Justin Thomas shoots a 63 to lead by three in South Korea

Jeju Island, South Korea                              October 19-22, 2017                                         

Purse: $9,250,000

NINE BRIDGES Golf Club                                                                               Par/Yards: 36-36—72/7,196

 

First-Round Notes – Thursday, October 19, 2017

 

Weather: Mostly cloudy with a high of 65 degrees. Wind NE at 10-12 mph  

 

First-Round Leaderboard

Justin Thomas                          63 (-9)

Chez Reavie                            66 (-6)

Gavin Green                            66 (-6)

Scott Brown                             66 (-6)

Marc Leishman                         66 (-6)

Patrick Reed                            66 (-6)

Five players tied at 5-under

 

Justin Thomas

Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas opened the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES with a bogey and a par on the first hole only to answer with four birdies and two eagles on the next seven holes as part of a 9-under-par first-round 63 to lead by three shots.

The 63 matches Thomas’s  second-best opening round on the US PGA TOUR with the 2015 John Deere Classic. Thomas’ lowest opening round was a memorable 59 at last year’s victory at the Sony Open in Hawaii. The 63 is Thomas’ ninth career round of 63 or better.

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Gavin Kyle Green

In the field due to his standing on the Asian Tour Order of Merit, Malaysia’s Gavin Kyle Green shot an opening-round 6-under-par 66 and is part of a five-way tie for second. This is Green’s fifth career start on the PGA TOUR. He has twice played in the CIMB Classic finishing T61 last week and T69 last year. His other two events came last season where he missed the cut at the Safeway Open and the Quicken Loans National. .

 

Chez Reavie

Chez Reavie’s solid start to the 2017-2018 season continued with an opening-round 66 putting him at T2. Reavie has played in both of the season’s opening events with a T13 finish at the Safeway Open and a T17 finish at last week’s CIMB Classic.

 

Reavie is coming off one of his better seasons on the PGA TOUR after finishing 39^th in the FedExCup standings in his ninth full season on TOUR. The 39^th-place finish in the standings is his second-best, having finished 10^th in 2011.

 

Miscellaneous Notes

At the first official US PGA TOUR event to be held in tKorea, Whee Kim shot the lowest opening round of the 16 South Korean players in the field with a 4-under-par 68, to finish the first round at T12. Kim has enjoyed a nice start to the season including a hole-in-one in the third round of last week’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia with a new car as the prize.

Marc Leishman eagled his final hole to finish the first round T2 at 6-under-par.

Patrick Reed also ended the opening round T2 at 6-under-par. Even in a season where Reed didn’t win for the first time in five years, Reed did enough to qualify for his fourth consecutive TOUR Championship, last season.

 

Last week’s CIMB Classic winner, Pat Perez, shot a front-nine 5-under-par, 31, but 7 pars and two bogeys on his back nine forced him to settle for a 3-under-par round.

 

CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and the FedExCup                                                             

CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES is a 72-hole stroke play event combining players from three official sanctioning bodies – the US PGA TOUR, the Korean PGA and the Asian Tour. The inaugural event brings an official PGA TOUR event to Korea for the first time in history and brings together top players from the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup standings, top players from the Korean PGA and from the Asian Tour Order of Merit.