Chris Kirk, Jordan Speith and Taylor Montgomery shot 64s on Thursday to share the first-round lead at the Sony Open in Honolulu.
Ten players were unable to finish the round because play was suspended due to darkness at just after 6 p.m. local time. They will resume play Friday morning, with the tourney’s second round to start at 7:10 a.m. as scheduled, the PGA Tour announced.
The co-leaders all recorded seven birdies, including on the par-5 18th hole, and one bogey on a day with winds of 5-10 mph. Kirk and Spieth each began their round on the back nine at the Waialae Country Club.
Speith birdied two of his first three holes before taking a bogey on the par-4 13th hole.
“Yeah, got off driving it really well. I split some fairways early with driver on 10 and 12 and had a couple good wedges in there. I made a couple putts early, so that was nice,” Speith said.
“I kind of had a couple drives that were really close on the last two holes to being another stroke or so. So I feel like I left a couple out, but I also really had fun today. Like I had fun playing the shots in the wind,” Speith said.
Kirk was pleased with his putting in what he called “a really good, solid day start to finish.
“Right around the turn, started on No. 10 and made a few decent putts, eight-footers, something like that, but then made the turn and made probably just inside 15 feet on 1; probably 25 or so, maybe 30 feet on 2; and then another 12, 13-footer on 3. So that was a nice run of those three in a row, those putts going in for four birdies in a row after birdieing 18.”
Seven more players are a shot back and tied for fourth. One of them, South Korea’s S.H. Kim, was on No. 17 when play was suspended. The others include Harris English, Denny McCarthy, Brendon Todd, David Lipsky, Ben Griffin and Rory Sabbatini.
Sabbatini, the South Africa native now a Slovakia citizen, is one of two players (along with Jerry Kelly) to be making his 25th straight Sony start.
Eleven players were tied for 11th at 4-under 66, and 18 more were 3-under 67. That latter group included Austin Eckroat, who was playing his 18th hole, the par-5 9th, when play was halted.
Defending champion Hideki Matsuyama is among 12 golfers tied for 41st after a 2-under 68.
–Field Level Media
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