ATLANTA — It took Scottie Scheffler an entire season to gain a two-stroke lead to start the Tour Championship, and one bad hole to give it away.
Collin Morikawa, meanwhile, spent an entire season chasing a win that never came. He started nine strokes back of Scheffler in the Tour Championship's staggered-start format, and it took only 18 holes to erase that entire deficit.
"No better time, I guess, in our TOUR Championship to show up and start playing some golf," Morikawa said after his round. Morikawa's seven birdies and an eagle would have put him in the solo lead by two strokes, had this been a standard tournament. But he'll have to settle for an 18-hole tie with Viktor Hovland and Keegan Bradley at -10.
Scheffler, meanwhile, began the day at -10 but was undone by a tumultous back nine that culminated in a cringeworthy triple bogey at the water-guarded 15th. Per golf statistician Justin Ray, it was Scheffler's first triple bogey all season, and his first in 2,179 holes played on Tour. Morikawa, meanwhile, rode the high of an exceptional round in thick Georgia heat."The way [Thursday] felt I wish I could go play another 18 and just continue that," he said."But I know what I did [Thursday] and I'm going to keep those kind of baselines and checkpoints to make sure that when we start out there [Friday] that we continue that same trend."
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