McKinney — What started as a rainy morning with wet playing conditions turned into a great round of golf as the sun came out, and the 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson carried on with an exciting first round that set the stage for the rest of the weekend.
Golfers began teeing off at 6:50 a.m. CT with James Hahn, S.Y. Noh, and Henrik Norlander on the front nine and C.T. Pan, Aaron Baddeley, and Sangmoon Bae on the back.
Noh and Norlander quickly rose to the top of the field, and Adam Scott made a run toward the top from the group that began play at 7:23 a.m. CT.
Noh tied the course single-round record with an 11-under-par 60 during a bogey-free round that included an eagle on the ninth hole to enter the back nine with a -6. He followed that with five birdies and a 34-foot putt on the par-3 17th in front of the famous stadium seating high-rises.
Norlander had a difficult start but gained momentum as he continued his round with six consecutive birdies. However, two bogeys on the back nine stopped his run.
On the 12th hole, he ended up three-putting from the fringe, and he missed an 18-foot putt to save par on 16. Norlander managed to par the final hole, laying up short of the water when most others were aggressively aiming for the green in two strokes.
Scott shot a -8 in the first round, three shots off the lead as he birdied nine holes. His only blemish was a bogey on his sixth hole (15th on the course because he began on the back nine), where his second shot landed in the bunker, and he had to three-putt to finish.
“All really good solid stuff, especially off the tee,” Scott said as he met with the media after his round. “It’s probably the best I’ve driven it in forever. That was a nice way to start every hole. [I] took advantage of that nicely, certainly out of the gates on some of the long par-4s, birdieing three of the first four holes on that side is a nice way to start. [I] Was happy to keep it going all the way around.”
All eyes were on Dallas’ Scottie Scheffler, playing with two-time defending champion K.H. Lee and 2010 Byron Nelson winner Jason Day, as the afternoon round began.
Lee was 1 under, while Day and Scheffler battled all afternoon.
Scheffler started hot with consistent 300-yard drives that turned into four birdies and an eagle over the first six holes. The eagle came on the sixth hole when he set up just in front of the bunker and chipped the ball perfectly onto the green and into the hole from 75 feet.
He struggled a bit with back-to-back bogeys on 12 and 13, overshooting the green on 12, and landing in the bunker on 13. He would two-putt both holes for bogey and recover with birdies on 14 and 15.
His biggest shot of the day came on 18, drilling his second shot 261 yards to the green and setting up a 15-foot putt for eagle.
Day matched him by reaching the green in two strokes as well but missed a 23-foot putt for eagle, opening the door for Scheffler to move ahead.
The Dallas native converted his eagle to finish the day in a tie for fourth place.
“I actually barely caught it in the heel and fortunately got through the wind, and that’s one of those ones when you’re hitting a shot from that far away, you’re really just trying to hit it online and see what happens,” he told the media after his round. “I was fortunate it finished up there about pin high and then hit a really good putt that went in.”
The second round of the 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson was underway, and the action continues through Sunday’s final round at TPC Craig Ranch.