Six straight birdies lift Austin Smotherman into lead with 62 at Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Austin Smotherman’s one earlier PGA TOUR look at the match now often known as the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches was in 2022 and it was unmemorable: He shot 70 in the primary spherical, 76 in the second and missed the reduce by 4 pictures.

Given that, he did not see a spherical like Thursday’s coming.

Smotherman matched the perfect rating of his profession, capturing a 9-under 62 to take a one-stroke lead over Nico Echavarria after the primary spherical.

Smotherman grew to become the seventh participant to shoot 62 or higher at PGA National in this occasion. The others: Jake Knapp (59 in spherical 1, 2025), Matt Jones (61 in spherical 1, 2021), Brian Harman (61 in spherical 2, 2012), Chris Kirk (62 in spherical 2, 2023), Brandon Hagy (62 in spherical 2, 2021) and Tiger Woods (62 in the ultimate spherical, 2012).

“It was a pretty easy round,” Smotherman mentioned, “on a golf course that shouldn’t be this easy.”

And that may be a speaking level at PGA National.

The course is overseen, which suggests rye has been added to the Bermudagrass. The benefits are many, together with the grass wanting greener, which suggests PGA National appears to be like prettier on tv. Not simply that, however the course performs softer as nicely.

Put in easiest phrases, an overseen PGA National is not as formidable to get round because the PGA National of some years in the past. Mark Wilson gained in the match’s first yr on this course with a rating of 5 underneath, and 11 of the primary 14 winners at PGA National completed lower than 10-under par. The successful scores in the final 5 years: 12 underneath, 10 underneath, 14 underneath, 17 underneath and 19 underneath.

“This is a really good golf course,” mentioned Billy Horschel, who shot a 2-under 69 on Thursday. “It’s a very fair golf course. When it blows hard, it’s a challenge, and when it’s sort of benign like it is today, it’s gettable. A few years ago the rough was longer and then they started cutting it down and then they oversaw the golf course.

“Listen, I believe the TOUR will get a nasty rap, and it isn’t something in opposition to the house owners of PGA National. I perceive the place they’d need to overseed. People need it to look fairly on TV, and if it appears to be like fairly on TV, perhaps folks will need to come play it.”

Horschel created a little bit of a buzz on Wednesday

when he weighed in on to discuss the overseeing issue. On Thursday, he didn’t rant and rave — but made clear that he preferred the PGA National that had some more teeth than this version.

“I understand we are using a golf course that we don’t own a lot of times, and sometimes we’re at the discretion of what the owner wants to do,” Horschel mentioned. “Obviously we give our opinion of what we expect is greatest for the golf course and the way they need to set it up and problem it, but in addition, the house owners have a say in it. This is not simply PGA National; it goes to loads of programs that we play all through the years.”

Smotherman — fueled by six consecutive birdies on holes 7 through 12 — tapped in for a birdie on the par-5 finishing hole for the second 62 in his PGA TOUR career. He also shot 62 in the first round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in October 2022.

He held a first-round lead eleven before this week, at the 2023 VidantaWorld Mexico Open, and hasn’t won any of his first 81 starts on TOUR. He’s also playing without a line on the ball this week, seeing what that does for his putting.

“Trying to just be a little bit more freeing with the stroke, be an artist on the greens, see the line, kind of let it just be external, look at the hole, see where I want it to go in and just trust that I’m pretty good at just aiming in the general vicinity that needs to happen,” Smotherman said. “Then from there, just letting good speed take over, and hopefully the hole gets in the way.”

Echavarria shot 63 in the morning half of the draw. No one else who started in the morning shot better than 67, with Taylor Moore and Jackson Suber coming in with those scores. Potus Nyholm, Kristoffer Reitan, Daniel Berger and Kevin Roy had 67s in the afternoon, but nobody got close to Smotherman.