GREENSBORO, N.C. – Notes and observations from Thursday’s first round of the Wyndham Championship, where Matt Every shot a career-best, 9-under 61 to lead after the morning wave of the first round. North Carolina native Webb Simpson headed up a group of five players at 63, while 53-year-old University of North Carolina alumnus Davis Love III was among those at 64. EVERY CONQUERS ‘DRIVER YIPS’ Most multiple PGA TOUR winners spend their days dissecting the fine line between good golf and transcendent golf. Matt Every, languishing at 183rd in the FedExCup, has become an expert on another, less-appreciated subtlety of the game. “There’s bad drives and then there’s foul balls,â€� Every said. “There’s a big difference.â€� Every would know. After successfully defending his title at the 2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, his game disintegrated. Never very straight—his driving accuracy percentage was just over 50 percent even in 2014-2015—his misses started bypassing the rough and flying over fences, instead. “The last couple years, a lot of people would have quit the game in my position,â€� Every said. He had, in his words, the driver yips. Sometimes he would flush his drive straight down the fairway, but all too often he’d hit it so crooked he would have to re-tee. He had lost any and all resemblance to the player who tamed Bay Hill and won the API two years in a row. Every has always marched to his own drummer. He doesn’t like eating in player dining because there’s too much golf talk. In his TOUR bio, he says his dream foursome would include estranged Oasis band members Liam and Noel Gallagher, and “some sort of counselor so we could get the best band in the world back together.â€� But with his game in shambles, Every needed help, and found it in Atlanta-based instructor Scott Hamilton. They began working together “like four, five months ago,â€� Every said, and found that he was getting stuck on the downswing. His arms and hands would either quit on the way down or fly through the impact zone, leaving the accuracy of his shots dependent on timing. The fix has taken some time to pay dividends. In part, Every said, that’s because he had to see enough good shots coming off his driver to replace a lot of bad memories. He hit nine of 14 fairways at Sedgefield on Thursday, which was the same as players like Webb Simpson and Vaughn Taylor, but more importantly his bad shots weren’t that bad. Every cited his miss at the 11th hole, which merely wound up in the left rough, from which he made a par. He’s no longer the guy who missed 20 cuts this season. He’s the guy who has made three straight, including a T14 at the RBC Canadian Open. “It’s night and day,â€� Every said. LOVE STILL A WYNDHAM WIZARD Davis Love III won the 2015 Wyndham Championship, becoming the third-oldest TOUR winner at 51 years, four months, 10 days of age, but he never got a chance to defend his title. That’s because the 21-time winner, who will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in September, was recovering from hip surgery at last year’s Wyndham. Now 53 and bidding to become the oldest winner ever on TOUR—Sam Snead was 52 when he won for the eighth time in Greensboro in 1965—Love hit all 18 greens in regulation on the way to an opening-round 64 on Thursday. “I like old style golf courses, traditional architecture,â€� Love said of Sedgefield C.C., a 1925 Donald Ross design. “This is certainly one of the best on TOUR. This one and Greenbrier are two of my favorite courses now on TOUR, and it’s not a bomber’s golf course. It’s one where you have to think your way around it, put in the right positions.â€� Love has three wins in Greensboro, and this week marks the 25th anniversary of his first, at nearby Forest Oaks. He’s won the PGA Championship and THE PLAYERS Championship, twice. He has played vital roles in Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup victories, and now his son Dru, who shot a 3-under 67 at Sedgefield on Thursday, sometimes plays in the same tournaments. But DL3, 209th in the FedExCup, just keeps on going through a torn labrum in his hip, through a broken collarbone (snowboarding) last winter. He played with Webb Simpson and Ryan Moore on Thursday, which couldn’t have been a better group, what with Simpson also getting hot, and Moore reminding Love that he’d gone low and won last time they played together here, in 2015. “I’d like to keep playing with him for a while,â€� Love said. SIMPSON’S CAREER REVIVAL CONTINUES Webb Simpson was another familiar face in the spotlight Thursday, what with Simpson having been born in Raleigh and currently residing in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also won the 2011 Wyndham, and named his third child Wyndham, for good measure. (No, the other three aren’t named Deutsche Bank Championship, Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, and U.S. Open.) Alas, it’s been a lean couple of years since Simpson’s fourth and most recent victory, at the 2014 Shriners Hospitals. Although he made the FedExCup playoffs the last two years, he didn’t win, and slogged through self-doubt. Now, though, Simpson, 32, is starting to look like his old self. Simpson lost a playoff to Hideki Matsuyama at the Waste Management Phoenix Open earlier this season, and is 37th in the FedExCup. On Thursday, he started on 10 and scorched the back nine with a 7-under 28; made two bogeys on the front; and ultimately signed for a 63. “I got a little excited thinking about—I’m not that far off from 59,â€� Simpson said. “But on the cart ride to the first tee I tried to kind of put it aside and get that ball in the fairway. Yeah, you don’t have many opportunities out here to do it. Today was certainly one of them.â€� One of many who had to revise his tactics on the green with the anchoring ban, Simpson took a tidy 25 putts Thursday after hitting nine of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens in regulation. He hasn’t missed a cut since the Wells Fargo Championship in May, and says he’s playing even better than he did during his near miss in Phoenix earlier this year. “I feel like I’ve been playing better for a longer period of time,â€� he said. “The game is more consistent.â€� He called his first nine holes, “the best start I’ve ever had to a tournament.â€� Another three days like this and he could be setting himself up to match his best year, too—at least in the FedExCup. He won twice and finished second in the season-long points race in 2011. “We’re obviously close to where I grew up,â€� Simpson said. (Raleigh is just over an hour from Greensboro, and Simpson attended nearby Wake Forest.) “I grew up playing courses similar to this that aren’t too long, hit different clubs off the tee, some doglegs. So, there’s a comfort here that I feel like I don’t have at a lot of places. I’ve always loved playing close to home.â€� SHOT OF THE DAY
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