Alex Noren shot a 10-under-par opening round of 61 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship to lead after the first round; Adam Long set a new PGA Tour record of 69 consecutive fairways made; Coverage continues live on Sky Sports Golf on Friday from 6pm
Last Updated: 09/11/23 10:45pm
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Highlights of round one from the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course
Highlights of round one from the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course
Alex Noren established a first-round lead the Butterfield Bermuda Championship with a 10-under 61 giving him a two-shot lead on a calm day at Port Royal.
With barely any breeze, Noren took dead aim and was dialled in. He set a tournament record with 11 birdies, and his 61 broke by his lowest score on the PGA Tour by two shots when the first round was suspended due to darkness Thursday in Southampton, Bermuda.
Vince Whaley, Dylan Wu, DJ Trahan, and Robert Garrigus were two shots behind the Swede in a tie for second on 63, with Noren reaping the benefits of working hard on his wedge game.
“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.”
Only nine players did not complete the round before darkness fell, including 15-year-old Bermudian amateur Oliver Betschart, who made the field via the local 54-hole qualifier and is the youngest person competing in a PGA Tour event in 10 years. Betschart was 1 over with three holes to play.
Noren’s previous best single-round score on the North American circuit 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 has not made the cut in a PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour event since April 2022, a dubious stretch of 20 tournaments, but made a strong start in Southampton.
“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.
Robert Garrigus sat joint-second after gaining a sponsors exemption
“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 defence. The wind was not a factor though, and players had little resistance among the sunshine, palms and island vistas.
The top 125 on the FedEx Cup after next week keep full PGA Tour cards for 2024, and those inside the top 150 at least have some status.
Noren and Wu are safe. Whaley and Garrigus, however, are well outside the top 150, so this week becomes even more meaningful for them.
Elsewhere, Adam Long made piece of PGA Tour history while opening with a round of 66.
The fairways in Mexico are enormous, and Long did not miss one all of last week. He had hit his last two fairways in Las Vegas, and then he hit the first 11 fairways at Port Royal for a total of 69 in a row, smashing the previous PGA Tour record of making 59 straight fairways.
“Had everyone not come up and said something to me the last 24 hours, I probably wouldn’t think about it as much as I did,” Long said.
“But it was in my mind, for sure, to start. Hit a hybrid on the first and then the second fairway is really hard to hit.
“Luckily it was kind of into the wind, so I hit a driver and hung in the fairway somehow and perfectly in the middle. So, after that I was just kind of coasting.”
Coverage of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship continues live on Sky Sports Golf and Sky Sports Main Event from 6pm on Friday. Also stream with NOW.
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