Joel Dahmen is the first-round leader at the Wyndham Championship, and equally important jumped from 101st to No.50 in the FedEx Cup Playoff standings.
Maintaining that position would earn him a spot in both the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the BMW Championship. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Wyndham Championship: Leader Joe Dahmen Walking Off His Final Hole.
“Thursday’s a long ways from Sunday. I’ve been here a lot, so just happy to get off to a good start and yeah, we’ll see where things fall,” Dahmen said following his 9-under par 61 performance. “Drove it in the rough a couple holes early but got away with a couple of them, and then hit a ton of fairways after that and hit the numbers I was trying to and rolled in a few putts.”
37-year-old Dahmen began on the back nine, made the turn at 3-under 32, then collected three straight birdies and six overall over his last nine holes.
“I don’t know if you ever see 61 coming, but I saw good golf coming. I went 45-ish holes last week without a bogey to start the tournament, played really well in Truckee at the Barracuda besides kind of a weak Saturday,” Dahmen said. “If you take like four holes away last week, it was kind of going to be a top 5. Trending, as we like to say in golf, we’re always trending, right, but we’re actually trending, which is nice.”
Alex Noren shot an 8-under 62 at Sedgefield Country Club, moving from 141st to 83rd. If he holds, Noren would join the top 100 to retain a TOUR Card for next season.
Cameron Young, a former player out of nearby Wake Forest, finished one shot back in a three-way tie for third at 7-under. Young made six birdies over his final seven holes, including five straight. He briefly led before Aaron Rai and Nico Echavarria joined him with rounds of 63.
Rai is trying to be the first repeat winner of this event since Sam Snead in 1956.
“It’s important to stay extremely focused, especially on a course like this,” the 30-year old Englishman said. “It presents a lot of opportunities, but it can catch you out very fast so kind of have to be careful of drifting off too much. But it was really nice being out there. Yeah, just recalling a couple of the shots from last year over the last few days.”
Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott are among those four shots off the lead at 5-under.
Wyndham Championship On TV:
- CBS and Golf Channel are televising the Wyndham Championship, with PGA Tour Live and Paramount+ streaming it.
- PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ gives exclusive early coverage and featured groups all four days.
- Golf Channel airs coverage 3-6 p.m. ET Friday, and 1-3 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday.
- CBS broadcasts the tournament 3-6 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday.
Photo Courtesy: John Gillooly/Wyndham Championship
