LA QUINTA – It’s no longer a desert marathon every January.
It’s not a sprint, either, but you wouldn’t have known by watching the PGA golfers light up the scoreboard Thursday afternoon.
Jerry Kelly, Jason Dufner, Jeff Overton and Anirban Lahiri share the first-round lead at the 57th CareerBuilder Challenge – formerly the Bob Hope Classic – after firing scores of 8-under-par 64 at PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament course and La Quinta Country Club.
In an effort to mix things up, tournament officials switched the event’s rotation, using the Nicklaus Tournament course for the first time and the TPC Stadium course for the first time since 1987. TPC played tougher, but low scores persisted, with 17 players shooting 66 or better in near-perfect, 75-degree windless conditions.
Yes, many of those were shot at La Quinta Country Club, though Overton and Dufner both played the Nicklaus course.
Overton, who’s never won in 273 starts on Tour, entered this week with bad memories stemming from Q-School competition at the Nicklaus course a decade ago.
“I just remember playing pretty awful and I was kind of a little (bit of) sour grapes coming in here,” the Indiana native said. “But I was like, you know what? I’m playing great, (and) it’s going to be totally different.”
Overton birdied five consecutive holes on the front nine, and four out of five on the back, including putts of 10 and 16 feet on the 12th and 13th holes.
Dufner also showed impressive consistency, with eight birdies in a bogey-free round.
“We know going in that the golf courses are going to yield some birdies, so you just try to stay patient,” Dufner said.
La Quinta Country Club, which has been in the rotation for a majority of the years since 1964, was once considered the most difficult Hope Classic course. Thursday, though, it offered the red-carpet treatment for Lahiri and Kelly, who birdied five holes and eagled the par-5 No. 6 and par-5 No. 11.
“Well, let’s see,” Kelly said. “I made one eagle all of last year, so I doubled that in my round,” he said. “And I had one in Hawaii (last week). So I’ve tripled my eagle total of last year already.”
The rotation change offered another in a series of changes that’s seen the tourney shorted from five days to four while also dropping the celebrity amateurs that played here for so many years.
Some of that, though, has also returned the PGA’s bigger names, including five-time major champion and two-time Hope winner Phil Mickelson, as well as returning champ Bill Haas and 11 other former Hope winners.
Mickelson made his season debut and played for the first time since switching swing coaches from Butch Harmon to Andrew Getson. He shot 31 on the front at La Quinta before slipping a bit with a 37 on the back for 68, four shots off the lead.
Jamie Lovemark, a former high school standout at San Diego Torrey Pines High, who played at USC, was tied one shot off the lead with Colt Knost.
Haas was jammed in an 11-way tie for seventh after opening the day by holing his approach for eagle on the first hole en route to a 66. Of those 11, seven – including former U.S. Amateur winner Ricky Barnes – played La Quinta, while three played the Nicklaus course and one on TPC.
CHIP SHOTS
Idyllwild native and former Hemet High standout Brendan Steele, who tied for second last year, was among the group tied with Mickelson for 32nd place after shooting 68. Steele had six birdies at La Quinta Country Club, but was hurt by a double bogey on the par-3 15th hole. … Lahiri, from India, was perfect on greens Thursday, hitting all 18 in regulation at La Quinta Country Club. … The Nicklaus Tournament course played the easiest, with a scoring average of 69.424. La Quinta was 69.596 and TPC Stadium was a 71.825.
