Memorial Tournament 2013 Leaderboard: Highlighting Top Performances from Round 1

Charl Schwartzel sits alone atop the leaderboard at the 2013 Memorial Tournament after Round 1 after shooting a seven-under-par round of 65.

Right behind him at six under par is Scott Piercy, and four other golfers are tied for third place at five under par—none of them named Tiger Woods.

The course at Muirfield Village Golf Club is a par-72 masterpiece designed by Jack Nicklaus, and after Thursday's action, just 40 golfers in the field of 120 managed to break par. 

Here's a look at the leaderboard after Round 1, along with some notable scores courtesy of PGATour.com:

Position	Player	Score	To Par
1	Charl Schwartzel	65	-7
2	Scott Piercy	66	-6
T3	Josh Teater	67	-5
T3	Russell Henley	67	-5
T3	Kyle Stanley	67	-5
T3	Charlie Wi	67	-5
T7	Bill Haas	68	-4
T7	Matt Kuchar	68	-4
T9	Matt Jones	69	-3
T9	Michael Thompson	69	-3
T9	Robert Karlsson	69	-3
T9	Chris Stroud	69	-3
T27	Tiger Woods	71	-1
T41	Guan Tianlang (a)	72	E
T107	Rory McIlroy	78	+6

Now, it's time to take a closer look at what the top performers did to end Round 1 atop the leaderboard. Afterward, we'll take a look at how Woods fared on Thursday.

Charl Schwartzel (-7)

Though it may be hard to believe, Schwartzel could have finished his day with an even lower score than he ended up posting. As PGA.com on Twitter noted, he finished the round with 10 total birdies:

That's smoking-hot golf, and if not for a bogey on No. 13 and a double-bogey on No. 8, he'd have carded a round of 10 under par.

Looking at Schwartzel's stats for the day, it's not hard to see how he managed to log such an impressive score. He hit all but one of his fairways (92.86 percent) and was sharp on his approach shots (88.89 percent of GIR). 

Hitting fairways and greens with regularity is a must at Muirfield Village, and another performance like he had on Thursday could put Schwartzel ahead of the pack by a comfortable margin on Friday.

Scott Piercy (-6)

Piercy is a 12-year veteran with just two career PGA victories to his name, but after his excellent showing on Thursday, he's just one shot off the lead. 

Having never finished higher than a tie for 42nd place at the Memorial, Piercy is in great shape to make a strong statement this weekend. He spoke with reporters about his game after his brilliant round of 66, courtesy of golf pro Kevin Roman:

Like Schwartzel, Piercy had a couple of mistakes that marred an otherwise perfect round. After a flawless front nine in which he shot five under par, he bogeyed No. 12 and No. 18 to somewhat offset his three birdies on the back nine. 

No doubt his bogey on the final hole felt deflating after such a solid opening round. With that in mind, Piercy will need to quickly forget about his first-round mistakes if he has any hope of carrying his momentum into Round 2 and into the weekend.

Tiger Woods (-1)

Woods' scorecard from Thursday looks like a checkerboard. 

He never found a comfort zone and had to battle hard to rebound from a plethora of mistakes all day long. In the end, he finished the day having logged four bogeys and five birdies, which puts him in decent shape as it pertains to the tournament after one round. 

Even though Woods was undoubtedly frustrated by his lack of consistency, history suggests he'll be just fine heading into the weekend. According to ESPN's Justin Ray, Woods has opened this tournament with scores between 68 and 71 in all five of his previous wins: 

There are only 26 golfers in front of him, and a couple of nice rounds will put Woods right back in the thick of things for his sixth title at the Memorial Championship.

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