Adrian Meronk clings to 1-shot lead at Alfred Dunhill

FORT WORTH, Texas – Jon Rahm was at Colonial during tournament week each of the past two years to accept the Ben Hogan Award that goes to the nation’s top college golfer. This time, he’s playing in the PGA TOUR event at Hogan’s Alley and among the leaders. With his 4-under 66 on Thursday, Rahm was a stroke behind first-round leaders Kelly Kraft, Derek Fathauer and PGA TOUR rookie J.T. Poston. That also put Rahm ahead of two-time Colonial champs Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson after both birdied their last three holes for 67s. He also led 2016 winner Jordan Spieth, whose even-par round included six birdies. “The last two times I was here, all I recorded was super happy and positive memories,” Rahm said. “It’s just the vibe that I have around this place is so positive, especially with Sergio (Garcia) winning and with the Ben Hogan history that I’m related to now.” The 22-year-old Rahm, the winner at Torrey Pines in January, had only one bogey while playing with Masters champion Garcia, the fellow Spaniard who won in his first Colonial appearance in 2001. Kraft and Graeme McDowell, tied with Rahm for fourth, had the only bogey-free rounds. Only 33 of the 121 players finished the first round under par. Scott Brown had the other 66, and had the outright lead at 6 under before a double bogey at No. 18. Spieth, coming off missed cuts the past two weeks, was tied for 34th his six birdies, four bogeys and a double bogey. He was even par after birdies on his last two holes. “It’s a great finish. Kept me in the tournament,” Spieth said. “If I was a couple over, you know, in the back of my mind I would be wondering about the cut line.” After two bogeys on the first four holes, Spieth made 4-foot birdie putt at the 466-yard No. 5 hole, and made a 10-foot birdie at the 168-yard, par-3 13th. In between those birdies at two of Colonial’s toughest holes, Spieth made a nearly 40-foot putt to save par after a wayward drive at No. 9. His drive at the 10th went into a concrete culvert for another bogey, and he missed the fairway right again at the 622-yard 11th, only to get back in the fairway and go on to a 2-foot birdie. “Hit some very solid shots. With gusty winds, it’s not going to end up where you think it’s going to a lot of the time,” Spieth said. “I felt like I missed some fairways by 1-5 yards today. That made a complete difference in the way the hole played.” Before his birdie-birdie finish, Spieth had double bogey at the 429-yard 15th, when he blasted from a fairway bunker through the green and into the water, and made bogey at the par-3 16th. Mickelson, back at Hogan’s Alley for the first time since 2010, made an 8-foot putt at the 435-yard 7th hole, then hit his tee shot inside 2 feet of the cup at the par-3 8th. His 33-footer at No. 9 came after playing partner Matt Kuchar had just missed a slightly longer putt on the same line on their finishing hole. When changes were made to the course after his 2008 victory, Mickelson missed the cut in 2010 with a chance to become the world’s No. 1 player. He later indicated that Colonial no longer suited his game. “Nothing real specific,” he said, when asked what changed his mind. “It’s been a while and I needed to … I felt it was in my best interest to get in contention and try to play more events and try to get the scores, results out of it.” Rahm was at Arizona State when he became the first two-time winner of the Hogan Award. His first competitive round at Colonial came a day after Arizona State’s women rallied to win their eighth NCAA championship, and first since 2009. “To see them win in the fashion they did, it was amazing,” said Rahm, who practiced with that team while in school. “The coolest thing is that’s the closest I’ll ever be to experiencing something like that and I’m happy for them. … To be honest, that energy and positivity probably helped me today.”

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PGA TOUR LIVE is back. This week's The American Express marks the return of the streaming service, which showcases exclusive early coverage from the PGA TOUR. The broadcast from PGA West will include Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Rickie Fowler, Matthew Wolff and tournament host Phil Mickelson. They'll be competing on two courses at PGA West, including Pete Dye's famed Stadium Course and its island-green 17th nicknamed Alcatraz. Related: Tee times | The First Look, How to Watch A star-studded charity match also will be available Wednesday on PGA TOUR LIVE. Country music artist Jake Owen and soccer star Landon Donovan will team with Tony Finau and Paul Casey in the nine-hole match from PGA West's Stadium Course. Mickelson will host the match and participate through "Phil's Challenges." Each player, including Mickelson, will take a shot at a $1 million hole-in-one for charity on Alcatraz, as well. The match will tee off at 2 p.m. Pacific. The Featured Groups, which will tee off at 1:40 and 1:50 p.m. Eastern each day on PGA West’s Stadium Course, are listed below. To prepare you for PGA TOUR LIVE’s coverage, our roundtable of writers convened to answer a burning question around each group. Enjoy. THURSDAY Patrick Reed, Andrew Landry, Gary Woodland (1:40 p.m. ET, No. 1 tee, Stadium) – Andrew Landry has a win and playoff loss in his last three American Express starts. Will he finish as low man in this group? SEAN MARTIN: Landry has nine career top-10s on TOUR. Two have come at this event. But I think Reed is the man to beat in this group. Reed has a win at this event, in 2014, and earned his PGA TOUR card at a Q-School on the two courses in use this week. He has exhibited some incredible consistency lately, finishing in the top 25 in two-thirds of his starts since the start of last season, including all four in 2020-21. BEN EVERILL: Not this time. Patrick Reed is a desert warrior who has surprised us by playing in this desert instead of being in a Middle East one. He should threaten to win the whole thing. CAMERON MORFIT: I'll subscribe to the horses-for-courses theory and go with defending champ Landry here. I know he didn't show much at the Sentry TOC and missed the cut at the Sony Open, but he won here last year after missing five consecutive cuts. It wasn't that long ago that he finished T4 at The RSM Classic. I'll say he picks up right where he left off in the desert and notches another top-10 finish. Kevin Na, Matthew Wolff, Tony Finau (1:50 p.m. ET, No. 1 tee, Stadium) – Na had one win in his first 369 TOUR starts. He has four in his last 55, including last week's Sony Open. Finau has one win in his first 170 starts. How many will he finish his career with? MARTIN: Finau is just 31. He has plenty of time left. I think 10 is within reach but seven seems more realistic. I still think Finau could have some multiple-win seasons ahead of him. EVERILL: Should be 10 (or more), I want to say six but I'm going to take the under and say four. MORFIT: With his talent I would have guessed double digits, but it's just so hard to win on TOUR, and he's let a few victories pass him by already. I'll say he ends up with six wins, and I wouldn't be at all shocked if one of those was a major. FRIDAY Cameron Champ, Brooks Koepka, Paul Casey (1:40 p.m. ET, No. 1 tee, Stadium) – What do you expect out of Koepka this year? MARTIN: He had two top-10s in the fall but also ended the year with a missed cut. I think he will return to East Lake but I'm not sure about a win. He had opportunities to win late last season but wasn't able to capitalize on them. He said Tuesday he feels good, so this week will be an opportunity to show us what to expect. EVERILL: If he's fully fit, a return to some dominant wins. When he's at his peak, he's a beast. I'd love to see him and DJ down the stretch in a tournament at some point. MORFIT: That's just it, Ben - the big IF remains. Is he healthy again? If so, I'd expect him to make a strong run at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines South, which is precisely the type of big, brawny course that sets him apart from the rest. Patrick Cantlay, Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler (1:50 p.m. ET, No. 1 tee, Stadium) – More likely to join Cantlay as a winner on the PGA TOUR this season, Mickelson or Fowler? It's been two years since each won. MARTIN: Mickelson finished runner-up not long ago at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, and he has some winning mojo after his back-to-back triumphs on PGA TOUR Champions. His recent results haven't been very good, in part because of his obsession with hitting bombs, but if he could back off the gas a bit, and the putter gets hot, he can pick off another win after age 50. EVERILL: I'm not sure either will but of course both could! I'll stick with youth and say Fowler. His good stuff is more likely to turn up over four days while Mickelson's mistakes continue to get punished exponentially on this TOUR. MORFIT: I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of Fowler in the winner's circle, even though his swing changes have taken longer to solidify than he probably thought they would. It's the old story of working so hard on the swing you neglect your putting, but his above-average ability on the greens will return, and I'm guessing his swing change is pretty close to being complete.

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NASSAU, Bahamas – A year ago, Tiger Woods’ primary objective as he returned to competitive golf was fairly simple. He just wanted to make it through a tournament week, or a specific stretch of golf, without his body breaking down. A year later, he’s not only shown that his body can hold up – at this week’s Hero World Challenge, he’s making his 19th worldwide start of the calendar year, matching his total in his last dominant year of 2013 – he’s also shown he can win again. Career victory No. 80 was recorded two months ago at the TOUR Championship, putting him just two shy of Sam Snead’s all-time PGA TOUR record. So his goals have been adjusted. Heading into 2019, winning is once again the name of Tiger’s game. “Now it’s just about managing and making sure I’m fresh for events,� Woods said Tuesday, “because I know I can win tournaments again.� But don’t confuse this goal of winning with the goals he had, say, 15 years ago in the midst of his heyday. Back then, Tiger was healthier and, of course, younger. His desire to win was not limited to a single season or single event. Sustained domination was his driving force. Now at age 42 – he turns 43 in just over a month – the window of opportunity is closing. Winning is within his grasp again, but time is no longer on his side. Given the amount of depth among the PGA TOUR’s elite players, and the notion that they aren’t intimidated by his presence on the leaderboard, Woods’ goals of 2019 are different than when he entered 2004 off a five-year stretch in which he won 36 times. “Not the same. It never will be,� Woods said. “I’ll never feel like that again. I’m not 28 years old. Physically, I’ll never be like that. Expectations are different than they used to be, for sure. “Now, can I still win? Can I still compete? Yes. Now, can I do it for the next 20 years? No. Because that’s not realistic. “When I was 28 years old, year, I felt like I could play this game at an elite level for 20 years. Right now, I’m 42 turning 43, and 20 years is not feasible.� Asked what his goals were at age 28, Woods replied: “Just to win. To win everything because I felt like I could. I had the body and the game to do it.� Now, can I still win? Can I still compete? Yes. Now, can I do it for the next 20 years? No. Because that’s not realistic.   While 2018 showed that Woods could win again, it also showed him the limitations of his surgically repaired body. He carefully managed his playing schedule for much of the season, but the demanding finish – seven starts in a nine-week stretch, including the Ryder Cup – left him worn down. He admitted he was not physically prepared to play as much golf as he did, especially at the end of the season. The weather did him no favors, either. Of his last six starts in the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season, five of those tournaments had at least one day with temperatures at least 90 degrees – and the other one had days in the mid-80s. “You guys have been out here long enough – it has never been this hot,� Woods said. “Every single tournament, it was just stifling. … It was just hard for me to maintain my strength and my weight through all that. I tend to lose a lot of weight when I play. I was exhausted by the time I got to the Ryder Cup. I was worn out mentally, physically, emotionally.� The reconfigured 2018-19 PGA TOUR schedule will be another challenge, with THE PLAYERS Championship moving to March, the PGA Championship moving to May, and the three-event FedExCup Playoffs finishing before Labor Day. After a lengthy post-Ryder Cup layoff – and a short preparation time for last week’s winner-take-all match against Phil Mickelson – Woods is training to handle the rigors of the new-look season. Managing that schedule will be just as important. Right now, he is committed only to playing the Genesis Open – which is Tiger Woods Foundation runs, as it does this week’s event – and the four majors as he continues his pursuit of another record, Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 major wins. “Other than that, we are still taking a look at it as far as what is too much,� Woods said. “Seven of the last nine to end my season was too much. … I need to make sure that I am, as I said, rested and ready to play. … “Being physically in better shape going into next season is very important in being able to handle the condensed schedule and all the big events we play every month. There’s literally a big event every single month, so physically I’ve got to be in better shape than I was last year.� Whether he goes back to being the Tiger of old or just an older Tiger, his peers will be ready. “To be on TOUR now is really special because I think we’re going to have a few years to compete against Tiger when he’s playing good golf and is in a good mindset,� said his Ryder Cup teammate Tony Finau, who is hopeful of playing under captain Woods at next year’s Presidents Cup in Australia. “It’s going to be a cool thing and I look forward to these next few seasons to be able to tee it up with him and play with him, and hopefully we have some really cool battles together.� The 29-year-old Finau said he used to dream of those battles as a kid, usually in a big event. Did he ever win? “Yeah, of course I won,� Finau said. “I mean, you want to give yourself confidence as a kid, so you hit the 6-footer and it’s for you to win, not for him. Sometimes I would actually use two balls and I would say this one’s Tiger and that’s mine, and I would purposely miss one and then I would make mine. I think we have all done that.� In real life, of course, Tiger usually can be counted on making those 6-footers in the big moments. His goal is to have more of those chances in 2019.

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