Detroit – Taylor Moore Monday’s qualifier Peter Quest shot an 8-under 64 second to share the first-round lead in the Classic Rocket Mortgage Thursday, with a slew of players chasing what is expected to be a penalty shootout.
Dylan Wu took his third albatross on the PGA Tour this season and shot a 65, joining Sam Ryder, Aaron Rai, Ludvig Aberg, Sam Bennett, Justin Suh and Adam Schenk.
Colin Morikawa was among those back putts, and Ricky Fowler was the leading three at the Detroit Golf Club.
While many took full advantage of the favorable conditions on a relatively easy course, some notable names were nowhere near the top of the leaderboard.
Max Homma, the only player on the field ranked in the top 10 in the world, shot a 3-under 69. Songjae Im was one stroke better.
Defending champion Tony Finau, who won last year at 26-minus, shot 72.
Leading champions Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Thomas are in danger of being sidelined.
Matsuyama had 75 and Thomas was even worse after making a double-bogey and five-bogey. At 66th in the FedEx Cup standings, Thomas, who won his second PGA Championship last year, is in danger of missing out on a postseason that will include the top 70 players.
Thomas, who dropped out of the world’s top 10 for the first time in nearly six years, had missed out on losing two of his previous three tournaments.
Wu took a picture today, the one that TV cameras didn’t catch.
He drilled a 262-yard hybrid on the 570-yard, par-5 14th hole, drawing a roar from the crowd. Wu didn’t see it go in because he lost the ball in flight on a foggy day due to smoky air from wildfires in Canada that gave Detroit some of the worst air quality in the United States.
Kuest, the 25-year-old former BYU player who turned pro in 2020, is playing in the 10th PGA Tour event of his career. Instead of fishing in a river in Utah, he made Nine Birds and a Ghost in Motor City.
The 29-year-old Moore made eight birdies on his bogey-free tour.