Justin Hicks and Jeff Curl lead the first round at Soboba Classic
The second annual Soboba classic teed off yesterday at the Soboba Classic Golf Club. Justin Hicks and Jeff Curl carded 6-under par 65’s and were leading the play at the end of the first round.
With the first round starting late due to weather hindrances, Chris Kirk, Gary Woodland, Trevor Murphy and J.J Killeen all tied for second place by posting 5-under 66’s and were one shot off the pace.
Having played golf for a long time now, Curl has gone through pretty coarse and cavernous bunkers and regal trees. However, it was until yesterday that Jeff had to deal with gigantic inflatable children’s toys. Curl said that when he was on the seventh tee
box, the danger occurred.
In a bizarre moment, a 20 foot by 20 foot inflatable house went all the way through the fairway. More specifically, the mobile ‘obstacle’ blew from the first hole to the seventh fairway during the game.
The players had to wait for people to take it down when it got stuck in a tree. What Curl thought was a jumpy house was actually a 15-foot inflatable slide meant for the children’s entertainment. This area was specially made for the 12 and under children
attending the tournament.
In his play before the delay, Curl had already hit eight birdies in which five of them were consecutive. Later, strong winds and possible lightning stopped the game for 2 hours and twenty minutes.
As soon as play resumed, Jeff brought a different kind of storm with him as he shot a 6 under 65 and thus tied with Justin Hicks for the clubhouse lead.
Curl is 50 percent Native American and thus has a special bond with Soboba. He said he feels good here and loves this place. Jeff hasn’t met anyone from the tribe but if any of the natives see him like this, they would definitely appreciate it.
Even though Justin Hicks didn’t have a slide in his way, the weather did seem to upset him. Hicks, who has had two career tour victories, has never played in weather like this.
"I've heard about winds like that, and I've seen it on TV, but I knew they'd have to stop play. You couldn't physically play the game, it was getting that difficult out there”, said Justin.
Even with the weather not favourable, Justin still hit 11 off the 14 fairways and 16 off 18 greens. His only bogey was on the par-4 17th hole, which was also his only three-putt of the day.
The top of the leader board is very crowded with six players at second place and eleven players at 4 under or third place. The tournament this year has fascinated the strongest field till now.
All but five of the Top 100 and 59 of the top-60 Tour players are in this tournament. Having a purse of $1 million, this tournament has one of the biggest purses on the Nationwide calendar.
John Chin, who ended at an even par through nine, and Brendan Steele, who had two under were two of the seventy-two golfers, who were not successful in completing the first round.
Steele only played fifteen holes and was able to hole two birdies out of his three final holes. Even though the horn sounded before he had completed his game, Steele said it felt good to play well at the end.
Brendan is number 37 on the Nationwide money list and playing well at the Soboba Classic could bring him up to the top 25 and hence gave him an opportunity for the PGA Tour next year.
With several players doing so well and very close to the top, the tournament is bound to get even more exciting. The second round tee time is scheduled at 8.25 a.m. Hopefully, the weather will be in favour of the Soboba Classic in the second round.
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