Jordan Spieth goes low to start his year and battles Patrick Reed at top of leaderboard

It should not shock you that the No. 1 player in the world began his year by shooting right back up to the top of the leaderboard in a limited field 32-man Hyundai Tournament of Champions. But there was still a tinge of amazement and incredulity that Jordan Spieth was leading a golf tournament yet again, just a handful of holes into his year. Maybe 2016 will be the year all those expectations are re-calibrated but I would guess not -- he’s still going to be just 22/23 years old.

Spieth strolled through his first nine of the year without a bogey, but missing a few opportunities on a Kapalua Plantation Course that can be (and was on Thursday) easy to post birdies. He did not have his best stuff, but what we learned over the past 12 months is that Spieth may be the best in the world at clenching on to the first page of a leaderboard and posting a number with his less-than-best stuff.

It was just nine holes in an event that will not mean much in the larger 2016 picture for the No. 1 player, but a bogey-free 3-under 33 was a fine way to start. Spieth needed only two holes to drop one of those bombs we saw repeatedly last summer.

His worst shot of the day probably came at the eighth, but the golden child’s ball got held up just inches before trickling into a hazard. He took advantage of the fortunate break and popped a wedge up onto the green just a foot from the cup, made his par, and then went off on his march toward the top of the leaderboard.

Following that mishap off the tee at the eighth, Spieth turned it up a bit and made five birdies in his last 10 holes. It was the usual mix of solid iron play, perfect recovery shots, and short game steadiness. We’ve heard that one area of his game he’s working on a bit are his wedges, and he spun one from 90 yards out to just three feet at the 10th.

This is an easier course that was playing benign, but the 6-under 66 seemed so routine. Aside from that long putt at the second, there was no dramatic set of highlights. He hit the wedges close, avoided an ugly hole, and wiggled back up the leaderboard.

Spieth’s playing partner, however, did close with a flurry of highlight shots. Patrick Reed, the defending champ of this winners-only event, was allegedly irked by the event marketing Spieth and other contemporaries this week and not him. Golf Channel referenced it multiple times, stating that he was playing with that cliched “chip” on his shoulder.

With a bottleneck of players, including Spieth, tied for the lead, Reed decided to break it up with back-to-back darts on Kapalua’s two finishing holes. They were the shots of the day, and Reed played the last two in 3-under to zip past everyone for the 18-hole lead. At the 17th, a 550-yard par-4, he put his approach shot to two-feet for a stress-free birdie.

At the 663-yard (it’s verrry downhill) closing hole, Reed smoked a fairway wood from 309 yards to 16 feet and poured in the eagle to separate himself from the rest of the leaderboard. Watching these guys go for it on the 18th, with that backdrop, is always one of the better parts of this season opener and Reed’s laser was best of the first round.

Thanks to that closing eagle, and Spieth’s closing birdie, those two will anchor the tee sheet for a the second straight day. The two are often thought of together as the Ryder Cup rookie duo that was the lone and inspirational bright spot two years ago in Scotland. But they’ve also ripped wins away from one other on Tour and seem to be accumulating the history of those battles to start thinking of this as a nice understated rivalry.

Spieth acknowledged as much after the round, stating, “It just seems like maybe we just want to beat each other so bad, it brings the best out in us.” There’s something there between the two and they’ll be together again as 1-2 on the leaderboard for the second round of 2016. It’s just 18 holes at an event that we’ll probably forget about by April, but this was a fun way to start the new PGA Tour year with the young talent again taking hold of a leaderboard.

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