Vijay Singh shares the second spot in the opening round of the AT&T National
The Fijian golf legend Vijay Singh carded a three-under par 68 in the opening round of the AT&T National, to share the second spot at the Congressional Country Club, on Thursday, June 28, 2012.
Singh got off to a confident start and carded a birdie on the very first hole that he played. Through 10 holes, he took the top spot on the leaderboard after carding another four birdies against a lone bogey.
Thereafter, he faltered and suffered three consecutive bogeys, starting from the 11th hole. Yet, he managed to end the round on a high note.
He recorded two birdies on the final three holes that allowed him to settle one stroke behind the pace set by Bo Van Pelt.
The three-time major winner is now expecting a good week ahead of him because of the stunning improvement in his putting technique in the past few weeks. He only needed 26 putts to record a seven-birdie round.
"Last week on putting I was 174th. Last year I was kind of 160th or something. I said I need to improve my putting, I need to improve my short game, and I changed putters this week, and it's helped a little bit," said Singh, who has not won any PGA Tour
events since the 2008 Deutsche Bank Championship.
"My theory was if I get it close enough I don't need to putt. It doesn't work after a while. But if I putt well, everything else gets easier,” he added.
“You don't have that much pressure on yourself to hit close shots. That's the key. I should know. When I putt well, I know what I can do”.
Overall, Singh recorded the maximum number of birdies in hard conditions, when the greens were fast and the rough was really consistent throughout the course.
Brendon de Jonge and Jimmy Walker were the other two players to post the same score and join him on the leaderboard.
Walker enjoyed a great start to the round, as he recorded four birdies on the front nine to take an early lead. However, a bogey on the final hole of the day forced him to slip down to the second position.
Tags: