Palm Beach Gardens, FL …
A pair of closing birdies restored Russell Knox’s dented pride on the opening day of the Honda Classic at PGA National in Flordia.
Knox was struggling to be four over par through 16 holes in the bright but windy conditions before holing a three-footer for birdie at 17 and then getting-up-down from a greenside bunker at the last in a two over par 72.
It left the lone Scot in the £5.12m event trailing eight shots behind the leading clubhouse duo of Cody Gribble and Wesley Bryan who each posted rounds of six-under par on the par 70 Champions Course.
Knox’s effort was two shots more on day when he finished runner-up in 2014 while shot a 69 two years ago in finishing third behind Ireland’s Padraig Harrington.
Scotland’s Russell Knox restores his dented pride birding the closing two holes in a round of a two over par 72 on the first day of the Honda Classic
The World No. 19 ranked Knox had been two-over par after seven holes before a birdie at eight got him back to one over par before dropping shots at 11, 13 and the 14th where he was also in a green side bunker.
“I hit a lot of extremely bad shots and they were very uncharacteristic shots”, said Knox.
“You look at my record around here and I’ve played quite well in the past but today I started off slow and never really got going.
“The course was playing longer over the first few holes this morning due to the rain we had late yesterday so that didn’t suit me.
“But then I just seemed to be out of position a lot while my iron play was terrible, and that’s the strength of my game.
“Fortunately, the two birdies there at 17 and 18 was massive for me because to finish par, par or bogey par, then that’s me in great trouble going forward.
“So, at least two over gives me a chance heading into the second round”.
