NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. – Jim Herman shot his second straight 7-under 65 on Friday to take the second-round lead in the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship.

President Donald Trump’s regular golf partner while working as an assistant professional at Trump National Bedminster in New Jersey, Herman had a one-stroke lead over Bill Haas at rain-softened Keene Trace.

Encouraged by Trump to pursue a playing career, Herman won the 2016 Shell Houston Open for his lone tour title.

Haas followed his opening 65 with a 66. He made a 45-foot eagle putt on the par-5 eighth, his 17th hole.

David Toms was two strokes back at 12 under after a 64. The 52-year-old Toms made a 13-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifth, his 14th hole of the day. D.J. Trahan, Kelly Kraft and Kramer Hickok also were 12 under, each shooting 67.

Jose de Jesus Rodriguez (65), Austin Cook (66), Sebastian Munoz (68) and Wes Roach (69) were 11 under.

Tom Lovelady played the first six holes on the back nine in 7 under, capped by a 10-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th. He bogeyed the par-3 16th and parred the last two for a 65 to top the group at 10 under.

J.T. Poston, the first-round leader after a 62, had a 73 to drop into a tie for 18th at 9 under. Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., a stroke behind Poston after an opening 63, also was 9 under after a 72.

Ben Silverman (68) of Thornhill, Ont., and David Hearn (68) of Brantford, Ont., were tied for 44th at 6 under. Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., and Mike Weir of Brights Grove, Ont., missed the cut.

John Daly missed the cut with rounds of 71 and 72. Fighting osteoarthritis in his right knee, the 53-year-old Daly was playing his first PGA Tour event since he was approved for a cart last fall. Denied a cart by the R&A for the British Open, he has been approved for a cart at PGA Tour events until the end of the year.

The winner will receive a spot in the PGA Championship, but not in the Masters.

Full scoring can be found here.

PORTRUSH, Ireland – The strangest weather J.B. Holmes ever experienced was at Royal Portrush.

Just not on Thursday in the British Open.

Holmes, who grew up in a Kentucky town so small that he made the high school golf team when he was in third grade, dropped a mild surprise after he shot 5-under 66 for a one-shot lead that his first experience in links golf was at Royal Portrush.

“The first hole we had short sleeves on,” he said. “The clouds came up, and the next hole it was raining so hard we couldn’t see. People were losing umbrellas that were blowing away. Three holes later, we were taking all our rain gear off and we were hot again.”

Holmes says University of Kentucky supporters arranged for a non-competition golf trip once every four years, and this one took place in about 2005. They started at Royal Portrush, went to Royal County Down and moved their way about Ireland.

But he loved the style of play. The real adjustment was by the caddies who saw the burly kid smash driver.

“At the time, most of the caddies we had weren’t used to somebody hitting 315 or 320, so I got some bad lines,” Holmes said. “I think when I was playing here, I hit five or six shots exactly where they told me, and I lost the ball.”

He only remembered the opening holes when he returned this week – Nos. 7 and 8 are new for this Open – especially the 374-yard fifth hole.

“The caddie told me to hit 3-iron over the stone,” Holmes said. “I said, ‘Why don’t we hit it at the green?’ He says, ‘Nobody hits it at the green.’ I hit 3-iron through the fairway and said I’m going to hit driver. And I actually hit it up on the green.

“First taste of it was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was unique.”

Corey Conners (Listowel, Ont.) is the low Canadian after round one, sitting in a tie for 54th at 1 over.

TURNER’S TURNAROUND

Few hung around to see the end of the best round of Ashton Turner’s remarkable career. After all, this was the last group of the day at the British Open and it was after 9 p.m. at Royal Portrush.

Turner’s parents were there, though, willing their boy on. They’ve been doing it for 20 years.

When he was 1, Turner broke his skull when he fell into a fish tank. It was discovered he had a rare form of cerebral palsy that causes an interruption of muscle control in the legs and arms.

Warned that their son might never walk again, Turner’s parents looked if there was a sport that could help him with his co-ordination. There was – golf.

Twenty years later, he was shooting a 2-under 69 to be tied for 16th at Portrush.

This is the Englishman’s second straight year at the British Open. He struggled in his debut at Carnoustie, with his back story putting him in the limelight.

“Not making excuses for last year,” Turner said, “it was hectic but I didn’t play great and didn’t prepare as well as I could. This year, it’s been great to just properly focus down to business.”

WEATHER REPORT

The sun came out, and the clouds rolled back in. The wind blew and rain came and went, sometimes so quickly that players didn’t have a chance to get under an umbrella in time.

If you didn’t like the weather Thursday at Royal Portrush, all you had to do was wait five minutes for it to change.

“The first nine holes I took on and put off my rain gear probably at least nine times,” Matt Kuchar said. “It went from hot and cold and wet and dry. I had it all out there today.”

The British Open, of course, is known for weather. Sometimes wind is the only defence for links courses sitting on the edge of the sea.

At Royal Portrush, though, Mother Nature seemingly couldn’t decide what to do.

“Felt like three or four seasons out there,” Justin Rose said. “The jacket was on and off. There was enough wind to keep it tricky but also not enough. Whatever it was, today was the perfect amount of wind on a links course.”

The wind made it tricky for players, and playing in the rain always adds another layer of difficulty. That didn’t stop J.B. Holmes from shooting a 66 with a large group of players just a few strokes behind, but it may limit how low the eventual winner goes if conditions remain the same.

“If we get the same periods of sun, couple of squalls, same strength of wind, I’d snap your arm off if anyone got to double digits (under par),” Paul Casey said.

Holmes said he doesn’t worry about conditions, and the less he thinks about them the better he plays.

“Every time you play in an Open you’re going to have unique conditions where it’s going to be windy and more than likely rainy,” Holmes said. “You just have to accept those conditions and the more you can do that and just try to play one shot at a time, that’s really kind of the secret.”

STRONG DEBUT

Two good tournaments got Bob MacIntyre into the British Open. He made his debut with one round he won’t soon forget.

MacIntyre was runner-up in two straight starts in May on the European Tour, in Denmark and England, and that helped propel him into the top 20 in the Race of Dubai, one of the categories for Open exemptions.

He started birdie-birdie at Royal Portrush. He made eagle on the par-4 fifth by driving the green. He was tied for the lead playing the 18th, until a bogey by missing the green sent him to a 68. And yes, the 22-year-old from Scotland noticed the leaderboards.

“I’m watching it every moment,” MacIntyre said, adding that when he made eagle on No. 5, he turned to his caddie and said, “We’re leading the Open.”

MacIntyre has one victory as a pro at the Sahara Kuwait Golf Championship on the developmental MENA Tour (Middle Eagle North Africa). This is his first full year on the European Tour, and he’s making the most of it.

He made his debut at the Scottish Open last week and felt the nerves. That helped in the British Open, his first major.

“Last week prepared me for this week,” he said. “Everything that’s happened just now has prepared me for the next thing. There’s still more things to see and prepare for. And I just have to take that as it comes.”

Full scoring can be found here.

NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. – Nick Taylor sits one stroke back of the lead at the PGA TOUR’s Barbasol Championship.

J.T. Poston shot a 10-under 62 on Thursday to take the first-round lead.

Poston birdied six of the first eight holes at rain-softened Keene Trace, bogeyed the par-3 ninth and added five more birdies on the back nine for his lowest score on the PGA Tour.

“It was one of those days everything clicked,” Poston said. “Hit it good, hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens. I was hitting it so good I didn’t really have that many lengthy birdie putts that I made until the last hole.”

Winless on the tour, the 26-year-old former Western Carolina player closed with a 27-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th.

“The greens had been a little on the firmer side at the start of the week, firmer than I think most guys would expect,” Poston said. “But a lot of rain last night and so they’re soft, and they’re really good greens and you can make a lot of putts. They’re rolling really well. You hit the fairway and you get a lot of wedges in your hand and guys are going to make a lot of birdies.”

Nick Taylor was a stroke back. The Canadian had an eagle and seven birdies in a bogey-free round.

“I hit every green, I didn’t miss a fairway, so it was very solid tee to green and putts were going in,” Taylor said. “Everything was kind of clicking today. With the soft conditions, it was different than the practice rounds. I thought it would be a little bit more difficult, and then that rain came in last night and definitely softened things up. ”

Wes Roach opened with a 64.

“I played solid, hit a lot of fairways, gave myself some good opportunities with some wedges and short irons, and was able to hit some quality shots, and putted nice,” Roach said.

Bill Haas was at 65 with Roberto Castro, Jim Herman, Kelly Kraft, Josh Teater, Kramer Hickok, D.J. Trahan and Sebastian Munoz.

John Daly shot a 71, following a triple bogey on the par-4 fourth with an eagle on the par-5 fifth. Fighting osteoarthritis in his right knee, Daly was denied a cart by the R&A for the British Open, but has been approved for a cart at PGA Tour events until the end of the year. This is his first PGA Tour event since he was approved for a cart last fall.

“It’s just getting worse every day,” Daly said. “Probably have to go back and maybe duct tape it. I did it in Wisconsin. The knee’s falling, so you could literally pick my knee up and put it back. It’s brutal, but especially downhill and stuff like that.”

The tournament winner will receive a spot in the PGA Championship, but not in the Masters.

Full scoring can be found here.

PORTRUSH, Ireland – Inside the entrance to Rathmore Golf Club, just past a sign offering umbrellas for sale on a rainy day, sits a replica of the U.S. Open trophy the club’s favourite son won at Pebble Beach in 2010.

A large painting of Graeme McDowell hangs next to the bar, just in case anyone at the working man’s club on the grounds of the more exclusive Royal Portrush needed to be reminded where he tagged along with his dad as a little kid and fell in love with the game.

It was in the bar where friends and fans crowded in to celebrate until the sun came up when McDowell won his only major championship, sneaking liquor in because it was way past closing time.

It’s where he’s back this week, playing next door at Royal Portrush in a British Open that Rathmore members are desperately hoping he can win at home.

“If we get the result we want on Sunday, we may not close the lounge until October,” said Robb Doherty, a retired police detective who serves as the club’s treasurer. “It’s very much a rags to riches story for Graeme, through both talent and hard work.”

The British Open is back in Northern Ireland for the first time in 68 years, with a trio of local players in the field. Rory McIlroy lives nearby, and 2011 champion Darren Clarke now lives in Portrush itself.

Taste of ??! @Graeme_McDowell drains a 30-footer on 18 and punches his ticket to @TheOpen ????@SteamWhistle ? pic.twitter.com/ijhON9pGOo

— RBC Canadian Open (@RBCCanadianOpen) June 9, 2019

But it is McDowell who is the true hometown hero. The son of a grammar school shop teacher, he honed his game at Rathmore and on the adjoining Royal Portrush links.

And, out of the three, it is McDowell who came precariously close to not making an Open he desperately wanted to be in. If not for a rebounding game and one extraordinary putt he might have been moping at home in Florida instead of teeing off Thursday morning with a legitimate chance of winning a tournament he wants more than any other.

“It would be too bittersweet,” McDowell said about his close call. “It would be too tough to watch the guys go out there and compete on this place where I kind of learned the game.”

It would have been especially tough because McDowell was one of the Irish players who kept pestering the R&A to bring the Open back to Portrush for the first time since 1951, something that was once impossible because of “The Troubles” and fears that there was not enough infrastructure to handle 200,000 fans in four days.

Their perseverance paid off five years ago when the R&A announced that it had awarded the Open to Royal Portrush.

“It started out as a joke, why can’t we go back to Portrush,” McDowell said. “I think The R&A couldn’t ignore the fact that this could be a commercial success. The jokes became very serious. It was like, we can do this, we can pull it off.”

Thankfully for McDowell the work he began putting into his game after dropping off the golf radar paid enough dividends to get him in the Open after not qualifying for the last two. He won a secondary tournament in the Dominican Republic early this year to move up in the rankings, then made a curling 30-footer on the final hole at the RBC Canadian Open to secure his spot.

It came only after the 39-year-old had a talk with himself about the state of the game he’s loved since he was a kid.

“I said, hey, if you continue to play the way you’re playing, this game is going to be gone a hell of a lot quicker than you thought it was going to be gone. What’s that going to feel like?” McDowell said. “I think coming to that realization helped me because it made me start to embrace the challenge a little bit more, enjoy the time I have left out here. I started to kind of get less frustrated and start to, like I say, start to enjoy the act of trying to pull myself out of the hole I dug for myself. And it’s weird, the fog started to lift a little bit.”

For McDowell returning home means he can’t walk two steps without someone offering him encouragement or asking for a selfie. He said he was stunned by the noise made when he walked onto the first tee Tuesday for a practice round, and the crowds will be even bigger when he tees off for real on Thursday.

His expectations for the week go far beyond just making the cut.

“If I can somehow get out of the blocks tomorrow, get myself settled down, and get into the mix this weekend, it would be pretty cool to be coming back down on Sunday,” he said. “That’s the vision. That’s the goal and I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like.”

That’s the vision at Rathmore Golf Club, too, where business in the lounge was brisk on a rainy Wednesday as golf fans stopped for a pint or two to get out of the rain.

Mostly, though, they’re just happy he’s home and teeing it up when it counts.

“It wouldn’t have felt the same at all without Graeme in the field,” Doherty said. “Here, Graeme is still one of the boys.”

PORTRUSH, Ireland – Brooks Koepka’s biggest asset during this year’s British Open won’t be in his bag, it’ll be on his bag.

The four-time major winner will be walking around Royal Portrush, a course new to most of the players in the field, with a native expert helping him negotiate the sharp elevation changes of the century-old links course on the northern coast of Northern Ireland. His caddie, Ricky Elliott, is a local lad.

“Every hole I just step up on, ‘You tell me what to do. You’ve played it more than anybody,”’ said Koepka, who is on such a roll at majors he may be one of the few players who doesn’t need extra help. “So just let him figure it out. He knows his spots to miss it. The spots to come in from, with different hole locations and different winds.”

Elliott grew up in Portrush, and grew up playing at Royal Portrush. The pair started working together shortly after the 2013 British Open, when Phil Mickelson won at Muirfield.

It only took a phone call to put things in motion.

“We had about a 30-minute phone conversation. I liked the way he went about things,” Koepka said. “He was kind of light. He was joking on the phone. And that’s somebody I want, I want somebody that’s not going to be so focused in all the time. My personality, I laugh and joke on the golf course. I know it doesn’t look like it, but the camera is not on us all the time. He’s pretty laid back.”

Koepka has excelled over the last couple of years with Elliott on his bag, particularly at the major tournaments. After winning his second straight U.S. Open title last year, Koepka won his second straight PGA Championship this year. And he didn’t do badly at the other two majors this season either, finishing second at the Masters and at the U.S. Open.

“The whole reason I show up is to win. That’s what I’m trying to do,” Koepka said of his major results. “It’s incredible. But at the same time, it’s been quite disappointing, you know? Finishing second sucks. It really does.”

Koepka will play his first two rounds at Royal Portrush alongside 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and Shubhankar Sharma.

And like many great champions in all sorts of sports, Koepka is full of self-belief heading into the final major of the season.

“I think you always have to have a chip on your shoulder, no matter what it is,” Koepka said. “Every great athlete and every major sport always has one.

“Over the last year and a half, I just felt like if other guys had done what I had done it would be a bigger deal. Now it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got my own chip on my shoulder for what I’m trying to accomplish. … How many majors I want to win, how many wins, my own accomplishments.”

With his trust in his own ability to deliver the big shots and his trust in his caddie’s ability to deliver that little bit of extra insight on a course that hasn’t hosted the British Open since 1951, Koepka is on the short list of favourites this week.

“Definitely have a little bit more confidence having him on the bag this week,” Koepka said of Elliott, “knowing this golf course so well.”

With a top-10 finish at the TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes, Michael Gligic of Burlington, Ont., locked up his PGA TOUR card for the 2020 season, the first of his career.

The top 25 players on the Korn Ferry Tour points list secure their PGA TOUR card for the upcoming season.

Gligic earned 70 points by finishing in a tie for tenth in Colorado this weekend, bringing his total on the season to 876 points. With seven events remaining on the Korn Ferry Tour schedule, it was determined that no players from outside The 25 can catch Gligic.

The 29-year-old’s 11 under par performance at the TPC Colorado Championship marked his second top-10 finish of the season—he won the Panama Championship in February earning himself 500 points in the process.

Gligic has teed off on the PGA TOUR four times, with all his starts coming at the RBC Canadian Open. He failed to make the cut on each occasion. He has spent the majority of his professional golf career on the Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada, finishing second on the Order of Merit in 2012.

This will be the fourth straight year a Canadian has earned their PGA TOUR card through the Korn Ferry Tour, with Mackenzie Hughes of Hamilton (2016), Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont. (2017) and Adam Svensson of Surrey B.C. (2018) all now playing on the top circuit.

The Korn Ferry Tour’s The 25 rankings can be found here.

SILVIS, Ill. – While the rest of the leaders faltered, Dylan Frittelli surged to his first PGA Tour title.

Frittelli won the John Deere Classic on Sunday, closing with a 7-under 64 for a two-stroke victory over Russell Henley. The South African earned a spot next week in the British Open, finishing at 21-under 263 after the bogey-free final round at TPC Deere Run.

One of eight players within two strokes of the lead entering the lead, Frittelli was looking forward to the tournament’s charter flight to Royal Portrush.

“I’m sure it’s going to be a fun flight,” Frittelli said.

A two-time winner on the European Tour, Frittelli birdied the par-5 17th after blasting out of a greenside bunker to 11 feet, and closed with a par on the par-4 18th.

Frittelli had tied for 46th in each of his last two starts.

“I don’t want to say it was easy out there. It just felt a whole lot easier than it has been the last few weeks,” Frittelli said. “I calmed my nerves down.”

Henley shot a tournament-best 61. Andrew Landry, who opened Sunday in a two-way tie for the lead, was 18 under after a 69.

Rookie Collin Morikawa (66), the runner-up last week in Minnesota, and Chris Stroud (67) followed at 17 under. Morikawa hit all 18 greens in regulation.

Roger Sloan (69) of Merritt, B.C., was the low Canadian, tying for 10th at 15 under. Adam Svensson (68) of Surrey, B.C., tied for 18th at 13 under and Nick Taylor (71) of Abbotsford, B.C., tied for 33rd at 11 under.

Henley’s career-low effort included six birdies on the back nine, capped by one on No. 18 – the same hole he double-bogeyed Friday. Henley made six putts of at least 7 feet, including 26- and 46-footers.

“If you would have told me at the start of the day, ‘We’ll give you 66,’ I’d have said, ‘That’s pretty good.’ So to get five better than that is really awesome,” Henley said.

But Henley, who finished well before Fritteli hit the turn, could only watch from the clubhouse as Frittelli surpassed him and everyone else in the field.

Frittelli, who opened with rounds of 66, 68 and 65, started the final round with three straight birdies. He matched Henley with a chip-in on No. 10 and took the lead for good with a 20-foot birdie putt on the 11th hole.

Landry birdied No. 14 to pull within two shots. But Landry went with his putter 30 feet from the pin while off the green on the par-4 15th hole, and left his try short on his way to his third bogey of the day.

Moments later, Frittelli got out of a bunker by using the green’s downward slope to his advantage, where he made a birdie putt that effectively ended the drama in the Quad Cities.

“You can’t give up shots to the rest of the field,” Frittelli said. “When I saw the leaderboard, putting downhill, I thought, if I make this (I’ll get) a little bit of breathing room with Russell in the clubhouse already.”

Frittelli, who made the winning putt for the University of Texas in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, became the second player from that Longhorns team to win at TPC Deere Run. Jordan Spieth won in 2013 and 2015.

Full results can be found here.

SILVIS, Ill. – Cameron Tringale and Andrew Landry topped the John Deere Classic leaderboard Saturday, with a half-dozen guys right behind them.

Roger Sloan of Calgary is one of them, sitting three back of the leaders after firing a 4-under 67. Canadians Nick Taylor and Adam Svensson are also in the hunt, tie for 14th and tied for 21st, respectively.

Winless on the PGA Tour, Tringale shot a 6-under 65 to match Landy at 16-under 197 at TPC Deere Run. Landry had a 67. He won the Valero Texas Open last year for his lone tour title.

“Some golf courses you can leaderboard watch, but this is not one of them,” said Landry, with eight players within two shots of the lead. “You want to stay with your game plan.”

Bill Haas, the 2011 FedEx Cup champion, and Adam Schenk were a stroke back. Haas shot a 64, tying the best round of the day. Schenk had a 66.

Nick Watney also had a 64 to join 2016 winner Ryan Moore (65), Dylan Frattelli (65) and Vaughn Taylor (66) at 14 under. Chris Stroud (66), Lucas Glover (69) and Roger Sloan (67) were 13 under.

Second-round leader Jhonattan Vegas stumbled to a 76 and fell to 8 under.

Tringale bogeyed the first hole, but that only motivated him to post his lowest score of the tournament.

“The bogey on the first hole was a shot in the leg,” Tringale said. “But I was able to get out of there myself and birdie the next two, which gave me some momentum.”

Landry looked as if was in trouble after bogeys on the 11th and 12th holes. He then birdied Nos. 16 and 17 – only to miss a 10-foot putt that would’ve given him the outright lead.

Haas, who hasn’t won since 2015, was a passenger in a car last February when driver and friend, Mark Gibello, was killed on a winding road outside Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Gibello’s Ferrari clipped another car and slammed into a pole. Haas walked away largely unscathed.

Haas has struggled this season, finishing 48th or worse in each of his last six starts. He had seven birdies in a bogey-free third round.

“I don’t know if it ever leaves you. But at the same time, I’m just trying to be the best I can be out here,” Haas said.

Moore, who has five PGA wins, finished birdie- eagle-birdie.

Perhaps the biggest surprise on a day when so many players moved into position to win Sunday was that Vegas won’t be among them.

After just one bogey in his first 40 holes, Vegas missed an 8-foot putt for par on the 5th – and a pair of poorly-hit pitches at the par-4 sixth led to a double bogey. Vegas then stuck his tee shot on the par-3 seventh hole within five feet of the cup before pushing his putt left.

Full scoring can be found here.

SILVIS, Ill. – Jhonattan Vegas shot a 9-under 62 on Friday in the John Deere Classic to take a one-stroke lead into the weekend.

Off since missing the cuts in the Memorial and U.S. Open in June, , the three-time PGA tour winner from Venezuela said he “found something really good” on the range Thursday after an opening 67.

“Probably the best I’ve felt all year, to be honest,” Vegas said. “I hit the ball extremely well, kind of what I’ve been struggling with a little bit the past few months. It felt really good, in control the whole time with the ball-striking, which is my type of game. So I’m glad that stuff is back.”

Vegas had a 13-under 129 total at TPC Deere Run.

“It’s usually soft, and it’s been a little firmer because of the conditions, obviously a little warm,” Vegas said. “It’s the best I’ve ever seen it. The greens are perfect. The fairways are rolling more. It’s actually a little bit tricky because a lot of the fairways, as undulated as they are, you have to be a little careful with some of those run-outs.”

He last won on the tour in 2017 at the RBC Canadian Open.

Andrew Landry was second after his second 65. He birdied the first three holes on his second nine, then played the next six in 1 over with a bogey on the par-4 sixth hole.

“I’ve been hitting the ball very, very well all year long,” Landry said. “The putter has just kind of been letting me down all year long, and it seems to be working pretty good the last two days.”

Lucas Glover had an albatross on the par-5 10th in a 64 that got him to 11 under. He holed out with a 3-iron from 255 yards after a 318-yard drive.

“Honestly, I was trying to hit it over short left, chip up the green, and I pushed it 5, 8 yards, and it bounced and rolled and I guess it went in. I didn’t see it,” Glover said. “I was just trying to make birdie, and I got lucky with a 2.”

Three Canadians made the weekend cut.

Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C., shot 65 and sits 9 under, while Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., also had a 65 and is 7 under. Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., is 6 under after shooting 69.

Harold Varner III (65), Russell Henley (68), Daniel Berger (66), Cameron Tringale (66) and Adam Schenk (65) were 10 under. Varner chipped in for eagle from 42 yards on the par-4 14th.

“I hit a really good drive in the rough and it was perfect, and I blasted it and it went too far and smashed the pin and went in,” Varner said. “It was awesome.”

First-round leader Roberto Diaz closed with a double bogey for a 73 that left him at 7 under.

Matthew Wolff, the rookie who won last week in Minnesota, was 4 under after a 71.

Michael Kim, the winner by eight shots last year, missed the cut with rounds of 73 and 72.

SILVIS, Ill. – Roberto Diaz shot a 9-under 62 on Thursday to take the first-round lead in the John Deere Classic.

Playing in the final group of the day off the first tee, the 32-year-old Mexican player birdied four of the first five holes, eagled the par-5 10th and birdied three of the last five in the bogey-free round at TPC Deere Run. He took the lead with a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th.

“I just feel that everything clicked,” Diaz said. “I’ve been playing pretty solid throughout the year. The driver has been awesome. I’ve been hitting a lot of fairways, and today I hit good numbers all day, and that helps.”

Winless on the PGA Tour, Diaz tied for eighth at the Travelers Championship last month.

Americans Adam Long and Russell Henley were two strokes back. Martin Laird was another stroke back at 65 with Ryan Palmer, Andrew Landry, Vaughn Taylor, Zack Sucher and Ryan Blaum.

Long, who got his first career win earlier this season at the Desert Classic, had eight birdies – four on the front nine and four on the back nine.

Henley has missed the weekend cuts in his last four straight starts. But he highlighted an impressive birdie run by drilling a 55-foot putt on the par-3 7th hole.

“I don’t think I’ve ever lost the belief that I can have a nice tournament,” Henley said. “It’s just a matter of a few bumps here and there.”

Scotland’s Laird, who skipped his national tournament this week in an effort to boost his playoff positioning, followed up a 65 to close out last week’s event in Minnesota with birdies on five par 4s on Thursday.

Palmer, the second-highest ranked player in the FedEx Cup standings in the field at No. 22, returned from a month-long family vacation with a strong round.

Palmer was somewhat inconsistent on his front nine before rallying for three birdies in a five-hole stretch.

“Stress-free today, it felt like. Being off for four weeks, travelling the world a little bit was fun. But I just came into the week just wanting to get my game back going for next week obviously,” Palmer said.

Twenty-year-old rookie Matthew Wolff, who picked up his first career win at the 3M Open last week, opened with a 67. Wolff, the youngest winner on the tour since Jordan Spieth won at Deere Run six years ago, hit 15 greens in regulation and played bogey-free.

“Having that PGA Tour card locked up is a lot of weight off of my shoulders,” Wolff said. “Everything in my game feels really good right now.”

Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., is the top Canadian after a 4-under 67.

Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C. (68) finished 3 under, David Hearn of Brantford, Ont. (69) is 2 under, Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C. (70) are 1 under, while Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., (71) is even. Austin Connelly, an American-Canadian dual citizen, shot a 1-over 72.

Defending champion Michael Kim, who set the tournament record at Deere Run a year ago by winning by eight shots, had a 73. Kim has made just five of 28 cuts since winning in the Quad Cities.

Local favourite and past tournament champion Zach Johnson saw a streak of 40 consecutive rounds of even par or better at Deere Run come to an end after a 1-over 72. Johnson, who last shot over par there in 2008, missed a long birdie putt that would’ve kept the streak alive by inches.

“Frustrating. I mean, the good shots that I hit I didn’t get anything out of it and the bad ones were, I’m scrambling a little bit,” Johnson said.

Full scoring can be found here.