GREENSBORO, N.C. — Golf is a game of streaks, and Carl Pettersson wants to ride this hot surge as long as possible — perhaps all the way through his adopted hometown tournament.
Pettersson shot an 8-under 62 on Thursday — the best opening round of his PGA Tour career — to take the first-round lead in the Wyndham Championship.
“We get on a good run, you’ve got to keep going and it seems like when you’re playing well, you never think you’re going to play bad,” Pettersson said. “When you’re playing bad, you never think you’re going to play well.”
David Mathis and Tim Clark were a stroke back, Tom Gillis, Scott Stallings and Troy Matteson shot 64, and Matt Every had a 65 in the final event before the FedEx Cup playoffs.
The top of the leaderboard had a decidedly local flavor. Pettersson went to high school in Greensboro and lives in Raleigh, and both he and Clark played at North Carolina State. Mathis grew up in Winston-Salem, played collegiately at Campbell and lives north of Raleigh in the town of Wake Forest.
Pettersson, a Swede who became an American citizen during the offseason, had his best round at Sedgefield Country Club since 2008, when he set the tournament record with a second-round 61 and went on to win.
Starting on the back nine, he reeled off consecutive birdies on Nos. 5-8 to move to 8 under. He had a chance to match his record on No. 9, but pushed his 30-foot birdie putt roughly a foot right of the hole.
Despite that, it was yet another strong round for Pettersson, who won the RBC Heritage in April and has five top-10 finishes this year, including a tie for third at the PGA Championship last week. It would have been a second-place finish had he not been assessed a two-stroke penalty for grazing a leaf with his backswing while hitting out of a lateral water hazard.
Pettersson was part of one of the most closely followed threesomes of the day, joining U.S. Open champ Webb Simpson (Wake Forest) and Davis Love III (North Carolina) as previous winners of this tournament who played at Atlantic Coast Conference schools. The league was founded here in 1953.
That helped make the first round feel a bit like the ACC tournament.
“Playing with two ACC guys, there’s a lot of ‘Go Pack’ and ‘Go Heels,’” Simpson said.
Some of those N.C. State cheers could have been saved for Clark, a star with the Wolfpack in the mid-90s before Pettersson enrolled. He was bogey-free and had an eagle on the par-5 No. 5. He landed his second shot roughly 8 feet from the flagstick and sank the putt for one of the 11 eagles on that hole.
“I’ve got to keep pace with Carl,” Clark said. “When he goes low, he really goes low. If I’m able to hang in there, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Mathis may not have those ties to the ACC, but he did have another reason — aside from the obvious — for wanting to leapfrog Pettersson: They both play the same Hasentree course in north Raleigh.
“Man, I sure would have liked to have clipped him by a shot today,” Mathis said, laughing.
That bit of levity masked the sense of urgency he’s facing in his final chance to qualify for the playoffs. Mathis, who has just one top-10 finish this year, arrived at No. 136 on the FedEx Cup points list and the top 125 qualify for The Barclays.
Mathis was bogey-free and had three straight birdies on Nos. 13-15 to move to 7 under before closing his round with three pars.
“I tried not to think about it, but it’s really difficult not to think about because it’s such a big part of the year,” Mathis said. “Your life can change really quick in the FedEx Cup if you play well.”
Pettersen on top at Safeway Classic
NORTH PLAINS, Ore. — Suzann Pettersen hopes to make herself right at home again in the Safeway Classic.
A year ago on Pumpkin Ridge’s Ghost Creek Course, the Norwegian star won the last of her eight career LPGA Tour titles, overcoming a nine-stroke deficit with a 7-under 64 and beating Na Yeon Choi with a par on the first hole of a playoff.
The 54-hole tournament, set to begin Friday, is in its fourth year at Pumpkin Ridge after 18 at Columbia Egdewater in Portland. Pettersen tied for second at Pumpkin Ridge in 2009 and tied for fourth in 2010.
“It kind of feels like being back at home. Ever since they moved from Columbia-Edgewater, I’ve done a little better,” Pettersen said. “It’s one of those tracks where you can really get it going.”
The course is set up to help the players get going, with Nos. 8, 9 and 10 all playing as par 5s. Last year, No. 9 played as a 371-yard, par 4. It has been lengthened to 474 yards. Two of the three par 5s are reachable in two shots by many players.
“You can really make a move there,” said second-ranked Stacy Lewis, a two-time winner this year who leads the money list with $1,222,479.
Lewis is trying to cut the gap on top-ranked Yani Tseng, the Taiwanese star mired in a slump after winning three times early in the season.
“Yani won so many times last year (seven). It would take a year like Yani had last year to catch her,” Lewis said. “I know I’m getting closer, but she hasn’t been in a slump for a long time.”
In Tseng’s last five starts, she tied for 59th in the LPGA Championship, missed the cut in the NW Arkansas Championship, tied for 50th in the U.S. Women’s Open, and missed the cuts in the Evian Masters and last week in the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic.
“I try everything I can,” Tseng said. “I’m working hard. I just work on location. This week, I feel very good, I feel like the old Yani is getting close and I feel like I need to get started on what I’m here for. This is a sport I love and there is no way I can be more appreciative than anyone else. I feel that I have a lot of advantage this week and I can do it. Just enjoy more than anybody on the course this week.”
South Korea’s So Yeon Ryu is coming off a victory Sunday in the Toledo Classic, where he closed with a 9-under 62.
The victory moved Ryu, the U.S. Women’s Open champion last year, into the points lead for LPGA rookie of the year. Or so she’s been told. “I never check the points because it would make me crazy,” Ryu said.
