Full leaderboard<\/a><\/p>\nDefending champion Tommy Fleetwood shot a four-under 66 to put himself in contention, four strokes off first-round leader Min Woo Lee at the Tour Championship in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
However, Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy endured a mixed start in his bid to win a record-extending fourth Fedex Cup, bogeying two of the first four holes before fighting back on the back nine to sign for a 68.<\/p>\n
Lee, who won last month’s Scottish Open, carded a bogey-free 62 to set the pace at eight under as he equalled his best ever round on the PGA Tour in its season-ending event at East Lake.<\/p>\n
Australia’s Lee is two strokes clear of Norway’s Viktor Hovland, who triumphed in 2023, and American duo Collin Morikawa and Chris Gotterup.<\/p>\n
It was a fine display from Lee, who was second from last in the BMW Championship a week ago and found himself without a partner for most of the day, with JJ Spaun withdrawing through injury after four holes.<\/p>\n
“It was a little strange at first, just like looking for a playing partner and you’re just there by yourself,” said Lee.<\/p>\n
“It was more just maintaining speeds and not rushing because I would just catch the group in front and wait. So I had to just slow down a little bit. It worked out.”<\/p>\n
Ominously, world number one Scottie Scheffler ended his round with a birdie on the 18th to sit at five under, with England’s Matt Fitzpatrick in the mix at four under after also making a birdie four on the concluding hole.<\/p>\n
Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre is at three under, with the highlight of his day arriving on the sixth hole when he rolled in a putt from over 30 feet for an eagle.<\/p>\n
England’s Justin Rose and Alex Fitzpatrick both signed for rounds of 68 on a day when none of the 29 players in the field to complete the round went over par.<\/p>\n
The winner on Sunday will take home the Fedex Cup and a $10m (\u00a37.4m) prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tour Championship – first round -8 MW Lee (Aus); -6 V Hovland (Nor), C Morikawa (US), C Gotterup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,9,7],"class_list":["post-71300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117170213042156084","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}