BRADENTON, Fla. — With it’s emphasis on approach shots and short game skills, The Concession Golf Club saw a fitting top of the leaderboard with Matthew Fitzpatrick and Webb Simpson firing 6-under-par 66s to share the first-round lead Thursday.
The World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession is holding a one-year stay at the East Manatee County track because of the COVID-19 pandemic moving the event from it’s normal home of Mexico City.
Neither Fitzpatrick nor Simpson entered this week ranked in the top 130 in driving distance. Yet both found themselves sharing the first-round lead.
Fitzpatrick’s bogey-free round comes a week after notching a top-five finish at the Genesis Invitational in California.
“I feel like I played pretty well last week,” Fitzpatrick said. “The golf course is obviously a lot different, different grass and everything and the greens are much smaller than they are here. [Thursday] my dispersion I guess, sounds pretty strange, was just good. Aiming left and pushing it right and aiming right and pulling it left. Just the way I tried to play (Thursday) and just hit a few close and made some putts.”
Starting on the back nine, Fitzpatrick dropped four birdies on his outward nine and utilized his sublime short game to navigate the tricky contoured green complexes at The Concession.
“The big thing for me is you’ve really got to think about your approach, your approach shots,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s so complicated into some of them. Where the flags are, they’re put in tight little areas and you’ve got to make sure you catch the right slopes to either get it close or just to the fat part of the green. That’s what we did really well [Thursday] and got to do more of it the next three.”
Like Fitzpatrick, Simpson also started this WGC event strong, closing with birdies on three of his final four holes to grab co-leader status at the end of Thursday’s play.
“The course is fantastic. It’s firm,” Simpson said. “I was hoping it would get firm and fast. It takes that lengthy scorecard down a little bit. Very pleased with the start. I worked on a couple things last week with putting alignment and with my driver and I saw good things from that [Thursday]. You always want to see it first round back, but it doesn’t always happen that way, so I was happy to see like tough tee shots with trouble, really stepping up and making good swings. And made a lot of putts [Thursday], so that was a good feeling.”
The pair hold a one-shot lead over Brooks Koepka, Billy Horschel, Sergio Garcia and Kevin Kisner.
With the course being a new addition to the PGA Tour this season, many players are seeing it for the first time. In Koepka’s case, the former world No. 1 player didn’t arrive until late Tuesday and only played the front nine prior to Thursday’s first round.
“I mean, [caddy] Rick [Elliott] walked it, I get a yardage book, it’s not too difficult,” Koepka said. “I don’t think anything of it. It is what it is. You’ve got to look up on the tee, you know on 10 water’s right, there’s bunkers on the left, so put it in the fairway.”
