PGA Tour rookie Carson Young put three eagles on his card to fire a 9-under-par 63 and take a three-shot lead after one round of the Puerto Rico Open on Thursday in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.
Young could not remember if he had ever made three eagles in a single round before.
“I’m not sure. We can call this a first, I don’t know,” Young said.
Young got eagles to fall at the par-5 second, fifth and 15th holes at Grand Reserve Golf Club. He began his round birdie-eagle-birdie-par-eagle and went out in 6-under 30. He arrived at No. 15 7 under for the round and played what he felt was his best shot of the day.
“On 15 I had about 255 (yards to the pin) straight into the wind, trees in front of me,” Young said. “I could have played a cut out to the left and tried to cut it on the green, but the wind was so strong I decided to just hit like this high draw 3-wood over the trees and I flushed it to about, I don’t know, 8 or 9 feet and made that for my third eagle. That was a pretty special shot, for sure.”
The 28-year-old had a string of missed cuts and a withdrawal entering last week’s start at the Honda Classic. He started that tournament with a 5-under 65 to share the first-round lead before finishing tied for 29th.
Tied for second in Puerto Rico at 6-under 66 are Max McGreevy and Akshay Bhatia. Bill Haas, Scott Piercy, Nico Echavarria of Colombia and Augusto Nunez of Argentina are tied for fourth at 5-under 67.
Both McGreevy and Bhatia stayed bogey-free with six birdies on their respective rounds.
“I mean, my goal is to win the golf tournament and doesn’t matter how it’s done, it’s just got to be done,” Bhatia said. “I’m not going to change anything. I mean, I’m just going to get more and more comfortable on this golf course and I look forward to keep competing and be out on the PGA Tour and that’s the dream.”
–Field Level Media
