SUN CITY, South Africa — Defending champion Max Homa birdied his final two holes to shoot a 6-under 66 and take a one-shot lead over South African Ockie Strydom within the first spherical of the Nedbank Golf Problem on Thursday.
Homa began his spherical with three straight birdies and had two extra on the entrance 9. He dropped two photographs with bogeys on the again 9.
Strydom’s opening spherical of 67 included 4 birdies, an eagle and a bogey.
Pablo Larrazábal, Andy Sullivan, Matthew Jordan and Thorbjorn Olesen have been in a tie for third, two photographs behind Strydom.
After lacking out on qualifying for the Tour Championship in August, Homa had made simply two tour-level begins. Final yr, he grew to become the fifth American to carry the trophy in South Africa.
“It felt actually good as a result of I haven’t performed a event shortly and I’ve been engaged on a whole lot of new stuff, so to return out and birdie the primary three holes was cool,” stated Homa, the six-time PGA Tour winner who’s attempting to grow to be the eighth participant to efficiently defend his title on the event — and the primary American to do it since Jim Furyk in 2006.
“I believed I performed rather well,” Homa stated. “It was actually tough with the wind, it did an entire flip on seven, so it threw us by means of a little bit of a loop however I believed I did a extremely good job of adjusting to it. Made one mistake on the fifteenth, leaving it lengthy of that pin, however in any other case I did a reasonably good job of taking part in inside myself and never hitting photographs I don’t like to hit, so yeah it was good.”
Homa is amongst three gamers within the subject who’re ranked within the prime 50, together with Corey Conners — who opened with a 72 — and Thriston Lawrence, who shot a 71.
The sector additionally contains American Will Zalatoris, who had a 74 after a double bogey on the par-4 thirteenth gap.
