Turning Stone Resort Championship recap
The Turning Stone Resort Championship kicked off Thursday despite rain delaying morning play for nearly three hours. Rory Sabbatini shot a seven-under 65 to tie the lead with Omar Uresti on the Atunyote Golf Club and jointly holds the lead going into the second round Friday.
Sabbatini, a 34-year-old from South Africa, hit all 18 greens in regulation. This is the second time in two months that he has played 18 holes in regulation. This was his best round since shooting a 63 at the season opening SBS Championship.
“It's not often you can come off the golf course and jokingly say you should have birdied them all," said Sabbatini. "But I did."
Both Uresti and Sabbatini had bogey-free rounds with seven birdies. Their one-stroke lead has them ahead of Steve Elkington, Brian Davis, and Brad Faxon. Sabbatini, an alternate for the Open Championship at St Andrews who didn’t end up getting the chance to play, needed 30 putts, five more than Uresti.
Uresti had five birdies on his back nine. He hit a three-iron to carry 44 feet and made the putt, which broke at eight feet. He was so concentrated that he didn’t even see what happened next, and had to ask his caddie for a replay.
"It stopped on the front lip, and I put my head down and didn't see it drop," Uresti said smiling. "It's just a matter of getting it in the hole. It helps just to be able to throw up a number. It feels pretty good."
Uresti is excited about his day-one lead. He missed the cut in four of his last five PGA Tour events, and has had only one round in the 60’s since mid June. Uresti swears by his new putter, the key to his success Thursday. “Today it felt really good in my hands. I felt confident, and I was trying not to take so much time over it.”
Sabbatini also had luck on the back nine. He birdied the first three before he was forced to retire due to lightning. When play resumed almost three hours later he made birdies on the 14th and 15th right away. He birdied the four par-five holes and three out of the four par-threes, and all in all felt he had a pretty good day.
“I had a really good ball-striking day, had a lot of short birdie putts that I missed, a lot of good opportunities that I squandered out there, but overall, you know, going out there I made it a pretty stress-free day.”
Third place was jointly held at 67 by Tim Wilkinson, who had to qualify Monday, Jason Dufner, Michael Bradley, Jonathan Byrd, Chris Couch, and John Mallinger.
Due to the three hour rain delay 24 players were unable to complete their first round. Those players, amongst them Chris Tidland and Steve Wheatcroft, will be completing the first round Friday morning. The delay was disappointing for Tidland who was six-under with two holes to play. Wheatcroft had to stop at the 16th hole where he was five-under.
The rain did soften the greens on Atunyote’s 7,482-yard course, and the second half of the day turned out to be sunny and humid. Sabbatini said this worked for a lot of players' advantage, including himself.
"I like the layout, and they give us quite a bit of room out there to work with," Sabbatini said. "Obviously, that little bit of rain we had early on this morning kind of softened the conditions up, so it made it pretty easy to be aggressive, especially to some of those pins."
Not all players were able to prosper on the course. Gavin Hall made his PGA Tour debut Thursday when he teed off to what would be a disappointing round. The 15-year old Pittsford N.Y., sophomore received a sponsor exemption and finished his first round at six-over 78.
Hall entered the competition with such high hopes and with a really good momentum after finishing second place at the Porter Cup, and setting records at the U.S. Junior Amateur with his 10-under 63.
“But I still have a lot of confidence," Hall said after his first round on Thursday. "I've been having strong finishes the last three or four weeks. I think I can definitely improve on it and post a good number (Friday)."
If Hall makes the cut he will be the second youngest player in PGA Tour history to progress past a tournament cut.
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