LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Wyndham Clark and Beau Hossler combined for 11 birdies while Sean O’Hair and Brandon Matthews had nine birdies and an eagle between them to share the first-round lead in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Thursday.
Both duos carded 11-under par 61s in the four-ball first round of the US PGA Tour’s only two-man team event.
Hossler had seven birdies and Clark’s four birdies included one at the 18th that saw the duo break free of a big group at 10-under par that included US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick of England and his younger brother Alex.
O’Hair and Matthews grabbed their share of the lead with O’Hair’s birdie at 18 – his fourth of the day to go with five birdies and an eagle two at the par-four 12th from Matthews.
Hossler called it a “nice” day at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, where he said he and Clark complemented each other perfectly.
“We took advantage of the hardest holes,” Hossler said. “With that said, I think also we left a couple out there that hopefully we can get in the next few days.”
Clark said their mindset wouldn’t change much for foursome format second round.
“Obviously you just want to keep the ball in play and in front of you, but it’s similar to any other tournament,” he said.
The Fitzpatrick brothers, with Matt Fitzpatrick coming off a victory at the RBC Heritage last Sunday, were among the early pacesetters.
Matt delivered three of their four birdies in their first nine holes and Alex made four birdies coming in before Matt birdied their penultimate hole, the eighth.
“I didn’t play very well (on the front), so it was nice for him to make a few putts and give us a few birdies while I was scrambling around somewhere,” Alex said. “Then, yeah, I played nicely on the back nine and I managed to roll in some birdies, which was great, and we kept it together towards the end and finished with a nice score.”
The other teams on 10-under were South Korean Im Sung-jae and American Keith Mitchell, American David Lipsky and England’s Aaron Rai, Sweden’s Henrik Norlander and American Luke List, and South Korean No Seung-yul and American Michael Kim.