settled for second place<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\nSmalley, still seeking his first PGA Tour victory, had one of a bevy of bogey-free 5-under 65s on Thursday and was one of 12 players a shot behind six first-round leaders.<\/p>\n
Lee Hodges, among those who had to sit through a two-hour weather delay during his round, finished with a bogey at the par-4 ninth. He was at 64 along with reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, Ryan Gerard, Andrew Putnam, Tom Kim and Matt McCarty, who birdied No. 9 two groups ahead of Hodges.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the second-most leaders after 18 holes at Colonial behind the eight atop the leaderboard in 2022.<\/p>\n
Keegan Bradley, Brian Harman, Jordan Smith, Ricky Castillo and Luke Clanton matched Smalley with five birdies and no bogeys. The other six players at 5 under included 2019 U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland and eight-time tour winner Billy Horschel.<\/p>\n
There were another 13 players at 4 under, putting 31 players within two shots of the lead at Hogan\u2019s Alley. Defending champion Ben Griffin, whose won three times last year, was 2 under.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorite courses we play all year because I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any one person that it caters to,\u201d Hodges said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to bomb it. You\u2019ve got to have your whole game here. I think it\u2019s a great test of golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smalley finished three shots behind Aaron Rai at the PGA, tied with Jon Rahm after leading by two through 54 holes. The Duke alum spent the next few days focused more on travel plans for the U.S. Open and British Open than his return to Texas.<\/p>\n
Smalley found that his Lone Star State vibe is still a good one. He is on a six-tournament run of finishing 21st or better. The first two were in Houston and San Antonio, followed by a tie for second in the team event in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
The PGA finish matched that career best, and Smalley finally picked up a golf club again last Thursday, then picked up where he left off at Colonial. Four of his five birdie putts were inside 5 feet, including a 134-yard approach to inside a foot at the par-4 15th.<\/p>\n
Colonial is tough when it\u2019s dry and windy, but it\u2019s neither right now in North Texas. Plenty of recent rain has been accompanied by calm winds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would throw grass up and it was kind of coming right back down to our feet,\u201d Smalley said. \u201cSo definitely more of the scorable conditions I\u2019ve seen around here, but still not an easy golf course. To have no bogeys on the scorecard anywhere is nice, especially here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim, a South Korea native who lives in Dallas, is the closest thing to a hometown favorite with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth skipping Colonial for the first time since the Dallas residents became household names. Both cited busy schedules.<\/p>\n
Kim twice had the lead by himself at 7 under, but bogeyed the par-4 fifth and followed a birdie at the sixth hole with another bogey at No. 7, his 16th.<\/p>\n
Hodges went in front with five birdies in a six-hole stretch to start his back nine, but he had to punch out of the rough at No. 9 and ended up missing a long par putt.<\/p>\n
Gerard made all 17 of his putts inside 15 feet, finishing with eight birdies and two bogeys. Putnam\u2019s bogey-free round included four birdies over his final eight holes, which were on the front nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice to get a couple putts to go in,\u201d said Gerard, whose only tour victory came at last year\u2019s Barracuda Championship, seven years after Putnam\u2019s only tour win at the same event. \u201cI know the stats are probably going to lean more putting, but I\u2019ve been hitting my driver really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harman, the 2023 British Open champion playing Colonial for the 13th consecutive year and 14th time in 15 years, ran off third birdies over four holes early and had two more on the first three holes of his back nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing golf in Texas, man,\u201d said Harman, who has two top 10s at Colonial. \u201cI love this weather. I like it hot. I like the course a lot. It\u2019s holding up pretty good for itself. The greens are soft and the scores are still, there\u2019s nothing crazy out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/body>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Alex Smalley was right back in a position to win at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial two weeks after the third-round leader at the PGA Championship settled for second place. Smalley, still seeking his first PGA Tour victory, had one of a bevy of bogey-free 5-under 65s on Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29320,46,1562,1675,541,12083,796,1146,2939,29319],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}