Seamus Power will have work to do to make his first weekend cut of the year after managing an even par effort at a testing Spyglass Hill on day one of the AT&T Pro-Am.
Just two players out of the top-21 made their early tournament mark on Spyglass Hill where West Waterford professional Power made his third start of the new year. Looking to arrest a run of two missed cuts, Power traded three birdies with three bogeys with his even par round of 72 leaving him in a share of 75th heading into round two.
With the weather flat calm and dry and on the Californian west coast, players taking to Pebble Beach took full advantage and none more so than Cantlay who roared to the front with a ten birdie, no bogey 10-under par round of 62. Out in 29 before picking up his eighth birdie of the day at the 11th, Cantlay was on ’59 watch’ before a run of five pars quelled that excitement. Still, he went out with a bang to birdie the closing to holes and get to double-digits under par, heading Sweden’s Henrik Norlander and Akshay Bhatia by two strokes after the pair produced superb 64s.
“I think we got Pebble in pretty much ideal conditions and I don’t think it’s going to be like that the rest of the week,” said Cantlay. “The greens were good this morning and receptive, and so I hit a lot of good shots just right out of the gate and made everything. I didn’t have very many long putts, but the mid-range putts that I did have I made all of them.
“I think I one-putted every green on the front nine. So when you only have nine putts on nine holes it’s no surprise you played really well. Some of that is set up by ball striking. I had a lot of really good looks. And every time you play Pebble Beach you kind of want to get off to a hot start on those first seven holes and today I had a great start.”
“This place can be a bear when the wind’s blowing, especially when you get out to that point on 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So I’m sure the conditions will be a lot tougher this weekend, but I welcome the challenge and it will be fun.”
Another man enjoying his golf is Jordan Spieth as the three-time Major winner’s resurgence continued apace at Pebble Beach. A hole-out eagle on the par-4 10th from 113-yards was the highlight in a seven-under par round of 65 with Spieth most pleased that he only needed to hole 61-feet of putts to post such a low number.
“Yeah, maybe the best sign of good things to come of any stat,” Spieth said. “It’s also hard to have a lot of feet of putts at Pebble. I mean you don’t really have a lot of long putts, the greens are so small. But I hit a lot of greens in regulation, only really got into trouble on one hole, and other than that I would still like things to feel better than they do.
“I know I’m able to kind of play a shot that, kind of a punch draw if I need to have it, and it’s nice to kind of feel that you can always go to a shot if you get a little bit uncomfortable. And I think this is what you were talking about about not guiding, being able to club down and just kind of play a couple 4-irons off tees on some holes to make sure I’m able to get into birdie range in two.”
The 27-year old shares fourth place alongside Nate Lashley at minus-seven while Russell Knox and Tom Lewis are in the five-way tie for sixth at six-under par.
- Full scoring HERE
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