Steve Elkington, a sweet-swinging Australian in quest of his second victory this month, led a brazen assault on par Thursday during the opening round of The Players Championship.
Elkington shot a 6-under-par 66 at the unusually hospitable Stadium course, which was softened by rain earlier this week. Without customary blasts of wind from the nearby Atlantic Ocean, this once-feared layout had no defense against a field stacked with world-class golfers.
Five PGA Tour veterans were tied at 67 after 18 holes of the $3.5 million event: Mark Calcavecchia, Russ Cochran, David Edwards, Tom Lehman and Fuzzy Zoeller. There’s another crowd at 68, which means gallery favorites Tiger Woods and Greg Norman are stuck in early traffic. Each posted a 71, as did defending champion Fred Couples.
Elkington won this event in 1991 with an aggregate of 12 under, a score Norman dwarfed when he triumphed with a course record 24 under in 1994.
“With these conditions, you can be pretty aggressive,” said Elkington, who won at Doral three weeks ago. “The storms not only took a lot of danger out of the greens, but the rough has been flattened down, too.”
Zoeller’s round was only his third of the year in the 60s, but he has a reason. After playing the tournament at Pebble Beach, Calif., in early February, he returned to his home in New Albany, Ind., and was forced to remain there.
“I came up with a bad back, and couldn’t play golf for a month and a half,” Zoeller said. “I went to bed one night, and the next morning I woke up and couldn’t walk. I was all crooked and bent out of shape.
“I immediately looked over at my wife, because I think she was the only one in the room at the time, asked her if she beat me up while I was sleeping. I couldn’t swing a golf club. All I could do was my Saturday morning fishing show on ESPN. That’s Saturday morning on ESPN.”
Zoeller, however, feels comfortable enough to play good golf again.
“It must be all those treatments I had,” he said. “Advil and vodka.”
