SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda (AP) — Alex Noren worked hard on his wedge game and it paid off Thursday in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship with 10-under 61, giving him a two-shot lead among early starters on a calm day at Port Royal.
With barely any breeze, Noren took dead aim and was dialed in. He set a tournament record with 11 birdies, and his 61 broke by two shots his lowest score on the PGA Tour.
Vince Whaley, Dylan Wu and Robert Garrigus were at 63.
“It was quite easy conditions and there’s a lot of wedges out there,” Noren said. “But I improved the wedges a lot coming from Japan, where I struggled with them. So I’m very, very happy. It was great to get a 10 under. It was a long time ago I had a really low round.”
His previous best was a 63 in second round of the AT&T Byron Nelson last year.
It was the second straight week for low scoring on the PGA Tour, coming off a resort course Tiger Woods designed in Mexico. Erik van Rooyen won last week at 27-under par.
Van Rooyen, whose best friend is in the final months of his battle with cancer in Minnesota, decided to withdraw and went to see him. He was replaced in the Bermuda field by Garrigus, who had received a last-minute sponsor exemption but ultimately got in as a past tour winner.
Garrigus hasn’t made the cut in a PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour event since April 2022, a dubious stretch of 20 tournaments.
“My short game was perfect today, which I’ve been working on it a little bit, but I can’t say I’ve been working really hard,” Garrigus said. “I’ve only played a couple times in the past few weeks, maybe a month. … I was just coming out to shake the rust off and have a good time today and I guess I did. It was a lot of fun.”
Port Royal is one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour at 6,828 yards, with the wind off Atlantic considered its greatest defense. The wind was on vacation, and players had little resistance among the…
Source : cbssports
