SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Matt Kuchar hardly looked like a guy coming off a seven-week break Thursday in the first round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
Kuchar eagled the par-5 13th and added two late birdies and a big par save on the rowdy par-3 16th hole in an opening 7-under 64 at TPC Scottsdale.
“It was so nice to be home,” Kuchar said. “Our kids got to play basketball. This is basketball season back home. I have always been traveling out west, so it was fun for me to be home, be dad, go to basketball games and practices. But we had such good weather, I got good practice in. My boys are now 7 and 9 and they’re into golf, as well. In the afternoons, we’d sneak out and play a few holes. Wasn’t too rusty.”
Playing in perfect afternoon conditions in front of a crowd estimated at 103,420, Kuchar took a one-stroke lead over defending champion Hideki Matsuyama and Brendan Steele.
“Someone told me it was 5 million,” Kuchar joked about the crowd. “So many people out here. It’s a good buzz. It’s a good vibe.”
He made a 25-foot eagle putt on 13.
“Chased a 3-wood up on the corner of the green, and it was a pretty straightforward 25-footer,” Kuchar said. “That was a lucky place to be on that hole. Some of these pins were hard to get at. That was one that was hard to get at.”
The seven-time PGA Tour winner ran in a 6-footer for birdie on the par-5 15th. He got up-and-down for par from the left bunker on the triple-deck stadium 16th, making a 12-foot putt, and chipped to inches from the front fringe on the short par-4 17th to set up his final birdie in the bogey-free round.
“I got some great work in this week with my instructor, Chris O’Connell, and it showed off with some great hitting out there,” Kuchar said.
Matsuyama had a bogey-free round in the morning. Last year, he beat Rickie Fowler in a playoff.
“I wish I knew why I play well here,” Matsuyama said through a translator. “I did hit the ball very well today, hit a lot of greens, a lot of good shots.”
Woods struggles in Dubai
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Missing fairways, missing greens and piling up the putts, Tiger Woods got off to a rough start at the Dubai Desert Classic.
The 14-time major winner finished the first round at 5-over-par 77, failing to record even one birdie at Emirates Golf Club.
“I left probably about 16 putts short. I just couldn’t get the speed of these things,” said Woods, a two-time champion.
He would finish in a tie for 121st, 12 shots behind first-round leader Sergio Garcia (65).
Woods started on the 10th hole and hit only 10 fairways and 11 greens in regulation. He needed 33 putts to complete his round.
“I just could not hit the putts hard enough. I left every putt short,” Woods said. “What I thought was downgrain, downwind, would be quick, downhill, and I still came up short. Into the wind, uphill putts into the grain, I put a little more hinge on it going back to try to get a little more hit to it, and it still didn’t work.”
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