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HOUSTON — After his record-tying round Thursday, Scott Piercy let his thoughts drift toward qualifying for the Masters with a win this week.
Piercy tied a tournament record with a nearly flawless 9-under-par 63 to take a one-stroke lead after the first round of the Houston Open.
“It’s the first round,” he said. “If I’m sitting here Sunday, then I’ll be super-excited. If I (keep playing) like I did today, I would say there’s a pretty good chance of that.”
Alex Cejka, in an afternoon group, made four birdies on his back nine — the course’s front nine — to finish with a 64, one stroke behind Piercy.
J. B. Holmes was next at 65, having also gotten to 8-under with four holes to play before finding a fairway bunker with his first shot at No. 6. After badly missing the green, Holmes had to scramble to a bogey.
Phil Mickelson, Luke Guthrie, Charles Howell III and Houston’s Shawn Stefani each shot a 66 and trail Piercy by three strokes.
Piercy, who made five birdies in a row over one torrid stretch during the middle of his round, became only the fifth player to card a 63 since this PGA Tour stop moved to the Golf Club of Houston Tournament Course in 2003. Two of the others, Mickelson in 2011 and Johnson Wagner in 2008, went on to win the championship.
The 36-year-old Piercy, a pro from Las Vegas, missed only one green in regulation and needed just 26 putts. Two days earlier, however, feeling so discouraged by the way he’d been playing of late that it crossed his mind while he was out grinding on the driving range “to go home and not waste my time.”
Piercy, instead, decided to keep practicing. He wound up hitting golf balls for “12, 13 hours. … In the 13th hour, something kind of clicked and I kind of figured it out. On Wednesday, I kind of engrained it, kept working and got pretty good. Today was awesome. It really was.”
Piercy was off the PGA Tour for six months last year while recovering from elbow surgery and said he still hadn’t felt quite right before arriving in Houston. But he liked his form Thursday the moment he first swung his driver. He began the day with a birdie on No. 10 and capped it by sinking a 30-foot birdie putt on the No. 9, his final hole.
Teeing off 20 minutes before Piercy, Mickelson made himself the early front-runner by chipping in for birdie on his first hole, then turning the corner at 3-under, about the time Piercy began his birdie run. Mickelson reached 7-under at one point but bogeyed the par-three ninth, his final hole.
Ko ties LPGA Tour record
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Lydia Ko tied Annika Sorenstam’s LPGA Tour record with her 29th consecutive round under par, shooting a 1-under 71 on Thursday in the ANA Inspiration.
The 17-year-old Ko saved par on the par-4 seventh — her 16th hole — after hitting an approach shot through a gap in the trees. She hit a 6-iron to 18 inches to set up a birdie on the 158-yard, par-3 eighth and closed with a par on the par-5 ninth.
The top-ranked New Zealander started the streak in the first round of her victory last year in the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. Her worldwide streak is 32, counting her three rounds this year in her victory in the Ladies European Tour’s New Zealand Women’s Open.
Sorenstam set the LPGA Tour mark in 2004.
Also the Women’s Australian Open winner in February the week before her New Zealand victory, Ko was a stroke behind leaders Charley Hull, Na Yeon Choi and Austin Ernst halfway through the first round in the first major championship of the season.
Opening in strong morning wind at tree-lined Mission Hills, Ko made a 14-foot birdie putt on her first hole and got to 2 under with an 8-footer on No. 12. She bogeyed the par-4 13th, hitting into the front right bunker and leaving herself a 25-foot par putt.
After playing partner Lexi Thompson hit into the water in front of the green on the 133-yard 14th with the wind gusting to 25-30 mph, Ko hit pin-high to the right and made the 15-footer for birdie.