Jeju Island, Korea                              October 19-22, 2017                                          Purse: $9,250,000

NINE BRIDGES Golf Club                                                                               Par/Yards: 36-36—72/7,196

First-Round Notes – Thursday, October 19, 2017

Weather: Mostly cloudy with a high of 65 degrees. Wind NE at 10-12 mph  

First-Round Leaderboard

Justin Thomas                          63 (-9)

Chez Reavie                            66 (-6)

Gavin Green                            66 (-6)

Scott Brown                             66 (-6)

Marc Leishman                         66 (-6)

Patrick Reed                            66 (-6)

Five players tied at 5-under

Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas opened the CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES with a bogey and a par on the first hole only to answer with four birdies and two eagles on the next seven holes as part of a 9-under-par first-round 63 to lead by three shots. The 63 matches Thomas’ second-best opening round on the PGA TOUR with the 2015 John Deere Classic. Thomas’ lowest opening round was a memorable 59 at last year’s victory at the Sony Open in Hawaii. The 63 is Thomas’ ninth career round of 63 or better.

This is the fourth time in Thomas’ PGA TOUR career that he has held or shared the first-round lead. He has converted two of those three leads into victories at the 2017 Sony Open in Hawaii and the 2016 CIMB Classic.

Thomas enjoyed a breakout season in 2016-17 on the PGA TOUR. His success began in the fall in Asia with his second consecutive victory at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, He later won back-to-back events in Hawaii at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open in Hawaii. Thomas’ 59 in the opening round of the Sony Open made him the youngest of seven players (eight times) to record a sub-60 round on the PGA TOUR (23 years, 9 months, 14 days).

Thomas’ season got even better in the late summer and early fall, as he won his first major championship at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. In the FedExCup Playoffs, Thomas was able win the Dell Technologies Championship, the second of the four FedExCup Playoffs events, and entered the TOUR Championship at No. 2 in the standings.

With a runner-up finish at the TOUR Championship, Thomas capped off his season with the FedExCup, the fifth winner under the age of 30. Thomas joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth as the only players to win five times in a season, including a major, before the age of 25.

Thomas made his debut on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team at Liberty National Golf Club, where he recorded a 3-1-1 record in a victorious effort for the U.S. Team.

With his historic season, Thomas was voted 2016-17 PGA TOUR Player of the Year. He is currently the No. 4 player in the Official World Golf Ranking and is making his second start of the PGA TOUR season.

Gavin Kyle Green

In the field due to his standing on the Asian Tour Order of Merit, Malaysia’s Gavin Kyle Green shot an opening-round 6-under-par 66 and is part of a five-way tie for second. This is Green’s fifth career start on the PGA TOUR. He has twice played in the CIMB Classic finishing T61 last week and T69 last year. His other two events came last season where he missed the cut at the Safeway Open and the Quicken Loans National.

Green won the Mercuries Taiwan Masters for his first Asian Tour title earlier this month. His career breakthrough came two weeks after he had finished runner-up for the third time this season at the Shinhan Donghae Open in Korea and also following the death of his grandfather. Gavin was also runner-up at the Hero Indian Open and Yeangder Heritage in Chinese Taipei this season and currently leads the Asian Tour Order of Merit which earned him a spot in the field this week.

Green was the first amateur to win on the Asian Development Tour (ADT) in 2014. As an amateur golfer, he enjoyed a strong college career representing the University of New Mexico and won eight times and was a multiple-time All-American. He was in the same conference with 2016-17 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year, Xander Schauffele.

Green finished second on the 2016 ADT Order of Merit to earn his Asian Tour card for 2017. He also represented his country at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro alongside Danny Chia, a two-time Asian Tour winner, where he finished where he finished 47th.

Chez Reavie

Chez Reavie’s solid start to the 2017-2018 season continued with an opening-round 66 putting him at T2. Reavie has played in both of the season’s opening events with a T13 finish at the Safeway Open and a T17 finish at last week’s CIMB Classic.

Reavie is coming off one of his better seasons on the PGA TOUR after finishing 39thin the FedExCup standings in his ninth full season on TOUR. The 39th-place finish in the standings is his second-best, having finished 10th in 2011.

Miscellaneous Notes

At the first official PGA TOUR event to be held in Korea, Whee Kim shot the lowest opening round of the 16 Korean players in the field with a 4-under-par 68, to finish the first round at T12. Kim has enjoyed a nice start to the season including a hole-in-one in the third round of last week’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia with a new car as the prize. It was Kim’s first hole-in-one of his career during tournament play. Other Korean players to shoot under-par rounds include K.T. Kim (-3), 2017 PLAYERS Champion Si Woo Kim (-2), 2011 PLAYERS Champion and eight-time PGA TOUR winner K.J. Choi, Sangmoon Bae, Jinho Choi, Kyoung-Hoon Lee and Byeon-Hoon An.

Korean Players in the field

Place       Name                      Score

T12           Whee KIM               -4

T20           K.J. CHOI                -3

T30           Si Woo KIM             -2

T30           K.T. KIM                  -2

T38           Sangmoon BAE      -1

T38           Jinho CHOI              -1

T38           Kyoung-Hoon LEE  -1

T38           Byeong Hun AN      -1

T51           Junghwan LEE        E

T57           Hyungjoon LEE       1

T57           Sung KANG            1

T63           Jeunghun WANG    2

T67           Young-han SONG   3

T73           Jung-gon HWANG   4

75             Seunghyuk KIM       5

77             Seung-Yul NOH       7

78             Gyu Min LEE           15

Marc Leishman eagled his final hole to finish the first round T2 at 6-under-par. Leishman spent a year on the Korean PGA Tour early on in his career winning the 2006 Jisan Resort Open. The three-time PGA TOUR winner had a career season in 2016-17 with two victories to finish 6th in the FedExCup standings. 

Patrick Reed also ended the opening round T2 at 6-under-par. Even in a season where Reed didn’t win for the first time in five years, Reed did enough to qualify for his fourth consecutive TOUR Championship, last season. Playing well at the right time, Reed finished runner-up at the PGA Championship and had top-20 finishes at the first two FedExCup Playoffs events (THE NORTHERN TRUST-T20, Dell Technologies Championship-T6). A 65th at the BMW Championship made things interesting, but his 14 top-25 finishes throughout the season to reach the season finale.

Last week’s CIMB Classic winner, Pat Perez, shot a front-nine 5-under-par, 31, but 7 pars and two bogeys on his back nine forced him to settle for a 3-under-par round.

CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and the FedExCup                                                             

CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES is a 72-hole stroke play event combining players from three official sanctioning bodies – the PGA TOUR, the Korean PGA and the Asian Tour. The inaugural event brings an official PGA TOUR event to Korea for the first time in history and brings together top players from the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup standings, top players from the Korean PGA and from the Asian Tour Order of Merit. The tournament is held at Nine Bridges Golf Club on Jeju Island. PGA TOUR members receive official FedExCup points as part of the 2017-2018 PGA TOUR season.

The CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES is the third event of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season and is part of eight events during the fall of 2017, all of which will award FedExCup points. After a seven-week break, the season will resume in January with the traditional swing through Hawaii before moving to the West Coast. The FedExCup Playoffs once again features four events and concludes in September with the TOUR Championship and the crowning of the FedExCup champion.

In addition to 500 FedExCup points and a two-year PGA TOUR exemption, the winner this week (if not previously eligible) receives invitations to the 2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions, a winners-only event in January, along with two major championships (Masters Tournament and PGA Championship) and THE PLAYERS Championship. The player would also earn exemptions into six additional invitational events on the PGA TOUR.

Every week is significant in the race for the FedExCup – three of the seven winners from the fall calendar of 2016 (Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama and Pat Perez) qualified for the TOUR Championship. The other four winners advanced through at least the second of four Playoffs events (Brendan Steele, Cody Gribble, Rod Pampling and Mackenzie Hughes).

Earlier this year in May, FedEx extended its contract as sponsor of the FedExCup by 10 years through 2027.

Par-3 hole-in-one event – bibigo! Chef-go!

During competition, there is a hole-in-one prize at the par 3, 218-yard 13th hole called “bibigo! Chef-go!” The first player to make a hole-in-one at the 13th wins a private Korean food party hosted by bibigo that represents the best of Korean cuisine. The global Korean food brand Bibigo will provide their renowned chefs to the destination of the player’s choosing to throw a one-time Korean food party! Prize valued at 50,000 USD

Bogey-free rounds:

R1: Chez Reave (66), Charles Howell III (67),

Scoring Averages at the par-72 TPC Kuala Lumpur:?            Front 9           Back 9              Total                Cumulative

R1:       35.500            35.448              70.948

 

PICTURE COURTESY of GETTY IMAGES

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