Live leaderboard: First round of RBC Heritage

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ATLANTA – Notes and observations from Thursday’s first round of the TOUR Championship, where Kyle Stanley holds the lead after shooting 64. For more coverage from East Lake Golf Club, click here for the Daily Wrap-up. STANLEY COMES BACK STRONG Last year, Kyle Stanley had to worry about keeping his PGA TOUR card. Now he has a chance to claim the FedExCup. Stanley shot 64 on Thursday in his first competitive round at East Lake Golf Club, making seven birdies against a single bogey. Stanley, 29, is making his TOUR Championship debut in his seventh season. “When we played our practice rounds I thought it was … a pretty difficult test. It was nice to get off to a pretty fast start, making four birdies in a row,â€� said Stanley, who started his day with two pars before making birdie on Nos. 3-6. He is projected to finish second in the FedExCup with a victory. All 30 players at the TOUR Championship are capable of claiming the Cup, though. Stanley finished 34th and 31st in the FedExCup in 2011 and 2012, his first two PGA TOUR seasons. He soon struggled, though, and fell outside the top 150 in both 2014 and 2015 before narrowly sneaking into last season’s playoffs. He had to finish T14 at last year’s Wyndham Championship, the final event of the PGA TOUR’s regular season, just crack the top 125 in the FedExCup. He returned to the winner’s circle at the Quicken Loans National in July and added four other top-10s this season. Stanley ranks in the top 10 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (7th) and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (10th). Stanley and Dustin Johnson are the only other players to rank in the top 10 in both categories. Stanley missed just three fairways and four greens Thursday. SPIETH DOING SPIETH THINGS Jordan Spieth’s TOUR Championship, and his quest for a second FedExCup, got off to an inauspicious start. He snap-hooked his opening drive and struggled to hit the ball straight on the first five holes. “I felt like it was really a grind out there and it’s just because the first four, five holes of the round I was all over the place tee-to-green,â€� Spieth said. “And then my whole back nine I had a chance to birdie all but one of the holes and only made one of them.â€� It added up to a 67 that has Spieth in sixth place. More importantly, he’s projected to retain the top spot in the FedExCup, 150 points ahead of Stanley and 200 points ahead of Justin Thomas, who played alongside Spieth on Thursday and also fired 67. The TOUR Championship’s 30-man field is re-paired after each round, but Spieth and Thomas will play together again Friday. It will be a tight race for the FedExCup as four of the top five players in the standings broke par Thursday. Any player in the top 5 can clinch the FedExCup with a win at East Lake, regardless of how his closest competition fares. Johnson was one shot behind Spieth and Thomas. He’s trying to make amends for last year’s TOUR Championship, where he held the 54-hole lead before a final-round 73 cost him both the TOUR Championship and the FedExCup. Johnson is third in the standings after winning four times this season, including the opening event of the postseason, THE NORTHERN TRUST. Jon Rahm, No. 5 in the FedExCup, also fired 67. He is trying to become the first player to win the FedExCup in his first Playoffs appearance. Marc Leishman was the only member of the top 5 to shoot over par on Thursday, firing a 1-over 71. Leishman is No. 4 in the FedExCup after finishing third at the Dell Technologies Championship and winning the BMW Championship. CALL OF THE DAY SIMPSON GETTING IN THE GROOVE Webb Simpson is thankful to be back at East Lake Golf Club after missing the past two TOUR Championships. He could be happy with the start of his first TOUR Championship since 2014 after firing 4-under 66 on Thursday. He is in second place, two shots behind Stanley. Simpson made just one bogey Thursday. He made three birdies and an eagle at the par-5 sixth, where he hit his 231-yard second shot to 6 feet. “I told somebody yesterday that I’m definitely way more thankful to be here than I was the four years in a row I came here, and it’s because of what you said. It’s hard to get here,â€� he said. “I’ve been putting a lot better, and second, I think I’ve been thinking a lot better. … I haven’t hit it great this year but I’ve hit it good enough, and the ball striking’s coming. I think the reason I haven’t won is because I haven’t been able to put together four days of good ball striking. But I have seen improvements the last couple months and hopefully I can get a tournament here soon where I do have four rounds in a row.â€� Simpson also credited an improved short game after nearly two years of work with short-game coach Pat Goss, who also developed the world-class short game of Luke Donald. Simpson started working with Goss in November 2015. The TOUR Championship field is re-paired after each round, so Simpson will play in Friday’s final group with Stanley. ODDS AND ENDS Former Florida State teammates Daniel Berger and Brooks Koepka will play together in Friday’s second-to-last group after each fired 66 on Thursday. Next week they’ll be Presidents Cup teammates, as well, as both will make their debut in the biennial. Berger finished Thursday’s round by making the day’s only eagle at the 18th hole, where he hit his 234-yard second shot to 11 feet and made the putt. Paul Casey continued his strong play at East Lake with a first-round 66. He has finished in the top five in all three of his appearances at East Lake (2010, ’15, ’16). It continues a trend of strong performances in the FedExCup Playoffs. He has finished in the top five in six of his past eight starts in the FedExCup Playoffs. SHOT OF THE DAY BEST OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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With the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR season starting at the Safeway Open this week, TOUR seeding of products like the TaylorMade TSi2 and TSi3 drivers has begun. Accordingly, equipment junkies are scanning the horizon for upcoming launches at the beginning of 2021. With this in mind, let's take a look at five equipment stories to look forward to. TaylorMade P770 irons TaylorMade has had a huge year with the success of the SIM metal wood line as well as successful TOUR campaigns by Dustin Johnson (three wins, FedExCup winner), Jon Rahm (two wins), and PGA champion Collin Morikawa (two wins including the PGA Championship). With the recent release of the new P Series irons, the momentum will continue, but there is one iron, in particular, that may catch fire across the board—the 2020 P770. The hollow-body players iron is the leaner sibling to the cult classic P790 series, and does a few things that not only make it unique but may push all OEMs to raise the game to match it. Spin is the key factor here, and oddly enough it plays against type in the hollow-body iron category. PXG Gen 3 P, P790, and Cobra Forged Tec are all popular choices for their high-launch, high ball-speed profiles, but how they get to the ultimate number is mitigating lack of spin with the launch and descent angle. Good idea for a lot of players. But what about the players who want the ball speed, forgiveness, and ultimate control? Hello, P770. The P770 spins substantially more than its competitors and still matches those irons in distance. What does that add up to? Basically, it's a unicorn iron that will attract 10 handicappers and a wide range of elite players. When a golf equipment company can mix forgiveness, distance and legitimate control, it's poised to put itself head and shoulders above the rest. Titleist TSi metal woods The new Titleist TSi metal woods make their debut this week at the Safeway Open, and from the look of it, Titleist R&D threw the kitchen sink at this one. The driver category is as competitive as ever, and Titleist seems to have gone in a new direction versus the T Series woods. The technology here is still a secret, but what we do know based on testing with Titleist staff is that the ball speeds have been off the charts. And optically the driver has shown extremely well. Could this be the year Titleist chases down TaylorMade and Callaway for driver domination? We shall see… New Srixon irons If you ask any fitter around North America about the most popular irons, it’s safe to say you'll hear the name Srixon. The Huntington Beach, California, company lacks the overpowering market share of some of the other OEMs, but the quality and performance of Srixon irons has been second to none. The new ZX7 series irons were first teased out at the Charles Schwab Series PGA TOUR Champions event at Ozark National. Loyal staffers Ernie Els and David Toms put them in play immediately. Tech details will come soon, but the ZX7 seems to satisfy the serious Srixon users while turning the heads of those who tend to look from a distance but haven’t engaged yet. The iron market in 2021 will be very competitive with TaylorMade, Mizuno, and of course Srixon all bringing serious players products to the marketplace. Ping G425 metal woods Very little is known about the new Ping G425 metal woods. As is always the case with Ping, the information is controlled with CIA precision. What we do know is that Ping has had tremendous success over the past few years with the G400 and G410 series. Stability is the story here. Ping drivers traditionally are not the hottest on the market, but from a forgiveness and dispersion standpoint, they are at the top of almost every list. Most golfers crave speed but need stability more. It will be interesting to see once again how Ping can take an already A+ product and make it better. They are on a good run, and if the past three or four years are any indication, the G425 will remain a contender once again. Consumer demand vs inventory COVID-19 affected so many things in the world, but in the golf industry it actually had one very positive effect and one not so much. On the one hand golf’s popularity is soaring across the board. It's a sport we can play outside and keep our distance all while sharing some social times with friends. Since we all had ample time to research and admire new products hitting the market, more players turned to online stores to get their golf fix. This scenario has been amazing for OEMs' sales sheets after and during the lockdown, but there is one problem: Distribution channels from overseas are still narrow, which in turn creates a supply bottleneck. In simple terms: The clubs your order today may not actually make it to your bag for weeks — or months, in some cases. Multiple OEMs saw record sales during the pandemic. Retail locations closed but the internet made up for a huge portion of what companies lost from brick and mortar. Older and current product wasn’t the problem as much as new product, especially if that product is in high demand. Eventually this will subside and things will flow as normal, and although it might be frustrating to those waiting for their new clubs, it shows golf is alive and well. That’s all that really matters.

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