Seamus Power produced a mixed bag of an opening round at the Sanderson Farms Championship on Thursday. His first round 72 leaves him eight shots off the top of the leaderboard.
American Sahith Theegala holds the first round lead after carding an eight under par 64.
Power teed off on the back nine with a bogey on his first hole, followed by three birdies from the following five holes. The Waterford native hit another bogey on the 18th, recovered with a fourth birdie on the fifth before hitting a double bogey on the 403-yard Par 4 eighth hole.
Power hit 13 of 18 greens in regulation and had a good round of putting, with no misses on putts within 10 feet.
He hasn’t missed a cut on the PGA Tour since the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, and in July enjoyed his first win on the tour at the Barbasol Championship. The 34 year-old is the only Irishman in action in Mississippi this week.
Starting on the back nine, the 23-year-old Theegala birdied four of his first five holes and made another at 18 to in 31, before adding three more birdies in a blemish-free round including a 15-foot putt on his last hole.
Theegala led by a stroke from fellow Americans Nick Watney and Harold Varner III, with a further stroke back to Canadian Roger Sloan, South Korea’s Si Woo Kim and Kirt Kitayama of the US.
First round scores from the Sanderson Farms Championship (USA unless stated, Par 72)
64 Sahith Theegala
65 Harold Varner III, Nick Watney
66 Si Woo Kim (Kor), Kurt Kitayama, Roger Sloan (Can)
67 Hayden Buckley, Corey Conners (Can), Lucas Glover, Adam Hadwin (Can), Sungjae Im (Kor), Patton Kizzire, Taylor Moore, Andy Ogletree, Gary Woodland, Cameron Young
68 Sam Burns, Austin Cook, Joel Dahmen, Tyler Duncan, Doug Ghim, Lanto Griffin, Stephan Jaeger (Ger), Sung-Hoon Kang (Kor), Andrew Landry, Henrik Norlander (Swe), Chengtsung Pan (Tai), Kevin Streelman, Vincent Whaley, Aaron Wise, Matthew Wolff
69 Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra (Spa), Dylan Frittelli (Rsa), Chesson Hadley, Lucas Herbert (Aus), Charley Hoffman, Anirban Lahiri (Ind), Martin Laird (Sco), Luke List, Denny McCarthy, William McGirt, J.T. Poston, Doc Redman, Rory Sabbatini (Svk), Brandt Snedeker, J.J. Spaun, Brendan Steele, Brandon Wu, Kyle Reifers
70 Paul Barjon (Fra), Joseph Bramlett, Sergio Garcia (Spa), Emiliano Grillo (Arg), Nick Hardy, Chris Kirk, Ben Kohles, Nate Lashley, Adam Long, Peter Malnati, Trey Mullinax, Chad Ramey, Sam Ryder, Brian Stuard, Davis Thompson, Michael Thompson, Jimmy Walker, Dylan Wu, Will Zalatoris, Grant Hirschman, Quade Cummins
71 Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Tha), John Augenstein, Kevin Chappell, Wyndham Clark, Brian Gay, Brandon Hagy, Kramer Hickok, John Huh, Russell Knox (Sco), David Lipsky, Tyler McCumber, Ryan Moore, Sebastian Munoz (Col), Carlos Ortiz (Mex), Taylor Pendrith (Can), Guillermo Mito Pereira (Chi), Chez Reavie, Seth Reeves, Davis Riley, Patrick Rodgers, Matthias Schwab (Aut), Scott Stallings, Robert Streb, Hudson Swafford, Callum Tarren (Eng), Martin Trainer, Cameron Tringale, Cohen Trolio, Dawie van der Walt (Rsa), Camilo Villegas (Col)
72 Ryan Armour, Keegan Bradley, Cameron Davis (Aus), Brice Garnett, Scott Gutschewski, Bill Haas, Lee Hodges, Mackenzie Hughes (Can), Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Kor), Max McGreevy, Seung-Yul Noh (Kor), Andrew Novak, Séamus Power (Irl), Adam Schenk, Curtis Thompson, Brendon Todd, Bo Van Pelt, Matt Wallace (Eng)
73 Bronson Burgoon, Michael Gligic (Can), Tom Hoge, Zach Johnson, Keith Mitchell, Aaron Rai (Eng), Sepp Straka (Aut), Jared Wolfe
74 Joshua Creel, Matthew NeSmith, Greg Sonnier, Adam Svensson (Can), Nick Taylor (Can), Kevin Tway
75 Jonas Blixt (Swe), Cody Gribble, Scott Piercy, Andrew Putnam, Brett Drewitt (Aus)
76 Kelly Kraft, David Skinns (Eng), Alex Smalley, Sam Saunders
77 Greyson Sigg
80 Richy Werenski
83 Kevin Stadler
