| Atlanta,
Georgia, 29th October 1998
- Vijay Singh had no complaints today in the Tour Championship.
One day after the PGA champion
criticized the shaggy rough of East Lake Golf Club as unfair, Singh shattered
the course record with a 7-under-par 63 for a three-stroke lead over Billy Mayfair
in the first round. "Unbelieveable,"
Singh said. "That's probably the best I've played in a long time." Singh
had a chance for the lowest score ever in the Tour Championship until a three-putt
bogey from about 40 feet on the par-3 18th. His 63 tied the tournament record
held by three others and last set by Jim Gallagher Jr. in 1993. It
was easily enough to break the competitive scoring record on East Lake since its
redesign, a 66 by Larry Nelson in June 1997 during a U.S. Open qualifier. And
it matched the best score ever by Bobby Jones, who learned the game on East Lake.
"I felt
pretty good about my round," Payne Stewart said of his 1-under 69. "Then
I looked at the scoreboard and said, `OK, what golf course is Vijay playing?"'
With narrow,
sloping fairways and thick, punishing rough reminiscent of a major championship,
Singh made it look like he was playing the Greater Milwaukee Open instead of a
season-ending event set up to test the best players of the year. Oh,
he still believes the rough is too difficult, but at least he found an answer:
Avoid it. "Tee
to green, that's the best I've ever hit the ball," he said. Only
eight players in the field of the top 30 money-winners managed to break par on
a sunny, breezy afternoon that made the greens run faster as the day went on.
Tom Lehman,
who hit all 18 greens in regulation, and Jim Furyk were at 67. Another stroke
back was Jeff Sluman and Justin Leonard, who won the $4 million Players Championship
in March and is bidding to become just the third player to win the tour's two
richest events in the same season. Stewart,
Hal Sutton and Steve Stricker were at 69. Singh's
three-stroke lead is the largest after 18 holes since Gallagher's 63 five years
ago gave him a five-stroke advantage. He went on to win by a stroke. No
one was ready to concede anything. "It's
72 holes of golf," said Stewart, who needs to win to make the Presidents
Cup team. "It was a great round, but he's got three more days of hitting
the fairways, hitting the greens and making the putts." That's
not as simple as it sounds, as evidenced by some of the other scores. Defending
champion David Duval, who has won seven tournaments in his last 25 starts, was
at 75. Tiger Woods took a double bogey-7 on the ninth hole and failed to make
a birdie in his round of 75 -- 12 strokes behind his playing partner, Singh. Masters
and British Open champion Mark O'Meara birdied three of the last five holes to
salvage a round of 71. U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen wasn't so lucky -- he shot
a 41 on the back nine for a 7-over 77, then stormed off to the clubhouse and said,
"Not good." Mayfair,
enjoying his best season since he won the Tour Championship at Southern Hills
in 1995, played bogey-free and got his birdies in bunches -- all four of them
in a five-hole stretch starting on the par-5 ninth hole. "I
didn't really look at a scoreboard until No. 18, and when I saw what Vijay was
doing. ... That's a heck of a round," Mayfair said. "As everyone knows,
once he gets it going, it's hard to catch him." Singh
wasn't sure that would be the case. He never felt comfortable on the practice
range, so he tried to keep it simple: Find a target and hit it. As
it turned out, he was dead on. The
longest birdie putt he made was an 18-footer on No. 9. The other seven were from
inside eight feet, including three from tap-in range and one two-putt birdie from
about 25 feet. Even one of the greens he missed was close -- he hit the flagstick
on No. 10 and the ball shot off the back of the green. "Today
was an exceptional round for anyone around here," Singh said. "That's
probably one of my best." | 
