Billy Horschel, Chris Kirk top Bubba Watson on early TOUR Championship leaderboard

The opening round of the TOUR Championship is in the books in Atlanta, and somewhat remarkably, the top two players in the FedEx Cup standings sit on top with a share of the lead. It’s rare to have things go so chalky, but the final pairing of Chris Kirk and Billy Horschel both posted 4-under rounds of 66 to jump one shot ahead of a clustered group at 3-under. It speaks to the kind streaky form a player can get on during the playoffs. Both Kirk and Horschel keep posting these rounds in the 60s, and they’re now in a prime position to take home the Cup and overall $10 million grand prize.

Horschel did much of his work with his irons and ball-striking, hitting 16 of 18 greens in regulation to lead the field. It was an underwhelming season for Horschel, but he’s turned it on at one of the most critical stretches. In addition to winning the BMW Championship last week, he stood in the 18th fairway the prior week at the Deutsche Bank Championship with an excellent chance to either force a playoff with Kirk or win it outright. What followed was a brutal chunk shot that he called his worst swing of the season. That giveaway didn’t exactly deter the Florida Gator, and now a week after the biggest win of his career, he’s on his way to a career payday in bonus money. He’s one of the more emotional and streaky players on Tour, and he’s finishing the season on fire.

Horschel has a chance to join a talented young core of American golfers. If he hasn’t already, a $10 million FedEx Cup would certainly seal his place among that group for the next several years.

Kirk fired the lowest opening round by a No. 1 seed since Tiger Woods in 2007. The average for the top seed in the first round at East Lake had been right around 1-over, so it’s not common to have the standings leader also set the pace here. It looked like he might get in the house one back of Horschel, but then he pulled off a chip-in on the 17th green to match him. It was the perfect run from 82 feet out right into the cup for some late drama to get on the lead:

Kirk is a UGA alum and now an Atlanta-area resident, so this is definitely a bit of a home game. If there were any “snubs” in the Ryder Cup captain’s pick process, Kirk would have the best argument. The final spot came down to him or Webb Simpson, and Watson opted for the 2012 U.S. Open winner. Kirk rarely expresses any emotion, so that may have come as a disappointment at the time but it wasn’t going to affect his play going forward. The $10 million might weigh on some of the others, but Kirk also seems unaffected by the stakes again this week.

To keep things chalky, Bubba Watson, who is No. 3 in the standings behind Kirk and Horschel, finished in the group one shot off the pace. Bubba hit his usual array of bombs off the tee, including the longest drive of the day at 358 yards, but it was the putter that was markedly improved in Thursday’s first round.

While Kirk and Horschel posted the only bogey-free rounds of the day, Bubba was all over the place and carded seven birdies. A double bogey at the 13th put a dent in his chance to be the outright leader, and then a bogey at the 18th bumped him out of what would have been a tie with the two leaders.

Bubba has obviously had a tumultuous season, often getting in his own way with petulant behavior and buffonish comments. And it seemed to affect him on the course. His game went quiet from Memorial in late May until really last week at the BMW, his first real chance at contention since Muirfield. The USA team will need him to play to his talent in two weeks at the Ryder Cup, so this finish is encouraging. A FedEx Cup title would be a nice bookend to his early-season win in Georgia at the Masters.

Joining Bubba at 3-under are some of the other heavy-hitters left in this postseason, such as Jim Furyk and Jason Day. It’s not surprising to see those guys near the top of the board again, but they’re not holding that top 5 card where a win this week would automatically deliver the overall Cup title. So they’ll need the three guys ahead of them -- Bubba, Kirk, and Horschel -- to come back to this limited-size field.

Here are the scores after the opening 18 in Atlanta: