When Rickie Fowler first turned pro, he called Las Vegas home for one year and lived a mile from TPC Summerlin, site of this week’s Shriners Children Open. He practiced there all the time. As for the Strip? Not so much.
“I went down to The Strip once when Oklahoma State was in town playing a golf tournament at Southern Highlands and took them out to dinner,” he recalled. “That was my one trip down there for the year.”
Making his eighth appearance in this event, Fowler drove it on a strip of fairway all day on Thursday — hitting 14 of 14 fairways — and shot a bogey-free 66 that had him looking forward to getting some good meals in Sin City.
“Vegas is always a fun place to come back to. Great city, good food, just about anything you want to do, it’s here,” he said. “Everything you can think of, you can get it here.”
Shriners: Friday tee times
Here’s everything you need to know – or at least five things – about the first round of the Shriners Children’s Open, where Taylor Pendrith grabbed the first-round lead.
Taylor Pendrith made 10 birdies on Thursday but was denied a final-hole eagle to shoot 59. Was he thinking of shooting the 15th sub-60 round on the PGA Tour at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas in the first round of the Shriners Children’s Open?
“Yeah, obviously,” he said. “I tried to hit a great shot and just came off it a little bit. It was close to being really good, I think.”
Pendrith had blasted a 356-yard drive at the par-5 ninth, leaving just a 7-iron from 203 yards. But with the flag position in the front of the green, he caught it heavy and found the front greenside bunker. It was the only place he couldn’t miss.
“Me and my caddie didn’t really talk about it, but I think we both knew I was going to try and hole the bunker shot,” he said. “Of course, I was going to try to hole bunker shot. It was a tricky one, but, yeah, I gave it my best.”
The Canadian blasted 12 feet past the hole, missed the birdie putt and settled for 10-under 61, tying his career low on Tour and an early three-stroke lead over seven golfers.
Pendrith, who represented the International Team at the Presidents Cup last month and won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May, had it going on like the gambler rolling his number on the craps tables. With barely a breeze and sunny skies in the desert, Pendrith took advantage of prime scoring conditions. After a par on his first hole, No. 10, Pendrith made birdie on five of the next six holes on his first nine and kept sticking approach shots inside 10 feet. At the 453-yard par-4, No. 4, he wedged inside a foot for the tap-in birdie. Pendrith was long and accurate and his putter cooperated too – a beautiful combination. He ranked first in driving distance (329 yards), fourth in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green and first in SG: Putting.
Expectations this week were tempered for Pendrith, who hadn’t competed in a stroke-play tournament since the Tour Championship in late August. In fact, he said he’d only touched a club three times since the Presidents Cup late last month and was unable to play at home in South Florida as Hurricane Milton kept him off the course.
“I thought I would be a little bit more rusty than that,” said Pendrith, who hasn’t missed a cut since the PGA Championship in May. “You know, obviously thrilled and yeah, just got to keep getting back into the rhythm of things and the next few days. Yeah, feel good.”
Ben Silverman can’t remember the last time he teed off first on the PGA Tour as he did Thursday.
“I don’t think ever,” he said.
He picked a good morning for it. Last night was a full Hunter’s Moon and at its brightest as Silverman warmed up ahead of his tee time at 6:55 a.m. local time.
“We were warming up and the stars were still out and the moon was bright as can be over the mountains,” he said. “It was like the coolest experience warming up. So, I was already in a good mood.”
The Hunter’s Moon also was a Super Moon, which occurs when a moon is at or near the closest point in its orbit, causing the harvest moon to look dramatically more radiant and larger than usual. The moon set the mood and provided some inspiration.
“I was hunting some birdies,” Silverman said.
Check out the sky early this morning @ShrinersOpen that provided inspiration to Ben Silverman: “We were warming up and the stars were still out and the moon was bright as can be over the mountains. It was like the coolest experience warming up. So, I was already in a good mood.” pic.twitter.com/3VA1ewwoM0
— Adam Schupak (@AdamSchupak) October 17, 2024
He rang the birdie bell right out of the gate at No. 10, his first hole of the day, after a lackluster wedge but he canned the 33-footer to jump into red figures. On pristine greens and with ideal scoring conditions, he made birdies on four of his first six holes. A birdie at the last gave him a bogey-free 7-under 64.
“The day was amazing,” he said.
Englishman Harry Hall attended UNLV and has made Las Vegas his second home. He’s a member at TPC Summerlin (and a Las Vegas Golden Knights fan) and has had some previous success in the tournament, finishing T-8 in 2021, T-15 in 2022 and T26 in 2023.
“I know every inch of the place, where to hit it, where not to hit it. I think I’m so familiar on the greens here and know how they roll, where all the breaks are, and all that sort of stuff,” he said.
Hall rode a hot putter, gaining more than three strokes to the field on the greens and posted 7-under 64 to extend his streak at TPC Summerlin to 13 straight under-par rounds.
That included an unexpected birdie at No. 8, lofting a 7-wood to a foot. “Best shot of the day,” he said.
Hall, who won the Isco Championship in July, said the key was taking a low-key approach to the round.
“I think I put a lot of the pressure on myself,” he explained. “I kind of just tried hard today to not do that and just go hit every shot as good as I can.”
Las Vegas has been a longtime West Coast mini hub for pro golfers thanks to being a tax-free state, a convenient airport that goes everywhere and good, reliable weather for practice and play.
Those are among the reasons that Joseph Bramlett, a San Jose native, and Doug Ghim, from the Chicago area, made the move to Vegas. But this was the deciding factor for Bramlett.
“I needed to be surrounded by guys chasing the same things I’m chasing,” he told NCGA Golf Magazine last year.
Bramlett and Ghim are regulars at TPC Summerlin, so when the wind kicked up in the afternoon, they were ready for it.
“We’re used to practicing and playing in this all the time,” Bramlett said. “It’s nothing different or special from a normal day at home would be like for us.”
Bramlett and Ghim both posted 7-under 64 to join the 10-way tie for second. Bramlett had a clean card and ranked third in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green while Ghim birdied half the holes on Thursday.
“It’s one that I feel very comfortable on,” Ghim said of playing this week on his home track.
Not everybody took advantage of ideal conditions for scoring. Two-time defending champion Tom Kim got off to a sluggish start, making three bogeys in his first five holes. Kim hit just half of his fairways and didn’t make his first birdie until the eighth hole, but once the seal was broken he carded five birdies in all and posted 2-under 69.
Matt McCarty, last week’s winner at the Black Desert Championship, may have had a post-victory hangover as he made three birdies and three bogeys and signed for an even-par 71. He ranked 107th in SG: putting.
Kevin Yu, who won the Sanderson Farms Championship two weeks ago, shot the highest score in the threesome, a 1-over 72. He ranked 129th out of the field of 132 in SG: putting.
But Friday is a new day and it could be a very different round with heavy winds expected. Winds are forecasted to reach potentially 40 mile per hour on Friday.
“It was a beautiful day to play golf but it’s going to be a totally different golf course tomorrow,” Pendrith said. “It will be a whole new beast.”
What’s his plan to stay at the top of the leaderboard? “More fairways and greens and hopefully keep the putter hot,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Rickie Fowler’s clean card, Taylor Pendrith leads among 5 things to know at Shriners Children’s Open
