Northern Trust Open: K.J. Choi comfortable in windy conditions, Phil Mickelson leads
Despite the windy conditions, K.J. Choi displayed an amazing performance in the first round of the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club.
The 41-year-old South Korean professional golfer scored a 2-under par and 69 strokes in total. He was able to deliver three birdies. He tied for the 6th position with seven others, due to a bogey on hole-9.
His driving accuracy was 71, whereas he covered 265.5 driving distance at the Riviera Country Club.
Although windy conditions affected all the players in the field, Choi and the leader Phil Mickelson appeared unaffected.
Choi was not happy about his round-one performance and said, "It was kind of a bummer not to score a little lower. Despite the windy conditions, I think 4 or 5 under is possible".
The eight-time PGA Tour winner knows how to play in such unfavourable windy conditions. According to him, he could have delivered better, but was unable to do so.
On Thursday morning, the winds were blowing the course at 35 miles per hour. Choi faced great difficulty to tee off.
However, he used his professional excellence and was able to score a birdie on the very first hole of the tournament.
"The right-to-left wind was very hard to play against, and it made the tee shots very difficult," Choi said. "The greens were very hard and fast today, even faster than Augusta at times".
"The poa annua grass, it was difficult to determine the grain. Sometimes it was bumpy and sometimes it wasn't, so you had a tough time putting. But luckily my putting was there, so I was able to recover," he added.
Choi is playing his third PGA tournament of the current season. He had played the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and Sony Open in Hawaii, in January.
He finished both the tournaments with amazing scores and has earned $267,000 up till now.
The current leader is Phil Mickelson, who scored a 5-under par and 66. He was successful to score in such high winds.
He scored six impressive birdies and competed well against the other players in the roster.
Due to darkness, the first round of the tournament has not completed yet. All the remaining players will start their game at 7am local time and round two will be played according to the schedule.
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