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Fort Worth Invitational 2018: Kevin Na Holds Narrow Lead After Thursday
May 24, 2018
Kevin Na finished the first day at the Fort Worth Invitational atop the leaderboard, shooting an 8-under 62 to hold a one-stroke lead over Charley Huffman.
Four players (Emiliano Grillo, Jhonattan Vegas, Andrew Putnam and Beau Hossler) finished two strokes back.
Na also had one of the best moments of the day, finishing his round with a brilliant birdie before turning to his caddie and saying "I told you" as he smiled.
According to Nick Menta of GolfChannel.com, "Na got into a pretty good back-and-forth with his caddie about whether to lay up or try to clear the water from the right rough at No. 9. Na went for it, cleared the hazard, and holed this chip for birdie."
Na played to pour for the first six holes before three straight birdies. He started his back-nine with a bang, with an eagle on No. 1 and birdie on No. 2. Four holes later, he put another birdie across the board:
In all, Na finished with seven birdies and no bogeys. He also had an average driving distance of 292 yards, a driving accuracy of 64.29 percent, hit 61.11 percent of greens in regulation and gained 3.349 strokes putting, per PGATour.com.
Were the 75th-ranked Na to win this tournament, it would be just his second victory on the PGA Tour.
While Na was the story, he wasn't the only player to put across a few highlight-reel moments on the day:
Satoshi Kodaira pulled out just the second albatross in the tournament's history, meanwhile, with a 234-yard blast on No. 1, per PGA Tour Media:
As for other notable players, Rickie Fowler (3 under), Matt Kuchar (3 under) and Jordan Spieth (1 under) kept themselves within striking distance, though catching up to Na will be no easy task. Zach Johnson (2 over), meanwhile, finds himself in danger of missing the cut.