Jason Day takes Players Championship lead by matching TPC Sawgrass course record

It was stupid at the time. But the week at The Players Championship started with a Jason Day press conference that did not inspire much hope for his chances at TPC Sawgrass. This is a course that is supposed to mitigate some of that enormous advantage he has from his distance off the tee. His uneven track record -- making just two of five cuts -- seemed to corroborate that theory and he said in that press conference he would hit a whole bunch of 2-irons off the tee, because the driver is not worth it for him on so many holes and he’s not comfortable with his three-wood. His last round at the Stadium Course was a 9-over 81. So there were these trends, reasons and quotes to doubt Day and put the No. 1 player in the world somewhat under the radar.

But he’s the No. 1 player in the world and it was stupid at the time. Now, after 18 holes, it looks reallllly stupid. Day went out in the opening round at The Players and matched the course record with a blistering 9-under 63. In many years, getting to 9-under would be good enough to put you in contention at the start of Sunday around here. Day has 54 more holes to go to add to it, and the way he striped it on Thursday, there were no signs of him coming back toward even-par.

Day had a putt for birdie on every single hole. That’s going put you near the top of the leaderboard and Day has been having one of the best putting seasons on Tour. He started the round by bombing in a putt from 30 feet -- it was not yet 9 a.m. ET and the world No. 1 was on the move.

Day opened with three straight birdies and it was clear from the start this was going to be a different kind of Sawgrass round for him. That unsustainable pace cooled off and everyone in the morning wave started to pour in birdies. The scoring pace, about 70, is the lowest it has been in 23 years and you were losing big ground if you were not making a move into the red. This is the easiest TPC Sawgrass will get all week, with the greens on the softer side and the wind absolutely dead. At one point, Justin Rose played a five-hole stretch in 6-under.

So this was the kind of morning where that course record could fall or at least be matched. The world No. 1 was the person to do it, stuffing it to tap-in distance on his last hole of the day to join four others with the course record 63.

The company that Day now keeps at Sawgrass, a supposed house of horrors for him.

Day’s round was impressive but, as noted above, it wasn’t going to be the kind of number relative to the field that gives him a huge runaway cushion, like we saw last year with the Aussie at the BMW. Everyone is going low. The big guns like Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler will be out in the afternoon draw, but the greens should firm up and scores should go up from the morning assault.

Here’s your leaderboard midway through the first round: