PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida — Jordan Spieth endured a topsy-turvy start to the Players PGA Championship, collecting two eagles, two birdies, two bogeys and one double bogey – and that was just over his first nine holes.
Spieth added one more birdie and a bogey over his final nine holes to finish at 2-under-par 70 on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Florida.
The first round began in positive fashion for the three-time major winner, who started on the 10th hole. He sent an approach shot just 14 inches from the cup for an easy tap-in birdie on the par-4 hole.
“Yeah, I got off to a dream start, and then I just wasn’t very tight off the tee today, and out here eventually that will hurt you,” Spieth said after the round according to Reuters.
The American professional golfer chipped in from a greenside bunker for an eagle at the par-5 11th before following up two pars with a shot into the water at the par-4 14th.
A double bogey was the end result there, and a bogey on 15 was answered by his second eagle of the day at the par-5 16th.
A bogey on the par-3 17th was countered by a birdie on the par-4 18th to put an end to the chaotic stretch.
Spieth said he would prefer avoiding that kind of volatility in a round. “I feel like I’d like it to be boring,” he said.
Spieth, 31, has fared well while working out the kinks following offseason wrist surgery, recording a T4 at the WM Phoenix Open and a T9 at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches.
A 13-time winner on the PGA Tour, Spieth has slipped to No 65 in the Official World Golf Ranking. His last title came at the RBC Heritage in April 2022.
Karl Vilips, meanwhile, celebrated his breakthrough win on the US PGA tour with a couple of hours playing Super Smash Bros. but it was back to business as he started his preparations for the Players Championship.
The 23-year-old Australian earned a last-minute invite to the “fifth major” at TPC Sawgrass with last weekend’s victory at the Puerto Rico Open in only his fourth start on the tour.
A couple of congratulatory messages from Tiger Woods, whose apparel brand he promotes, confirmed Vilips had arrived among golf’s elite and he was still getting his head around it.
“Pretty surreal,” he said. “I mean, it’s something you can only dream about as a kid. I got that voicemail, and then the message, which for him to say that he was very proud of me was just an awesome feeling.”
Although only ninth months into his professional career, Vilips’ long-standing social media presence means he has been well-known as “Koala Karl” to golf fans on the internet for nearly a decade.
The Australian nickname is no longer reflected in his accent after 12 years in America, including four playing golf at Stanford University, but Vilips is proud of his country’s heritage in the sport.
Jakarta-born Vilips, who won gold for Australia at the 2018 Youth Olympics, said major winners like Adam Scott and Jason Day had been a big influence on him growing up.
“They were the best in the country, representing Australia well,” he added.
“And I want to fill their shoes someday. I’ve been able to keep in touch with Jason a little bit and it’s been great. So definitely guys I look up to and people that I want to be like.”
Both Scott (2004) and Day (2016) won the Players Championship but Vilips thinks it unlikely he will join them this week, with a top-20 finish his “realistic goal”.
He was not entirely ruling out a victory at a course close to his Jacksonville home, though.
“I would be pretty surprised,” he said. “I’ve got to beat a lot of great players, I’ve got to play unbelievable golf. I think I would need to play much better golf than I did last week, just because this course is a little bit harder.
“But I’ve obviously thought about it, winning the Players here. That would be unbelievable.”
