Spieth and Thomas Go Toe-to-Toe at the Tour Championship

Jordan Spieth isn’t leading the TOUR Championship after day one, but he’s still in the FedEx Cup driver’s seat.

All scenarios for players other than Jordan Spieth to win the FedExCup start with Spieth not winning the Tour Championship.  Right now, he’s behind, but only by three shots, tied with Justin Thomas at 3-under par.  They are tied with three others, including this year’s star newcomer, Jon Rahm.

So, the big question this week is can Spieth hold the rest of them off?

Early in the first round, it looked like Spieth was hosting a garden party when he opened the door wide and almost invited the field to beat him. Maybe he was just giving them a sporting chance. He was having trouble with driver control.

He pulled a drive into the rough left on the first and hit into the left rough over the green on the second.  He pushed it right on the fifth, and tugged it left off the tee on the 6^th. He yelled at the tee shot he hit at the 9^th, which landed in the Jim Furyk bunker, right of the green. Still got par.

"“I’m surprised we’re at 3 under,” Spieth said. “I felt like it was really a grind out there, and it’s just because the first four, five holes of the round I was all over the place tee to green.”"

It just looked like he was just giving them a sporting chance in the early going.

"“I was leaving the ball out right the first couple days of this week,” he explained. “I was trying to figure out a solution to that, and it was trying to get my body caught up, and I snap-hook my first four swings that I hit and I was just like, what is this?”"

He said he hadn’t hit a ball left in three weeks, but that’s where he found himself early in the round.

However,  by the turn, he was on the leaderboard.

The back nine looked easier, but he just did not get any birdies out of it until the 17^th.

"“The back nine today was kind of very similar to how this year’s gone for me, really good striking and just couldn’t quite get it in the hole,” he added."

Justin Thomas, meanwhile, did not give any ground to the Spieth. However, his round was a little all pars until he got to the 7^th where he birdied that and the next.  Unfortunately for Thomas fans, he bogeyed the 9^th and then began a rollercoaster of a back side. His card changed colors so often it looked like a patchwork quilt.  He went birdie, bogey, birdie, par, par, birdie, par, bogey, birdie.

“The holes out here are so straight, the fairways are really hard to hit sometimes, and I probably only had two tee shots where I really tee it normal,” he said, indicating he was teeing the ball lower.  “Everything I’m just hitting it head high and really straight as opposed to a lot of weeks I can carry bunkers, I need to work it one way or the other so I’m teeing it normal height.”

Thomas has not been home to south Florida since Hurricane Irma, and said his PGA Championship trophy is still in Rickie Fowler’s safe, at least he hoped it was.

Meanwhile, the usually explosive Dustin Johnson made all pars on the front and made two birdies on the back, at the 11^th, a par three, and at the 18^th, a par five. He’s in 11^th, four back of the leader,  Kyle Stanley.

Next: Jordan Spieth Ready for East Lake, FedEx Cup

Spieth has the advantage in the FedEx Cup race at the moment, but with a tightly packed leaderboard, there’s plenty left up for grabs.