SUN CITY, South Africa — Defending champion Max Homa birdied his final two holes to shoot a 6-under 66 and take a one-shot lead over South African Ockie Strydom within the first spherical of the Nedbank Golf Problem on Thursday.
Homa began his spherical with three straight birdies and had two extra on the entrance 9. He dropped two pictures with bogeys on the again 9.
Strydom’s opening spherical of 67 included 4 birdies, an eagle and a bogey.
Pablo Larrazábal, Andy Sullivan, Matthew Jordan and Thorbjorn Olesen had been in a tie for third, two pictures behind Strydom.
After lacking out on qualifying for the Tour Championship in August, Homa had made simply two tour-level begins. Final 12 months, he grew to become the fifth American to raise the trophy in South Africa.
“It felt actually good as a result of I haven’t performed a match shortly and I’ve been engaged on a number of new stuff, so to come back out and birdie the primary three holes was cool,” mentioned Homa, the six-time PGA Tour winner who’s attempting to turn out to be the eighth participant to efficiently defend his title on the match — and the primary American to do it since Jim Furyk in 2006.
“I assumed I performed rather well,” Homa mentioned. “It was actually difficult with the wind, it did a whole flip on seven, so it threw us by a little bit of a loop however I assumed I did a extremely good job of adjusting to it. Made one mistake on the fifteenth, leaving it lengthy of that pin, however in any other case I did a fairly good job of taking part in inside myself and never hitting pictures I don’t like to hit, so yeah it was good.”
Homa is amongst three gamers within the subject who’re ranked within the prime 50, together with Corey Conners — who opened with a 72 — and Thriston Lawrence, who shot a 71.
The sector additionally consists of American Will Zalatoris, who had a 74 after a double bogey on the par-4 thirteenth gap.
