Jung Woo Ham is tied for 10th place on the first day of the final Qualifying School event for a direct ticket to the PGA Tour.
The South Korean carded four birdies and two bogeys for a 2-under 68 in the first round of the tournament at the par-70 Sawgrass Dunes Valley Course at TPC Ponte Vedra Beach in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA, on Friday. Tano Goya (ARG) and Harrison Endicott (AUS), who both shot 5-under 65, are tied for first place, while Ham is three shots back in a tie for 10th.
The tournament alternated between two courses, with the first round of play at Dyce Valley (70.971 strokes) and the par-70 Sawgrass Country Club (73.099 strokes).
The 165-player field earned the top five spots on next year’s PGA Tour, including ties after four rounds of 72 holes. The rest of the field will qualify for the second-tier Confederation Tour, as well as the Canadian and Latin American tours.
Ham, who won the Korean Tour Genesis Grand Prize on the Korean Professional Golf Association (KPGA) this year, was exempt from qualifying and went straight to the final round. “This is a stage I’ve been dreaming of since I was a kid,” he said before the tournament, “and I’ll definitely grab the opportunity as it’s right in front of me.”
Playing on the Dice Valley course, Ham started on the 10th hole and made two birdies in the first half without a bogey. In the second half, he added birdies on the first and third holes to move into the lead. He then bogeyed the fifth and eighth holes without a birdie.
I was disappointed that I couldn’t cut more strokes off my score, but overall my first day went well. My drives were not as precise as they should have been, with an accuracy rate of 57.14%, but I hit 66.67% of my greens in regulation and 1.92 putts per hole. He missed the green on six occasions, but all of them were saved or reduced, and he showed excellent crisis management skills with a 100% scrambling percentage. Finishing the match without making any major mistakes on an unfamiliar course is a testament to his performance. However, both of his bogeys on the day came from dropped putts, so improving his adaptability on the greens will be a key factor in the rest of the tournament. 월카지노
Keita Nakajima (JPN), one of the biggest names in the Q School, played the Dyce Valley course on day one and shot a 1-under 69 to sit in a tie for 20th place. He made three birdies and two bogeys to drop one stroke.
Seung-yeol Noh, who began play at Sawgrass Country Club, and Sung-hoon Kang, who played his first round on the Dyce Valley Course, are tied for 57th after a 1-over par 71 on day one.