Marc Leishman had a very solid first round performance at a windy Sentry Tournament of Champions tournament on Thursday. Leishman fired off a first round 67 that eight birdies and two bogies. The Australian gained entry into the tournament after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year. Leishman said his success in the wind was due to growing up in the coastal town of Warnambool where the gusts were always serious.
VIA PGA Tour: “Every day it was windy down there. It would be a calm day down there and I wouldn’t know what to do and would play terrible,” Leishman said.
“Just basically every round of golf I played until I was 15 was in a really strong wind. I just didn’t know any different and it actually took me some time when I got over here to find my feet when it wasn’t windy.”
Leishman will have to fight to hold onto that lead as there are two guys who are looking to get their first wins of the 2018 season out of the way early in Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. Both DJ and Rick fired off 69’s in their first round. After the round, Johnson said he definitely missed some putts.
“Definitely missed some putts, but I felt like I hit good putts, just didn’t have quite enough speed and lipped out a few on the low side,” he said. “But other than that, it was really solid.”
Johnson hit just eight of 15 fairways which put him tied for 28th in the 34-man field, and was 26th in proximity to the hole. It’s clear that his wedge game, something he’s worked extremely hard on over the last few years, isn’t quite dialed in yet.
While DJ works on his wedge game and hitting a few more fairways, Rickie Fowler, who just won the Hero World Challenge at the beginning of December and appears to have fully embraced the Hawaii look with his untucked shirt, looked good. Fowler had two bad holes on the back nine at Kapalua where he made a bogey and double bogey, but finished off strong with an eagle at the 18th to shoot a four-under 69.
Fowler is still in search of his first major win.