MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 Scottie Scheffler birdied the first five holes and shot a 9-under 61 on Friday to take a three-stroke lead in the FedEx St. Jude Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally just a dream start,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cProbably one of the best starts I\u2019ve had on tour, to be honest with you. I couldn\u2019t tell you a time where I\u2019ve been lower early in the round.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top-ranked Scheffler had 11 birdies and two bogeys in 100-degree heat at TPC Southwind in the playoff opener. He had an 11-under 129 total.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tournament is halfway over,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI had two good rounds to start and hopefully continue that over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffler tied the tournament course record.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say golf\u2019s ever easy,\u201d Scheffler. \u201cI did some good things out there. I hit some iron shots in there close and was able to hole a few putts as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has played the TPC Southwind more times (seven) without winning than any other course on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Viktor Hovland and Sungjae Im were tied for second at 8 under. Hovland had a 64, and Im shot his second 66.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really nice, really solid,\u201d Hovland said. \u201cHit a lot of fairways, and I think that\u2019s a big deal for my game, but also especially at this golf course. I think it\u2019s really difficult to score if you\u2019re missing fairways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ludvig Aberg was 7 under after a 65.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth shot 69 to get to 6 under. He was part of a four-way tie for the first-round lead. Spieth is outside the top 50 in the FedEx Cup who advance to the BMW Championship next week.<\/p>\n
Scheffler entered the week with a 794-point lead over Matt Fitzpatrick in the FedExCup standings. Fitzpatrick was 3 under after a 67.<\/p>\n
So much emphasis is on getting into the top 50 because that locks up all the $20 million signature events for next season.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy played alongside Scheffler the first two days. He followed an opening 74 with a 70, leaving him tied for 60th at 4 over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEMPHIS, Tenn. \u2014 Scottie Scheffler birdied the first five holes and shot a 9-under 61 on Friday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[399,56,1208],"class_list":["post-51212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rory-mcilroy","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-trt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51212","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=51212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}