WGC Bridgestone Invitational 2015: Leaderboard Scores, Highlights from Thursday

With one round of the 2015 World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational in the books, Danny Lee is setting the pace at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. With a five-under 65 through 18 holes, Lee is all alone in first place.

You can see the leaderboard below:

Starting on the back nine, Lee picked up three birdies on his first four holes of the round. He also sprinkled in a bogey during that run, somewhat stunting his momentum. Then another bogey on No. 15 dropped him to one under before he birdied No. 16 get back to two under.

His front nine began almost exactly as his back had—three birdies in the first four holes, this time sans bogey. Lee had some work to do to earn that final birdie:

After he headed for the clubhouse, Lee joked a lot has changed since he last set foot at Firestone, per GolfChannel.com's Will Gray:

For the longest time, it seemed as though Lee would have company atop the leaderboard. Jim Furyk was hanging right there with him at five under.

Then, he bogeyed No. 18. His second shot of the hole landed in the rough, and he was fighting an uphill battle from that point forward.

Still, a five-under 66 is a great start for Furyk, who has had a lot of success at Firestone, per PGATour.com's Sean Martin:      

Also sitting one stroke back of the leader is Graeme McDowell.

McDowell teed off at 1:35 p.m. ET, so he had already settled into the clubhouse by the time Furyk and Lee were wrapping up their respective rounds. The 36-year-old could only hope his four-under 66 would be enough for him to maintain at least a share of the 18-hole lead.

He has to settle for a share of second, which still isn't a bad position with three more rounds to go.

McDowell got off to a strong start, birdieing Nos. 2 and 3 back to back and doing the same on Nos. 6 and 7. He also unleashed one of the better shots of the round, taking out the putter and finding the bottom of the cup from about 20 feet out on the fringe:

After the round, he credited some of his success to his work off the tee, per the European Tour:

Should McDowell carry this play over to the rest of the tournament, he could be looking at his highest finish in some time, per Golf Channel's Justin Ray:

One golfer who almost assuredly won't factor in the final result is Troy Merritt. Merritt won the Quicken Loans National, which earned him a place in this tournament. It was the first PGA Tour victory of his career.

The 29-year-old fell back to earth Thursday after shooting a 12-over 82. He's in dead last at the Bridgestone Invitational after 18 holes.

Merritt took everything in stride after he finished up:

Fans are bound to see a ton of movement near the top of the leaderboard in the coming days. Twenty golfers are within four strokes of Lee, and another 15 are within five strokes. Any one of those 36 has a realistic chance of chasing Lee down.

According to the Weather Channel, rain isn't in the forecast at Firestone either, which should help scoring over the remainder of the tournament.

Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Zach Johnson, Dustin Johnson and Jason Day were among the bigger names who had slow starts to the Bridgestone Invitational. But they're one strong round away from being in contention.