Colonial debutant Graeme McDowell carded a four-under-par 66 to trail the leaders by one stroke after the first round at the Dean & DeLuca Invitational here Thursday. Americans Kelly Kraft, J.T. Poston and Derek Fathauer lead on 65, but most of the big names made acceptable starts at Colonial Country Club, with Jon Rahm shooting 66, Phil Mickelson 67, Sergio Garcia 69 and Jordan Spieth 70. Northern Ireland's McDowell has always missed the tournament because it invariably clashes with the European Tour's PGA Championship at Wentworth in England. But he kept hearing from other players that his game would be suited to the Colonial Country Club that favors shotmakers rather than long hitters, and with no Ryder Cup this year, he decided it was the perfect time to find out. Lewis, Hsu on top Stacy Lewis shot a seven-under 65 to take a share of the first-round lead with Taiwan's Hsu Wei-Ling in the Volvik Championship in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Lewis finished with a birdie for the early lead. Hsu caught her in the afternoon, and they both sit one stroke ahead of Nelly Korda. Brittany Lincicome, South Korea's Ilhee Lee and Park Sung-hyun, Norway's Suzann Pettersen and Australia's Sarah Jane Smith are tied for fourth at 67. Lewis, a former No. 1 and two-time major champion, has three top-10 finishes in 2017 but has not won an event since 2014. Hsu started with two eagles and two birdies. Korda hit just eight of 14 fairways in round one but posted a bogey-free round. Carlsson upstages big guns Little-known Swede Johan Carlsson took full advantage of the new improved greens at Wentworth by firing a pacesetting six-under 66 in the first round of the $7 million BMW PGA Championship Thursday. The 30-year-old picked up five strokes in a blistering outward half of 30 before three back-nine birdies were partially offset by bogeys at the 10th and 18th. While Carlsson was flying high at the top of the leaderboard, world No. 9 Justin Rose had to settle for a 72 and fellow Englishman Ian Poulter ballooned to a 76. The fifth-ranked Henrik Stenson was handily placed on 68, one behind Italy's Francesco Molinari, Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand and Scott Jamieson of Scotland. Langer leads by 2 shots Shrugging off fatigue from last week's victory, Bernhard Langer shot a 7-under 65 Thursday to take a two-shot lead in the first round of the Senior PGA Championship. The 59-year-old German could break Jack Nicklaus' record of eight senior majors with a win at Trump National. He would also become the first player to win all five of the current senior majors. Langer's lead held up as afternoon thunderstorms halted play for the day with half of the 156-man field still on the course. Tom Lehman was two shots back after a 67. Lee Janzen, Scott McCarron and James Kingston also were two shots behind Langer. Miguel Angel Jimenez was among the group at 4-under, playing alongside John Daly and defending champion Rocco Mediate, who were both 1-under. — Agencies
