American Xander Schauffele sits atop the leaderboard in the first round of the PGA Wells Fargo Championship after a brilliant first round that included a controversial and fortuitous ‘line of sight’ drop.
The 30-year-old, currently No.3 on the FedExCup standings, pushed his tee shot right on the eighth hole at Quail Hollow, with the ball nestling against a fence in a heavily wooded area of the course.
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However, with a ShotLink tower positioned in his line of play, Schauffele was entitled to a line of sight drop within two club lengths, with the relief point coming just outside the trees on the pine straw. With a clear look at the green, he sent his second shot to about 34 feet and two-putted for par.
The ruling infuriated many golf fans, with anger directed both at golf officials for making the call, and Schauffele for accepting it.
Schauffele admitted post-round he “got really lucky.”
“I brought the rules official in there with me because I was like, you’ve got to be OK with this because this is literally the only shot I can hit. So Austin and I moved two massive rocks that weren’t embedded and then I got relief out of the junk and then hit a pretty good shot on the green from there.
“What was a very stressful moment turned into a pretty stressless par.”
Schauffele continued while speaking to Golf Channel: “The tower was in the luckiest spot possible and then we went left, that brought me out the very edge of the pine straw.
“I was super lucky. The birdie on the last was then the cherry on top for me.”
Schauffele finished day with an opening 7-under 64, three strokes clear of Collin Morikawa, Alex Noren and three-time Wells Fargo champion Rory McIlroy.
Aussie Jason Day also made a bright start to sit at three under par, four shots behind Schauffele
McIlroy is a three-time champion at Quail Hollow, having taken his first PGA title on the layout in 2010 and added crowns in 2015 and 2021.
Schauffele seeks his eighth career PGA Tour triumph but the first for the 30-year-old American since the 2022 Scottish Open.
Heavy rain delayed the start by an hour for the field of 69 in the last major tuneup for next week’s PGA Championship at Valhalla.
The saturated course made things odd for Schauffele from the start. “It was a weird day as a whole,” Schauffele said. “We had a delay. The course was soaking wet. I was able to sort of get into some rhythm kind of quickly which was really nice.”
Wells Fargo Championship leaderboard after first round
64 – Xander Schauffele
67 – Collin Morikawa, Alex Noren (SWE), Rory McIlroy (NIR)
68 – Justin Thomas, Im Sung-jae (KOR), Jason Day (AUS), Sepp Straka (AUT), Lee Hodges, Russell Henley, Taylor Moore
69 – Jordan Spieth, Max Homa, Matt Kuchar, Nick Dunlap
70 – Gary Woodland, Denny McCarthy, Tom Hoge, Andrew Putnam, Kim Si-woo (KOR), Patrick Rodgers, Keegan Bradley, Kurt Kitayama, An Byeong-hun (KOR), Grayson Murray, Webb Simpson, Will Zalatoris, Cam Davis (AUS), Corey Conners (CAN), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA)