Trace Crowe fired a 10-under-par 62 and built a two-shot lead before play was suspended due to darkness at the inaugural Austin Championship on Thursday in Texas.
Twenty-five players still have holes to finish when play resumes Friday morning. The PGA Tour said the second round would begin at its regularly scheduled time.
Crowe had 10 birdies without a bogey to kick off his week at the Fazio Canyons Course at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa. He birdied five of his final six holes.
Crowe felt his career-low round had been coming for a while.
“I think each tournament this fall I’ve gotten just like just a little bit better, like each part of my game,” Crowe said. “Like my irons have been getting better and better each event, and then as well as the putter. I had bad putting last two days last week, but it was a little windy. And worked on it hard the first few days this week and yeah, it’s just, it’s just coming along nicely.”
This is the penultimate event of the tour’s FedEx Cup Fall series, and players are scrambling to get inside the top 100 of the points race to ensure full status on tour for next year. Crowe began the week at No. 117 and was projected to vault to No. 63 if current results hold.
The 30-year-old has yet to win on the PGA Tour, but he owns two top-10s this year, including a tie for third at the Bank of Utah Championship last month.
“I’ve just been telling myself to stay patient every round this entire fall, really,” Crowe said. “Utah was awesome, I’ve never been in the hunt like that on a Sunday. Just learning from that really going forward is really helping me knowing, all right, I can handle this and just be patient in the moment. Yeah, just going to try to keep doing that throughout the week.”
Max Greyserman and South Africa’s Erik van Rooyen opened with 8-under 64s. A two-time winner on tour, van Rooyen had a disappointing start to his season, missing the cut in his first eight starts, and is far back at No. 140 in the points standings. He could jump to No. 102 based on Thursday’s projection.
He had two eagles on Thursday: a 20-foot putt at the par-5 18th, after he started on the back nine, and a 33-footer from the fringe at the par-5 fifth.
“Eagle’s a nice bonus, especially the one … midway through my back nine,” van Rooyen said. “Kind of off the fringe there, that’s a bit of a bonus. No. 18 I played perfectly, driver, 5-iron right at it, so that was great. All around, just really good golf.”
Blades Brown is alone in fourth at 7-under 65. Brown, 19, is fresh off winning the World Wide Technology Championship last week to become the first teenager to win on tour since Jordan Spieth and the fourth-youngest winner in tour history.
“I’m starting to get back to normal. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I was still kind of coming off of Sunday,” Brown said. “After a couple hours of sleep, I’m feeling a lot better. Get some food in me, yeah, feeling back to normal.”
Ben Kohles, Rafael Campos of Puerto Rico, Kevin Yu of Taiwan and Kristoffer Ventura of Norway were tied for fifth at 6-under 66.
Jimmy Stanger (15 holes), Nicholas Lindheim (16) and Gordon Sargent (17) were each 5 under with holes left to play when the horn blew.
–Field Level Media
