By Jeff Mills, Special to the Wyndham Championship
GREENSBORO — You cannot win the Wyndham Championship on the first day. But you can lose it.
And so a good start Thursday on the Donald Ross-designed golf course of stately Sedgefield Country Club goes a long, long way toward hoisting the Sam Snead Cup Sunday evening.
First-round leader Joel Dahmen, a 37-year-old journeyman pro from Washington state, knows this well.
Dahmen opened with a 9-under par 61, and he takes a one-shot lead over Sweden’s Alex Noren into Friday’s second round of the 86th Wyndham Championship. Wake Forest University alumnus Cameron Young is one of four players tied for third at 7-under par.
Eighteen players shot 65 or better in the first round and will start the day within four of the lead.
“Thursday is a long ways from Sunday,” Dahmen said after his scintillating round. “I’ve been here a lot, so I’m just happy to get off to a good start. We’ll see where things fall.”
Dahmen, who has made 231 starts since turning pro in 2010, scored his only PGA TOUR victory in the Dominican Republic four years ago. He has three runner-up finishes.
But here he is, alone atop the leaderboard after one round. And what a round: 16 greens in regulation, 10 birdies and a bogey on a golf course he knows well.
“It’s my seventh or eighth year playing here, and it typically gets a little wet,” Dahmen said. “So it was fun to see the ball bouncing on the fairways today. The greens are great. If you hit good putts, they’re going to go in. They picked up a lot of pace this morning, so there were a few down-hillers that were really quick.”
The story within the story of the Wyndham every year is the chase to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs. The Wyndham Championship is the final event of golf’s regular season, and only the top 70 in the standings advance to the playoffs.
Dahmen started the tournament No. 101. He needs to finish in a 3-way tie for second place or better to qualify.
“It’s not farfetched. But if you look at the numbers starting the week, then, yeah, it’s farfetched,” Dahmen said. “So I’m happy with where my game is. I played a nice round of golf today, and I’m going to try to do it again tomorrow.”
It won’t be easy. The field chasing Dahmen is bunched together tightly, starting with Noren.
The Swede said he adjusted his swing recently and is hitting his irons with a lower trajectory that gives him more control. It showed Thursday, leading to an eagle, seven birdies and a bogey.
Defending champion Aaron Rai leads a group of four players tied for third place. The Englishman, Mark Hubbard, Cameron Young and Nico Echavarria all opened with rounds of 63.
Every step Rai has taken this week has brought back powerful memories of 2024.
“It’s really cool,” Rai said. “Naturally, there were a couple of moments when last year came back to me, which was incredible. It’s nice to just let those come when they come.
“But it’s important to stay extremely focused, especially on a golf course like this. It presents a lot of opportunities, but it can catch you very fast. You have to be careful of drifting off too much. But it was really nice being out there, just recalling a couple of the shots from last year.”
After an early bogey, Rai birdied eight of the last 12 holes he played to finish strong.
“A lot of it is momentum,” Rai said. “When you hit a couple of good shots, you keep staying in position, you keep giving yourself looks, and then a couple of putts go in. Rounds can kind of accelerate, and the score can build very fast. … Managing those periods is absolutely crucial. When you get hot, keep rolling with it.”
South Korean Sungjae Im birdied his last two holes — chipping in from 18 yards away on No. 18 — as day turned to evening for a 6-under 64 that put him alone in seventh place.
Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott — star players who both are former No. 1 players in the world — lead a mob of 11 players who shot first-round 65s and are four shots off the lead.
Spieth birdied three of his last four holes.
“I didn’t drive the ball particularly well until the last five or six holes,” Spieth said. “Same with my iron play, where it was really the last seven holes or so. I was just a little bit off to start … but it was nice to hang in there, get some breaks on the greens and be a couple under while I wasn’t really feeling very good about my game. Then I started to get in a nice rhythm to finish, and hopefully I can carry that into the rest of the week.”
The rest of the tournament should be a shootout. Especially for guys like Scott, the Australian star who is No. 85 in FedEx Cup points and on the outside looking in at the playoffs. He needs a top-three finish to advance.
Scott and players like him are going for broke.
“I’m in that spot where I can’t be too patient,” Scott said. “I have to have a go of a few things. I was trying to remind myself of that when I was picking targets out there. I have to be as aggressive as I can.”
And so the first day of the Wyndham Championship is in the books — a whole bunch of low scores already posted with three more crucial rounds to come.
