After a disappointing missed cut at the The K Club last week, Séamus Power returned to PGA Tour action at the Procore Championship where 10 of the 12 U.S. Ryder Cup players are also in action.
Coming in at 130th in the FedEx Cup Rankings, Power needs to play well over the Fall Series if he’s to push his way inside the top 100 and earn a full card for the 2026 campaign, and started his quest on the 10th tee at Silverado Resort’s North Course.
A birdie on the par-4 opener was the ideal beginning, but three bogeys over the next eight saw him reach the turn at +2 and well down the leaderboard. Needing to find something fast, a birdie on the first helped turn the tide, and he added two more on five and eight to get into the clubhouse at -1 and end the first day tied for 51st.
While the 10 Ryder Cup stars were the main storylines coming in, it’s a Canadian who set the early pace as Mackenzie Hughes stormed to the top of the leaderboard with a nine-under 63. Hughes caught fire early, reeling off six birdies in his first nine holes and then added three more over the first four holes on the back to give himself an outside chance of shooting a magical ’59’.
Back-to-back bogeys on 14 and 15 quickly dispelled any thoughts of that, but he regrouped to birdie 16 and 18 and takes a one-stroke lead over Matt McCarthy and Ben Griffin, who continues to shine brightly ahead of his Ryder Cup debut.
“The goal is to get into that top 60 and set up my beginning to the year,” said Hughes, who is at No. 65 in the FedEx rankings. “I also won’t play five, six events to try to chase that. I’ve love to just play a few and get some good rest and be home a bunch this fall. That’s the plan right now. But we’ll see what happens.”
World number one Scottie Scheffler arrived as a red-hot favourite having not finished outside the top eight on the PGA Tour since The Players Championship back in March, but Scheffler wasn’t his usual self and his streak of 21 consecutive rounds in the 60s came to an end with a two-under round of 70 leaving him tied for 38th.
“I think it was a pretty frustrating day overall,” Scheffler said afterwards. “I felt like I did some things well out there, I just wasn’t quite getting the reward.”
“I think it was a little different today just knowing that all of us were kind of paired in the same little area of tee times, and we obviously did spend a lot of time with each other this week so it definitely feels slightly different than it would have if this tournament was in March. You know, the Ryder Cup is right around the corner.”
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