Highlights from the first round of the Memorial tournament – Part 6
K.J. Choi, Rickie Fowler Ryan Moore, Kevin Stadler, Angel Cabrera, Charl Schwartzel, Charles Howell III and Shaun Micheel smashed a score of 4-under par to occupy the 22nd spot.
Choi, winner of the Players Championship, could not give a winner’s impression right from the start of the tournament. He consecutively signed for a score in the 70s, with a bogey count of ten, but managed to straighten things up by the end of the tournament. He teed off from the front and reeled three birdies in the front without dropping a shot. The Korean fans started to cheer for the player, thinking things would change by the end of the session, but they were wrong, as it started to rain and the greens turned their backs on the Korean.
The first and only blow of the day was anchored on the tenth hole, when Choi drove the ball into the huge fairway bunker and had to waste two strokes on retrieving it.
Similar fate was met by Rookie of the Year, Fowler, who deemed in the start of the tournament that the fairways of Muirfield Village were no match for him. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for the 22-year-old and he was left with one orange and two red marks on the scorecard – Orange denotes a bogey, while red shows a double bogey on the Professional Golf Association Tour.
Despite the humongous blow, the rookie clawed eight birdies, which was a huge number in the final hours of the tournament.
Commenting on his performance, Fowler said, “I figured it out pretty good last year. I really like this place. I play it well. I make a lot of birdies, which is a good thing. Like my caddie was saying out there today, I mean, if you go and lead the TOUR in birdies, you're not going to have a bad year. We're doing the right things. We're making birdies. I had an eagle this week. I holed out. It's when you're not making birdies struggling getting the ball in play and stuff like that that you've got a lot of work to do.”
2011 Master winner, Schwartzel once again disappointed the crowd with his poor short game. The South African was superb in driving distance in which he attained an average of 306 yards and Green Hits in Regulation in which he relished a success rate of 67 percent. Despite that, he could not make his ball roll into the cup with a similar prowess. He bogeyed eight holes and double bogeyed one in the four-day session.
Article continued in Part 7…
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