{"id":34486,"date":"2026-07-10T17:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/34486\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T17:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:52:06","slug":"jerry-kelly-holds-day-1-lead-at-2026-kaulig-companies-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/34486\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Kelly holds Day 1 lead at 2026 Kaulig Companies Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>July 9, 2026, 5:17 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">AKRON, Ohio \u2014 By definition, everyone on the PGA Tour Champions can be classified as \u201cexperienced.\u201d\u00a0What Jerry Kelly has that some don\u2019t is experience winning a <a href=\"http:\/\/golfweek.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/pga\/2026\/07\/09\/kaulig-companies-championship-tee-times-round-1-firestone-country-club\/90843253007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Firestone Country Club<\/a>. He put that experience to good use Thursday, July 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Kelly shot a 5-under round of 65 to take a one-shot lead after the <a href=\"http:\/\/golfweek.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/pga\/2026\/07\/08\/zach-johnson-pga-tour-champions-kaulig-companies-championship\/90835341007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first round of the Kaulig Companies Championship<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Having won this tournament in 2020 and 2022, Kelly said Firestone was a perfect set up for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cIt was just a solid Firestone round,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI just like keeping it between the trees and on the green.\u00a0 I love a tree-lined golf course. It\u2019s what I grew up on in Wisconsin.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_img_i\" style=\"height:440px\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/90868671007-usatsi-29360268.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Jerry Kelly and Bernhard Langer at the 2026 Kaulig Companies Championship at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Kelly also said he hopes this will not be the final professional tournament at Firestone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cI\u2019ve won a couple of other final events,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping they can work something out. If you ask the guys on tour which golf course they miss, everyone is going to answer \u201cFirestone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Northern Ireland\u2019s Darren Clarke birded his final hole to finish a 4-under round of 66 and sit one stroke behind Kelly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cIts always nice to finish with a birdie, especially from that right-hand rough,\u201d Clarke said. \u201cAny day you should under par at Firestone is a good day. I\u2019ve got to keep swinging it the way I am and give myself more chances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Canada\u2019s Mike Weir also finished with a 4-under 66. He expressed relief at finally putting his game together. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cI hit a lot of great shots today,\u201d Weir said. \u201cThis is a demanding course, so you\u2019re going to have to get some shots up and down. I haven\u2019t been doing that well all season, so it feels good to put it together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Zach Johnson, Ernie Els, Cameron Percy, Y.E. Yang and Soren Kjeldsen all sit two shots back at 3 under.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Round two will begin at 9\u00a0a.m. ET on Friday, July 10..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 9, 2026, 5:17 p.m. ET AKRON, Ohio \u2014 By definition, everyone on the PGA Tour Champions can&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[58,1443,4256,3595,3596,65,68,69,67,62],"class_list":["post-34486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bmw-championship","tag-accessfree","tag-bmw-championship","tag-sourceakron-beacon-journal","tag-sstssportsgolfchampions","tag-sstsnchampions","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}