With big guns sputtering, unlikely foursome grabs lead
FARMINGTON – There’s a crowd near the top of the 84 Lumber Classic leaderboard, just not the crowd you’d expect. Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson, two of the top players in the world, were ho-hum Thursday, while four golfers who have one combined victory since 2003 fired 7-under-par 67s to grab a share of the first-round lead here at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa.
Mark O’Meara, Shaun Micheel, Jason Gore and Charlie Wi got the best of Mystic Rock, finishing one shot ahead of Carl Pettersson.
Playing in a group with Micheel and Jerry Kelly, 38-year-old David Toms, ranked No. 11 in the world and fourth on the Tour money list, collapsed on the 17th tee and was taken by ambulance to Uniontown Hospital.
Toms was later transported by helicopter to UPMC Presbyterian, where he was listed in stable condition early Thursday evening, but later downgraded to critical.
It wasn’t clear why Toms collapsed, but Micheel said Toms clutched at his chest after saying his heart was racing.
Micheel got as low as 10-under by carding two eagles, but three straight bogeys to close his round brought him back to the field.
“I guess I’m a golfer so I’ve got to have something to complain about, and certainly I’m going to go to bed thinking about the last three bogeys on the last three holes,” Micheel said. “But much like the PGA Championship in 2003, I bogeyed the last three holes on Saturday and fared pretty well, so that won’t stay with me for long.”
O’Meara, meanwhile, started his round with a bogey, got back to even par after five holes, then birdied five of his next six holes.
“I’m obviously very pleased with my round today,” O’Meara said. “I made a lot of putts. Golf’s a funny game and today it seemed to go my way, so it was nice to get off to a good start.”
O’Meara’s birdiefest started on the par-5, 598-yard fifth hole when he hit a 4-iron and sand wedge to within 15-and-a-half feet. He followed that with a 26-foot birdie putt on the sixth hole, a 410-yard par 4, and made it three straight birdies when he sank a 14-foot putt on the 223-yard par-3 seventh.
“I really putted well today,” O’Meara said. “It was by far the best putting round that I’ve had in a couple years. My speed was good and I made a lot of 18- to 24-foot putts.
“I seem to have been running them over the edge for the last year-and-a-half and today they all happened to go in. Even putts that rolled up and looked like they stopped short. I kind of put my head down like I didn’t hit the putt so well, but that was OK and then I looked up and it disappeared.”
O’Meara has 16 career Tour victories, but none since winning two majors in 1998, while Micheel’s lone victory came in the 2003 PGA Championship.
Since then, Micheel has just two top-10 finishes in his last 50 starts.
“Today was just a great day,” Micheel said. “Scoring conditions were there. You could see that from the morning scores. The way I’ve been playing the last six or seven months, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to shoot out there. But I started hitting the ball well the last couple of weeks, and I made a few putts and actually made a couple eagles. Those always seem to come at the right time.”
Micheel began his round on No. 10, and wasted no time getting into the red when eagled the par-5, 634-yard No. 11 with a 40-yard chip-in. Birdies on No.’s 16 and 17 moved him to 4-under, then three straight birdies on No.’s 1-3 pushed him into a tie with O’Meara, Gore and Wi, who were already in the clubhouse.
A 300-yard drive and a 291-yard 5-wood on No. 5 left Micheel two-feet, 11 inches from his second eagle.
“You basically just play for the front right of the green,” Micheel said. “I got a nice bounce off the side of the fairway and it kicked down to about three feet and I managed to knock that one in.”
Gore, meanwhile, put himself on the golf map in June when he was near the top of the U.S. Open after three rounds before faltering with a final-round 84.
The other first-round leader, Wi, is a 33-year-old Tour rookie who has toiled primarily overseas.
“The golf course was in perfect condition,” said John Daly, who finished with a 1-under 71. “It was definitely a day to go low.”
A birdie on the par-3, 151-yard No. 17 helped Singh finish at even par, while Mickelson came in at 1-over.
“Shooting over par is never fun, but I didn’t play too poorly and I’ll just need to have a good round tomorrow,” Mickelson said.
“I didn’t quite know the contours of the greens, and how the balls were funneling. I’m hoping that I have some good knowledge after playing today.”
Jim Furyk, ranked No. 8 in the world, finished at 1-over par, as did 2003 champion J.L. Lewis. Fred Couples, the world’s 19th-ranked player, finished at 4-over.
Rain is expected today, and conditions could obviously worsen.
“It (rain) will make it play a lot longer, that’s for sure,” Gore said. “On Tuesday when we played (a practice round), the fairways were pretty soft and they were kind of picking up a little mud. Today they started to firm up, so the golf course is going to be very, very long and some of those carries are going to not be possible.
“You’re going to have to take a couple different lines and expect to hit a couple longer clubs in there. I think it will obviously make the greens a little softer so you’ll be able to fire at a few more pins.”
Ben Crane, Stuart Appleby, Bob Burns and Zach Johnson finished in a four-way for sixth place, two shots off the pace.
NOTES: Thursday’s first round was slated to be broadcast by ESPN from 4-6 p.m., but coverage didn’t begin until 4:45 p.m. because a Major League Baseball game between the Mets and Nationals ran late. Today’s television coverage is scheduled for ESPN from 4-6 p.m. … None of the four first-round leaders is ranked higher than No. 155 in the world.