’s still golf. It’s still a challenge. You have to hit fairways. I hit a lot of them today. So just trying to shoot forwards of 6 under every day and see where that puts me.”
Aldrich Potgieter of South Africa, the 20-year-old coming off his first PGA TOUR win last week in Detroit, was challenging for the lead until he stalled at the end of his round, took bogey on the par-5 17th and had to settle for a 67.
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