Lucas Glover explains strong start at 2025 Players Championship.
Lucas Glover: “I had several today, left-edge putts downhill, fast, from two and three feet that I would have missed three years ago.”
- Several big-name golfers, including Viktor Hovland and Justin Thomas, struggled on the first day of The Players Championship.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — If you were thinking of making heads or tails out of The Players Championship leaderboard after the first wave of golfers signed their cards, you might want to start with tails.
The Bottom 10 included a pretty impressive list of names led by Viktor Hovland’s 8-over 80, and followed closely by Max Homa at 7-over and Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Thomas and Gary Woodland all 6-over.
None, though, ever was in danger of his name entering The Players record book for all the wrong reasons. The highest score at TPC Sawgrass, 89, was shot twice, most recently by Max McGreevy two years ago.
Tony Finau was not far behind at 4-over, but he wasn’t aware of those scores when he finished his round on the challenging Stadium Course.
“I was playing my own s****** golf so I wasn’t worried how other guys were playing,” Finau said, smiling.
And this on a day when the conditions could have been far worse. In fact, it was a lovely day to whack the little white ball around the course with temperatures in the low 70s and the winds a very benign 5 mph.
Of course, not everyone was hacking out of the pine straw or the lush rough or watching their balls create a small wake after splashing down in the water. Tequesta’s Lucas Glover had no problems with a 6-under 66, which made him the early leader over a group at 4-under.
Glover, 45, had nine birdies, including his final three holes of the day.
“That’s the thing about this place is there’s always some really good scores and always some really bad scores,” Glover said. “The margins are razor-thin here. You get off just a little, you can make big numbers in a hurry.”
This golf course just ‘kicks my ass’
Let’s talk about those numbers.
Among Hovland, Homa, Fitzpatrick, Thomas and Woodland, the quintet combined for three triple bogeys, nine doubles, 17 bogeys … and seven balls in the water.
And their adventures were all over the course. The triples were holes 5, 17 and 18, with the doubles on nine different holes.
The water balls were more selective with two each on holes 5, 17, 18 and one on 4.
The famous island green (No. 17) had accounted for nine water balls by midafternoon, the most on the course.
“I don’t understand this golf course,” Woodland said. “This is my 13th time playing here. You practice around here and you get up there and you think, I can post a number today and for some reason it just kicks my ass every time.”
Woodland, the Delray Beach resident and 2019 U.S. Open champion, has one top 25 finish (T11 in 2014) here and has missed the cut six times.
Thursday, though, presented another challenge. The rough, he said, was as thick as he’s seen at The Players, and as thick as he’s seen on Tour this year. Twice he was inside 170 yards and was force to chip out of the rough.
“Maybe they didn’t mow it after that rain on Monday,” he said.
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“This golf course exploits you pretty quickly if you’re just a little off. Even the par 5s, you think you can get there and if you miss it coming into those greens a lot of the times it’s almost better to lay up,” Woodland added.
Hovland, Homa, Fitzpatrick and Thomas each declined to talk about their day, at least two of them saying, “I’m good,” obviously not referring to their Thursday round.
For any to be around on the weekend, it will take an exceptional round on Friday considering that in the past 15 years, the cut line has never been higher than 2-over.
“It looks like the conditions are perfect, which they are,” Finau said. “But this golf course presents enough challenges.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
The Players Championship
Through Sunday, TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach
TV: Friday, 1 p.m., GOLF; Saturday 2 p.m. NBC; Sunday, 1 p.m. NBC
Defending champ: Scottie Scheffler
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