AVONDALE, La. - Chris DiMarco got off to a fast start in his first event since losing the Masters in a playoff, shooting a season-best 7-under 65 on Thursday for a share of the first-round lead in the Zurich Classic.
India’s Arjun Atwal also opened with a 65, birdieing six of his final nine holes on the TPC of Louisiana, the Pete Dye-designed course in its first year as the tournament site after 16 years at English Turn.
DiMarco, coming off the emotional first-hole loss to Tiger Woods three weeks ago at Augusta National, had a bogey-free round in swirling wind gusts. “As long as I’m hitting the ball as solid as I’m hitting it, it really doesn’t matter if you play in the wind or not,” DiMarco said. “My irons are very crisp and when you hit crisp iron shots the wind doesn’t affect them as much.”
DiMarco, who started the round on No. 10, had three birdies on the first nine holes. He got to 4 under with a birdie on No. 1, made five straight pars, and holed a 20-foot eagle putt on the par-5 seventh. He closed the round with a birdie on No. 9.
“You just got to know where to miss it on this golf course,” DiMarco said. “You got to know which side you can get up and down from and not try to be real aggressive. I had the luxury of being a couple under par and not having to go for certain pins.”
Atwal, who lost a playoff last month in the BellSouth Classic, said he concentrated on his putting.
“I just tried to make pars because it was so windy,” Atwal said. “Then I got things going on the front nine.”
Defending champion Vijay Singh was in a group at 67.
Opening on the back nine, Singh had two bogeys and three birdies to make the turn at 1 under. He bogeyed No. 1 then had birdies on Nos. 2, 6 and 7.
Singh had an eagle on the par-3 eighth, with a 339-foot drive and a 30-yard chip to go to 6 under. He three-putted No. 9, however, for a final bogey.
“I had a lot of long putts that I couldn’t judge,” Singh said. “I three-putted four times. Long putts are hard for me to do the way the wind is blowing.”
After three weeks away from the tour, DiMarco showed no sign of being rusty.
“No, because when I went home for two weeks I played a lot of golf,” he said.
J.J. Henry, Tom Pernice Jr. and Tim Clark also shot 67s.
“My putter was the key today,” Pernice said. “I haven’t putted well this year.”
With the move to the year-old TPC of Louisiana, players such as Henry, who did not play in the pro-am, had just one round of practice before the start of play Thursday.
“I looked at it as, ‘Hey, everybody is kind of in the same boat,’” Henry said. “It’s a golf course that’s not one that you’re going to be where you can’t sleep the night before. There’s no hole that jumps out, where you’re really sweating it out.”
