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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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SAN DIEGO – Jon Rahm should’ve been stressed standing over critical par putts midway through his second round at the U.S. Open but with his previous experience at the Farmers Insurance Open in his back pocket his heartrate never lifted. Rahm battled with his driver off the tee on Friday, finding just one fairway in the first 12 holes of his round, but used the rest of his skills to scratch out a 1-under 70 and move to 3-under just two back of morning wave pace-setter Richard Bland. RELATED: Full U.S. Open leaderboard | ‘It’s OK to not be OK sometimes’ As a previous winner at the PGA TOUR’s regular January stop on the same course (2017), Rahm had a comfort level others might not when it comes to the subtle breaks on the Torrey Pines greens. And sure enough, he drained momentum saving putts from 14-feet on the 10th, seven feet on the 11th and five feet on the 12th to rescue his chances of claiming a first major victory. “I just had to survive. I’ve got to say, that stretch of putts on 10, 11, 12 was key. Things could have taken a turn for the worse, and I was able to save three great pars in a row,” Rahm said. “The memory of some putts and some breaks can always help. Obviously, they’re rolling a little bit different, a little bit faster and you have to play a little bit more break, but in my case, the putt on 11, I knew it was straight. I’ve hit that putt before. I’ve missed it before. And like the putt on 10, I knew it broke a lot more than it looks.” It is this experience that meant it was no surprise for Rahm to see fellow former Farmers Insurance Open winner Bubba Watson (2011) shoot a 4-under 67 to join him at 3-under heading to the weekend. “I’ve played well here. This golf course is such a beast. Great putters don’t make as many putts because rumor is it bounces around these greens. I’ve got a chance on this course,” Watson said. “The golf course has definitely changed since I won ten years ago, but I can see some of the shots. I’m just hitting big slices, trying to get the ball in play, but I can see this golf course a lot better, and I got some confidence knowing that some areas are patchy, where you can play out of the rough when you miss the fairway.” For Rahm to continue to play stress free he knows he will have to start hitting the fairway more often – much like he did after the confidence building one putts. He only missed one in the final six holes. Prior to that he was missing predominantly to the left. “I feel like it looks worse than it really was. It’s easy to get a little bit tight on this golf course,” Rahm said. “All the shots, the start lines were proper, they just weren’t fading. I’m just not turning fast enough. (So) I just have to swing a little bit harder with the driver, and that’s exactly what I did starting on 13.” The Spanish star is not suggesting he’s owed anything from the unfortunate circumstance that saw him withdraw from the recent Memorial Tournament presented by Workday while leading by six with a round to play thanks to a positive COVID-19 test, but he did say he believes in karma as he looks to keep his form going this weekend. “I believe in karma in the sense that good things happen to good people,” Rahm smiled. “What happened a couple weeks ago is something I can’t control, unfortunately, but what I can do is control what I do every second of the day. Just following the routine, make sure I’m hydrated, make sure I’m eating, and make sure I’m thinking the right things out there on the golf course. So far I’ve done a great job, and hopefully I can keep going.” For Watson to keep it rolling he knows the key ingredients are having fun and then having focus at the right moments. He figures that’s what helped him where he is so far. “I was just kind of in the flow playing with two great guys, shooting the breeze, making fun of them and stuff, so it really took me out of my element. I didn’t know what they were shooting. They didn’t know what I was doing,” Watson laughed about his pairing with fellow Masters champions Adam Scott (+3) and Sergio Garcia (+3). With his last top-10 at a major coming in the 2018 Masters and his last top-10 at a major outside of the Masters way back at the 2010 PGA Championship where he was runner up Watson said he will stay relaxed by playing video games and staying happy. He had missed the cut in six of the last nine U.S. Open’s he’d played. “I enjoy (the added pressure). I’m striking the ball well. I’m actually going to practice some five-footers, and I’m going to hit some balls just a little bit just to make sure we’re doing what we want to do,” he added. “I think I’ve been playing well. I feel like I’m charging.”

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