ATLANTA – The curtain rose Thursday at East Lake Golf Club in the opening round of the Tour Championship, and Henrik Stenson had a goal. He wanted to break from the gates as fast as he could. A birdie-birdie-birdie start and a front-nine, 6-under 29 certainly checked off that box.
“That’s what I was looking for,” Stenson said, “and I got it.”
He was too consumed in the moment to start thinking about shooting golf’s magic number – 59 – at one of the game’s biggest events, but surely others were thinking about it. Some light drizzle hit in the midst of his back nine with Stenson 8 under through 12 on the par-70 track, and his game would cool over the final holes, which included a dropped shot at the par-4 17th.