Three Way Tie for the Lead After Wells Fargo Championship First Round

Webb Simpson, Stewart Cink, and Ryan Moore are all tied after day one at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, shooting rounds of seven under 65 in the great conditions that were offered.

Tiger Woods

Woods was one of the favorites heading into this week’s event, as many thought he would have fixed the kinks in his game after his performance at the Masters a few weeks ago.  However, Tiger didn’t start off too well on Thursday with a bogey on his first hole, and the rest of the day went up and down for him as he shot a first round score of one under par 71.  Tiger only hit 57% of the fairways on day one, and his driver was the biggest problem of his game, as Woods had to get out situation after situation on the front nine of the course.  He was able to play more solidly on the back nine with two birdies and seven pars, and I think the momentum he gained after the first nine should help him to shoot a lower score come tomorrow.

Webb Simpson

Webb Simpson lives only a handful of miles away from this week’s golf course and has played it often, and so it should come as no surprise that his is tied for the lead after the first round of the tournament.  Simpson started off with a great front nine score of 31 that included an eagle on the par 4 eighth hole.  Webb hit nearly 90% of the greens in regulation and had only 26 putts on the day, putting him in the top five in the field in both categories.  Webb should definitely be a threat to win this week’s event, especially if he follows up his great first round with another good one on Friday.

Rickie Fowler

Fowler has yet to win a PGA Tour event in his career (although he did win a professional event overseas in 2011), but has come close this year with two top 10 finishes.  He shot a first round score of six under 66 to finish in a tie for second place heading into Friday, and was fantastic with his irons as he only missed one green in regulation for the entire day.  However, Rickie ranks 116^th on Tour in total putting, and this will be the main area to watch on Friday.  If he can put together a few good putts and continue the great iron play we could certainly be seeing him on top of the leaderboard going into Saturday.