Players Championship 2015 Leaderboard: Live Updates, Top Storylines for Thursday
The Players Championship routinely brings out one of the best tournament fields on the PGA Tour, and the 2015 edition teed off early on Thursday morning with the typically high concentration of golfing talent.
The first round is history for the likes of Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama and Rickie Fowler. Matsuyama is the early leader at five under, but his lead is far from comfortable, and there should be plenty of drama left for the weekend.
Here's a look at the live leaderboard from TPC Sawgrass golf course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, along with some of the top storylines emerging from or surrounding the first round of play.
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Rickie's Run
Rickie Fowler has made a name for himself over the past year or two as one of the top big-tourney golfers on the PGA Tour. He pulled off one of the more remarkable feats in recent memory by finishing in the top-five at every major in 2014.
However, inconsistency has plagued his career thus far, preventing him from reaching the unimpeachable, sustained levels of dominance enjoyed by youthful contemporaries like McIlroy and Spieth. Fowler has but one lone win in his PGA career, and it came all the way back in 2012.
Golf.com's Coleman McDowell reports that Fowler and Ian Poulter topped an anonymous poll conducted by Sports Illustrated regarding the most overrated players in golf. They each received 24 percent of the vote, per McDowell.
Fowler's off to a fine start at the Players Championship this year, finishing his round at three under and near the top of the leaderboard. ESPN's Jason Sobel gave his take on Fowler's place in that poll during Thursday's round:
A win here at golf's biggest non-major would certainly quell the notion that he's anything but one of the most promising young golfers on the tour (even when he's playing left-handed).
Young Players Step Up
Take a look back up at that leaderboard, and you'll notice Fowler wasn't the only young golfer enjoying a nice day out on the links Thursday. At one point, Fowler and three other young studs were tied for the tournament lead, all of them under 30 years old, per Sobel:
Matsuyama closed out the first day with a blistering score of 67 (five under). He doesn't command the attention of Fowler, Spieth or McIlroy, but at 23 years old, he figures to be a rival of theirs for years to come. Golf Channel's Justin Ray notes he's been no stranger to top performances on the PGA Tour this year thus far:
Ben Martin has had a wildly uneven PGA Tour this season, although the 27-year-old did pick up his fourth pro win at the Shriners Open in October 2014. At 29, Troy Merritt's not quite as spectacularly young as some of the other golfers mentioned here, but his four-under round will put plenty of pressure on the other top players heading into Friday.
Two of the PGA Tour's bright young stars in Spieth and McIlroy were even featured in the same group on Thursday but played wildly different rounds.
Spieth was well off his considerable game on Thursday, making mistakes at an alarming rate for him, per ESPN Stats & Info:
The young Texan left the course sporting a disappointing 75 first-round score.
McIlroy finished his day at a comfortable three under, perhaps still channeling the same competitive spirit that boosted him to a win at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play tournament.
Will Tiger Woods Overcome the Distractions?
The month of May has been a tough one for Tiger Woods. May 3 marks the anniversary of his father Earl's death in 2006, and seemingly the whole world took notice when his breakup with longtime girlfriend Lindsay Vonn, one of the top alpine skiers in the world, was announced.
"It is tough, there's no doubt," Woods told reporters on Tuesday. "I'm not going to lie about that. It is tough. And on top of that, this time of year is really, really hard on me. This three-day window is really hard. I haven't slept these three days, May 3 and through... today, (it) is just brutal on me. And then with obviously what happened on Sunday, it just adds to it."
Woods enters the Players Championship ranked No. 125 in the world. It's been quite some time since he's come into a tournament with the aura of a world-beating golfer. With a 1:49 p.m. ET tee time, he and groupmates Martin Kaymer—winner of the 2014 Players Championship—and Adam Scott will be some of the last golfers out on the course Thursday.
Woods is well aware of the challenges in front of him and the pressure of his group's reputation will only add to that. He showed flashes of his old form at the Masters in April. Fans of his will hope emotional turmoil doesn't mar his play in Florida and that he can get back to the dangerous form that adds interest and intrigue to any tournament he partakes in.
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