Burgoon shoots opening-round 64, provides contrast to hype of young stars

Click here to read the full article…

HUMBLE, Texas — Rickie Fowler doesn’t need a win in Texas to book his place in the Masters field. But that doesn’t make this week is any less important for the four-time TOUR winner, who arrived in search of positive vibes in the final tune-up before the year’s first major championship. After one round, Fowler believes his game is trending in the right direction after he opened with 66 on Thursday to move into contention. “Had a couple short ones that we could have got, but all in all, good solid day,” Fowler said. “I like where we’re heading into the next few days and going into the weekend.” Fowler began his round with three birdies in the first seven holes and added two more after the turn before suffering his first bogey on the par-4 6th — his 15th hole of the day — when his fairway bunker shot hit the bank and rolled into the water. Fowler managed to get up-and-down for bogey to limit the damage and then reeled off back-to-back birdies to close out his round on a high note. “Being in contention and getting yourself in position to win and kind of get the blood flowing, it makes it a lot easier to start things up,” Fowler said of playing well in Houston the week before the Masters. The putter was the difference for Fowler, who made 168 feet, 11 inches worth of putts — 51 feet, 7 inches more than his previous-best figure in the category this season — and only recorded one birdie putt shorter than 10 feet. Ranked 127th this season in strokes gained: putting, Fowler admitted the club has cooled since last season when he finished second in the statistical category. That wasn’t the case on Thursday. “Nice to have the putter coming around because it was something that was great last year,” he said. “I feel like it’s always been one of my strongest parts when it gets going, and I’ve had a couple cold months, so heating back up.” OBSERVATIONS Hoping to book his place in the Masters field, Steve Stricker opened with 67 and sits just two shots back of the lead after Round 1. While his wins came on the PGA TOUR Champions, it could be debated that no one in the field is playing at a higher level than Stricker, who won last week in Mississippi for his second straight victory on the 50-and-older circuit. Phil Mickelson has come agonizingly close to shooting 59. For nine holes on Thursday, it appeared the 43-time TOUR winner was well on his way to potentially getting another shot. Six birdies on the front saw Mickelson go out in 30, but the round hit a snag on the par-3 14th when he failed to advance his ball out of the greenside bunker, leading to a double bogey. Mickelson still shot 68. A two-hour rain delay to begin the first round ensured a return to the course on Friday for 33 players in the field. The Golf Club of Houston received 2.30 inches of rain. Round 1 will resume at 7:20 a.m. (local time) with Round 2 expected to begin as scheduled. Making his first start in Houston, Kevin Tway managed to log just one practice round before his pro-am was canceled on Wednesday due to inclement weather. A lack of course knowledge wasn’t an issue for Tway, who shot a bogey-free 65 to grab a share of the clubhouse lead with Lucas Glover. “I was kind of going at it a little less prepared than usual, but sometimes that’s good and today it was,” said Tway. Receptive greens and preferred lies in closely-mown areas turned the day into a birdie-fest for many in the field, with 39 players shooting 68 or better. Normally the first round is an opportunity to get into position for the weekend, but with low scores up for grabs, some felt the need to be even more aggressive than normal. “I was going right at it trying to hole a couple, especially with the wedges. You’ve got to try and make birdie with those conditions,” said Tway. One week after he came close to advancing out of the group stage at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, Julian Suri was Monday qualifying for the Houston Open. The 72nd-ranked player in the world shot 64 to make the field and then opened with 66 in just his fourth TOUR start this season. NOTABLES Jordan Spieth – The 2015 FedExCup champion opened with 68, his lowest first-round score at the Houston Open. Spieth waited until the end of the round to produce some fireworks, rolling in three consecutive birdies from inside 8 feet to move into contention. Henrik Stenson – The 2013 FedExCup champion never got the putter going but still managed to shoot 4-under 68. The Swede only missed two greens in regulation. Justin Rose – Rose hasn’t skipped a beat this season with four top 10s in his first five starts. His run of good form continued with an opening-round 68 that could have been even better if not for a bogey on the last. Six of his last 10 rounds have been sub-70. Tony Finau – Making his fourth appearance at the Houston Open, Finau hit 15 greens in regulation but needed 31 putts to get around the course in 2-under 70. Russell Henley – The defending champion made four birdies in his first six holes but only made one the rest of the way. He’s now opened with a sub-70 round three of the last four years. Matt Kuchar – Kuchar made his move on the back nine with four birdies in a five-hole stretch, beginning on the 12th, to shoot 68. He’s attempting to make the cut for the fifth time in 10 starts at the Houston Open. QUOTABLES I enjoyed the texts early on for extra sleep. Sleep’s always good for me. SUPERLATIVES Low round: Lucas Glover and Kevin Tway opened with 65s to grab a share of the clubhouse lead. The score was the lowest of the year for both players. Sam Ryder (8 under) and Beau Hossler (7 under) were still on the course when play was called due to darkness. Longest drive: 381 yards – Chesson Hadley padded his driving stats for the season with a poke that caught the cart path on the par-4 17th and wound up 86 yards from the hole. Hadley took advantage of his good fortune by making birdie. Longest putt: 53 feet, one inch – Matt Jones drained the lengthy birdie putt on the par-3 9th hole. Easiest hole: Par-5, No. 8 (4.450) with 68 birdies, 52 pars and 5 bogeys. Hardest hole: Par-4, No. 18 (4.147) with 14 birdies, 85 pars, 28 bogeys, 1 double bogey and 1 other. SHOT OF THE DAY

Click here to read the full article…

It holds as many fans as most NBA arenas and sounds like a college football stadium. No. 16 at TPC Scottsdale is the only fully-enclosed hole on the PGA TOUR, and the only one where traditional golf etiquette is, well, not part of the traditions. Fans cheer when balls hit the green. They boo when they miss. And the people absolutely lose their minds when the ball goes in the hole. Since the WM Phoenix Open moved to TPC Scottsdale in 1987, nine TOUR players (and one robot) have aced the 16th. You’ve likely seen one of these aces more than once. So, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the time Tiger Woods raised the roof at TPC Scottsdale’s 16th hole, here is my list of the top five aces from golf’s rowdiest hole. TIGER WOODS (1997) “They’re gonna go nuts when he hits this thing” is the best way to describe every tee shot at No. 16 at the WM Phoenix Open. In 1997, the rowdy crowd at TPC Scottsdale hit new decibels as a 21-year-old Tiger Woods made his WM Phoenix Open debut. Woods had already won three times since turning pro five months earlier and was coming off a win at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, where he beat the reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year, Tom Lehman, in a playoff. By Saturday, Woods was 10 shots behind eventual winner Steve Jones and his title hopes were mostly out of reach. But no one remembers that. They just remember his shot at No. 16. Woods’ playing partner that day, Omar Uresti, hit first and put his ball 3 feet behind the pin. “As soon as it landed, I made the mistake of thinking to myself, ‘Let’s see you hit it closer than that,” Uresti told PGATOUR.COM in 2015. Tiger did. Using a 9-iron on the 152-yard hole, Woods took dead aim and his ball took two soft bounces before falling into the hole. The Arizona crowd went bonkers, chucking beer all over the tee box. “I think I broke Fluff’s hand,” Woods said of his high five for then-caddie Mike Cowan. He proceeded to whiff on Uresti’s high five before famously raising the roof. Woods eventually finished the tournament at 9-under, good for a T18 finish. The shot might be Woods’ most memorable from a tournament he did not win. It’s also a mainstay on his highlight reels and gave the world a glimpse of the Tiger Mania that would definite the PGA TOUR for the next 20-plus years. JARROD LYLE (2011) It had been nine years since No. 16 had seen a hole-in-one before Jarrod Lyle stepped up to the tee box during the second round in 2011. The big Australian played a draw with enough spin to pull the ball left upon landing and allow it to slide into the front portion of the hole. Lyle threw his arms up in the air and eventually got the crowd going with some windmills. The hole-in-one would serve as a trademark moment for a player gone too soon. Lyle had battled acute myeloid leukemia as a teenager. He was diagnosed with the disease a second time in 2012. He fought back to play in 20 PGA TOUR events from 2014-2016, but his leukemia would return again in 2017, and in 2018 he passed away at age 36. At the 2019 WM Phoenix Open, a memorial was placed on the No. 16 tee box, along with an honorary yellow plaque. LDRIC (2016) Just 19 years after Eldrick Woods, better known as Tiger, had his hole-in-one at No. 16, a new LDRIC, a golf robot, made one of its own. Unlike most golfers who’ve made holes-in-one at No. 16, LDRIC played a baby fade with a one-handed finish onto the green. The swing did feel a bit robotic though, if you ask me. While LDRIC made the ace on its fifth try, the dynamics are impressive considering Golf Laboratories’ Gene Parente gave the robot the wrong club. The San Diego-based creator of the 750-pound contraption thought LDRIC would be hitting a 158-yard shot during the Wednesday practice round but LDRIC was actually asked to play a shot from 20 yards closer. Parente had armed LDRIC with a 7-iron, and rather than change clubs, Parente re-calibrated LDRIC’s swing. LDRIC’s first shot went over the pin, but Parente was able to adjust the swing formula enough to go pin-seeking by the fifth shot. “There was no science at this point, it was pure intuition,” Parente said. LDRIC stands for “launch directional robot intelligent circuitry.” Or, in golf terms, Robot Tiger. FRANCESCO MOLINARI (2015) Want to see Francesco Molinari get pumped up? Yes, the famously stoic Francesco Molinari. Watch his hole-in-one highlight at No. 16 in 2015. Playing in soft conditions from just 133 yards out on Saturday, Molinari sent a pitching wedge past the pin on the right side of the hole and spun it back for the bucket. A grinning Molinari raised his arms, gave high fives to Harris English and Brian Davis and even waved to the crowd to get them more hyped up. By this point, the gallery was already throwing bottles onto the hole, making it look like an updated version of Woods’ hole-in-one in 1997. Davis had to wait 10 minutes for tournament officials to pick up the foreign objects before he could hit his tee shot. And that was before they got to the green. Upon getting to the hole, Molinari tossed his ball into the stands (Who did he think he was, Mike Evans?), but a fan responded by throwing it back. “They nearly hit Brian Davis,” Molinari said. “A volunteer just raked it out of the bunker and gave it to me at the end of the round. It was nice to get it back. I don’t know if I will keep it or give it to someone. I wasn’t expecting to see it coming back from the stands.” Somehow, Davis did manage to par the hole. And he got to witness greatness in the process. Molinari carded an eight-under 64 during that third round, tied for the second-lowest score of the day, but a 72 on Sunday dropped him into a T22 finish. HAL SUTTON (1988) He’s the trailblazer they’re all trying to copy. Sutton is the man credited with the first ace on No. 16 in the WMPO. He did it in 1988, after winning the event in 1986 and finishing second the following year, in TPC Scottsdale’s debut as the host venue. Sutton played a slight draw into a third-round back pin location. Correctly judging a stiff wind, he rode the right-to-left green contours into the hole. The cheer sounded loud for a standard hole-in-one, foreshadowing the future of the iconic hole. Sutton, who opened 68-66, went 74-73 on the weekend to finish T26. While Sutton didn’t get the beer shower his successors did, he is the first name on the statue beside the tee box that honors the aces. There’s a first time for everything, and Sutton was the first to give the fans at golf’s rowdiest hole something to scream about.

Click here to read the full article…