Bubba Watson leads after Round 1 at Travelers Championship
Cromwell, CT (SportsNetwork.com) - Bubba Watson opened up a 2-shot lead at the Travelers Championship following a strong 8-under 62 in Thursday's opening round.
The two-time Masters champion is seeking his eighth career victory on the PGA Tour and his second of the season.
Watson has experienced a lot of success at this event in the past. He picked up his first career victory on the PGA Tour here in 2010 and also has three top-10 finishes in eight appearances at TPC River Highlands.
"It was a good day. Before I started the day I was looking at the weather and the weather is favorable for play. It was also looking bad for tomorrow, so I wanted to go out there and shoot a pretty good score so I could somehow struggle tomorrow and still make the cut," said Watson.
There is plenty of firepower chasing Watson on a packed top of the leaderboard. Keegan Bradley, Harris English, Seung-Yul Noh, Brian Stuard and Jason Gore are all tied for second following 6-under 64s.
Playing alongside Watson, Zach Johnson shot a 5-under 65 and is tied for seventh with Scott Langley, Chris Stroud, Robert Garrigus, Carl Pettersson, Tom Gillis, Scott Brown and Will MacKenzie.
Defending champion Kevin Streelman, who finished with a record seven straight birdies last year to win, carded a 1-under 69 and is tied for 76th.
Watson started off with a pair of pars and then knocked in his first birdie from six feet at No. 3. He later made back-to-back gains at six and seven before making the turn in style with an 8-foot birdie conversion at nine.
At minus-4 around the turn, Watson holed two more pars from 10 before making his fifth birdie from 18 feet at the par-4 12th.
Watson made it three birdies in four holes with gains from 13 and seven feet at 14 and 15. He tripped to his first and only bogey on 16, which saw the 36- year-old fall back into a tie for the lead at minus-6.
It was a strong finish for Watson as he poured in a putt from 10 feet at 17 to retake the outright lead.
Watson then hit the flag stick and nearly holed out for eagle at the par-4 18th. The ball came to rest just inches from the hole and he tapped that in for birdie to post 62.
"I started off good. I hit my driver well, was putting good. Worked on putting hard last week and pretty hard this week trying to focus on certain things when I putt," Watson said after missing the cut last week at the U.S. Open. "Last week doesn't really show you how good or how bad you're putting. You get bounces one way or the other way. So for me, I knew I was thinking good, I knew I was playing well, so today just showed that."
Bradley and Noh mixed seven birdies and one bogey in their rounds to grab a share of second. English drained eight birdies, but tripped to a pair of bogeys.
Stuard and Gore both went bogey-free with six birdies to start the week.
NOTES: Watson is 86-under par at this event since 2008, which is 19 shots better than anyone else during that time ... He picked up a victory at the WGC - HSBC Champions earlier this season ... Watson's 62 is still two shots off the course record of 60, shot by Patrick Cantlay in 2011 ... Stroud has 24 rounds in the 60s since 2008 at this event, which is the most of any player ... Andres Romero made a hole-in-one at the par-3 16th ... Russell Knox withdrew following his round due to illness.