Tyrrell Hatton and Justin Thomas off to hot start at ZOZO Championship
Tyrrell Hatton and Justin Thomas are just one stroke behind leader Sebastian Munoz after the opening round of the ZOZO Championship.
Sebastian Munoz leads the ZOZO Championship after the opening round, but in-form Englishman Tyrrell Hatton and World No.3 Justin Thomas find themselves just one stroke behind.
Eight birdies and two eagles helped Munoz set the pace with an 8-under par opening round of 64 to take the lead, but Thomas impressed with a 29 on the back-nine to join Hatton in a tie for second.
Five players currently share T4, while Justin Rose produced some fantastic golf to sit three off the pace at 5-under par in T9 and Jon Rahm shot an opening round of 4-under par, despite uncharacteristically shanking an iron shot which led to a bogey. Watch Rahm's shank in the video below.
After punching back to the fairway, Rahm delivered a dart to save bogey. pic.twitter.com/xT3YIWsJSr
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 22, 2020
Hatton, who has been in fine form after following up his BMW PGA Championship win with a T6 finish at the CJ Cup, was happy with what he described as a "solid" say.
"Everything was pretty solid out there," Hatton said. "Obviously I got lucky a couple of times, my bad shots today ended up in kind of okay places. My short game kind of helped me out when it needed to. So overall, pretty solid day and obviously very happy to shoot another good score."
The World No.9 started his day with a birdie at the first, followed by another at the par-5 2nd, before adding two more gains before the turn.
Hatton made back-to-back birdies as he started the back nine and he added two more at the 13th and 15th, with his only dropped shot of the day coming at the par-5 16th hole.
Thomas started with a pretty average front nine, with birdies at the 5th and 6th cancelled out with bogeys at the 7th and 8th to make the turn level par.
The American produced a stunning 7-under score on the back nine, with five birdies and an eagle at the 16th to finish level with Hatton for the day.
Defending champion Tiger Woods is unlikely to retain, as the 15-time major champion struggled at a course he knows so well, shooting a 4-over par 76.
