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They came together for a variety of different reasons, and enjoyed varying degrees of success (or otherwise) but they all seemed to share a common view. The 80 pairs competing in the Zurich Classic, the first official team event on the US PGA Tour in 36 years, welcomed the opportunity of playing a new format \u2013 with an old mate, a new friend or just a colleague whose game and temperament suited their own. <\/p>\n
The partnership of Jordan Spieth and Ryan Palmer, close friends who live in Dallas, took root late last year when Palmer\u2019s caddie, James Edmondson, said they would have to play together if Edmondson beat Spieth in a friendly match. He got Spieth on the last hole, and Spieth decided to add the Zurich Classic to his schedule. <\/p>\n
A good decision as it turned out, because they shared the lead after a six-under 66 in the alternate-shot format first round, with Ryan Ruffels and Kyle Stanley. Ruffels, who turns 19 tomorrow (Saturday), was an amateur in Australia when he played with Stanley at the Australian Masters. They got along well, are now represented by the same management firm, and decided to play together in New Orleans. <\/p>\n
The high-profile duo of Zurich ambassadors Rickie Fowler and Jason Day could manage just three birdies. Two late bogeys \u2014 including at the sixth when Fowler found the water with his tee shot \u2014 sent them down the leaderboard en route to a one-under 71. \u201cI think we played a lot better than the actual score itself,\u201d said Day. <\/p>\n
It was a roller-coaster round for the two Olympic medalists, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson, who were two-over on the par-fives in shooting an even-par 72. \u201cWe played pretty good, I\u2019d say, but we made a mess out of the par-fives,\u201d said Stenson. <\/p>\n
Geoff Ogilvy finished off a three-under 69 with Ian Poulter by holing a putt from just inside seven meters. \u201cIt was nice to do that because we hadn\u2019t holed a lot of putts during the day, but we hit a lot of good golf shots,\u201d said Poulter. <\/p>\n
Champions Tour players Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly started off hot, five-under through their first eight holes, before cooling off. Their combined age is 100, the oldest in the field. <\/p>\n
Other selected teams: Alex Cejka- S\u00f8ren Kjeldsen 70; Kyle Reifers-Andrew \u201cBeef\u201d Johnston 71; Martin Flores-Gonzalo Fern\u00e1ndez-Casta\u00f1o 72; Daniel Berger-Thomas Pieters 73; Bubba Watson-J.B. Holmes 73.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They came together for a variety of different reasons, and enjoyed varying degrees of success (or otherwise) but they all seemed to share a common view. The 80 pairs competing in the Zurich Classic, the first official team event on the US PGA Tour in 36 years, welcomed the opportunity of playing a new format […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[217,133,218],"class_list":["post-22309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-andalucia-golf-en","tag-costa-del-sol-en","tag-golf-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}