The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

Gary Woodland and Patrick Reed took a two-stroke lead over the field and are tied atop the leaderboard following day one of the Hero World Challenge.

Both shot an opening round -6 (66) at the Albany golf course yesterday.

The reigning US Open champion, Woodland said the windy conditions was a factor throughout day one.

"Yeah, I drove the ball really well today. The wind's tough out there. Obviously you've got some big holes out there where you've got some tough shots, but I drove the golf ball beautifully and controlled the ball in the wind, which is what you've got to do out here.

"And I saw some putts go in obviously to make a lot of birdies, made some putts, which is nice. But 54 more holes, but I like where I'm at right now," Woodland said. "The golf course is tough and the greens were receptive though to the wind, which is nice."

Woodland made his move to top the leaderboard when he birdied four of the first six holes, but birdies on two and nine had him at -2 midway through round one. On the back nine, he birdied holes 10, 11, 12 and 15.

"As long as you can get into the wind chipping, sometimes it's better to miss the green than be in the middle of the green putting downwind," he said.

"We tried to play into the wind all day today and we did that. We controlled the golf ball enough where we did that and gave ourselves a lot of chances."

This the second consecutive year that Reed leads after the opening round. He looks to finish stronger than last year which eventually resulted in an 11th place finish.

"Yeah, the conditions were hard. I knew today was a day you had to play from the fairway, you had to give yourself opportunities and had to be patient because the greens here aren't that slopey so if you're on the green, you can be aggressive with most of the putts.

"The biggest thing is putting it on the green when the wind's pumping as much as it was. This is a kind of awkward wind," Reed said.

"The ball's just going forever downwind and into the wind the ball's going nowhere, so it's one of those things you have to be patient and make putts whenever you have the opportunity."

Reed has three previous top five finishes at Hero, tied for third in 2014, second in 2015 and tied for fifth in 2017.

Chez Reavie is alone in third at -4 (68).

Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Justin Thomas and 2017 Hero champion Rickie Fowler are all tied for fourth at -3 (69).

Rose, a native of England, is a resident at Albany and familiar with the course.

"This is a very rare wind. Anything that blows out of the west here is very rare. We normally get it out of the east. Obviously you've got the northerlies with the cold fronts and the southerlies normally in the summer, but generally the westerly is very rare," he said.

"That was kind of, for December, that was some tough grinding golf out there. I mean, felt like the wind -- the greens were really, really tough, really, really quick. I felt early on in the round I think being out first the greens felt like they had just been rolled, just been cut and felt very glassy and dicey out there, especially with the wind. So I felt very unsure around the cup on the front nine and obviously eventually got used to the feel of the greens and the conditions and managed to reel off a few birdies on the back nine, which is great."

Defending champion Jon Rahm is currently in eighth place at -2 (70).

Tiger Woods struggled on day one and is tied at No.11 with former Hero winner Bubba Watson, E (72).

Pawan Munjal, chairman, managing director and CEO of Hero Motocorp, said this year's event also doubles as a means of bringing awareness and fundraising to the Hurricane Dorian relief effort.

"We from the tournament are actually giving a challenge to all the players during this week to make birdies, eagles and aces, and every birdie counts for $500, every eagle counts for $1,000 and every ace counts for two and-a-half thousand dollars," he said.

"All this money that will be collected will be given to the One Bahamas Fund for giving back to the rebuilding of the two islands that got devastated."