Golfing News

Hunter Mahan’s motivation these next two weeks is to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

If he doesn’t watch out, he might win the FedEx Cup while he’s at it.

With the thought of making an impression on Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger, who has four at-large picks to fill, holed out from the fairway on the first hole, stood five-under through his first seven holes and ended up shooting nine-under 62 Thursday in the opening round of The Barclays at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey.

Mahan tallied eight birdies and a bogey along with his eagle to take a four-stroke lead. Mahan entered Thursday ranked 90th in the FedEx Cup standings, and will easily surge to the top of the standings and become a front-runner for the $10 million top prize going into next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship, when the standings will be whittled from 144 to the top 120 after this weekend.

England’s Paul Casey birdied three of his final four holes to shoot a five-under 66 and sits in second place, his best opening round figure of the year on the PGA TOUR.

“I’ve struggled to get off to good starts this year,” said Casey, who needed only 25 putts to complete the round. “So I was pleased to go out in the second group and shoot 66.”

Americans Bo Van Pelt, Kevin Streelman, Charley Hoffman and Dudley Hart and Australia’s Mathew Goggin tied for third by shooting 67. Included in the group that shot 68 includes Aussie Adam Scott, former PGA Championship winner Rich Beem, Swede Jesper Parnevik, long-bombing Bubba Watson and defending Barclays champion Steve Stricker.

Players were grouped according to their FedEx Cup standings, so the top three — Kenny Perry, Phil Mickelson and British Open and PGA Championship winner Padraig Harrington — were paired together and had one of the day’s biggest followings.

Perry shot a 69. Harrington, who double-bogied the 18th (his 9th of the day), muddled his way around to a 72. With the New York-area crowd, as always, on his side, Mickelson shot a 1-under 70 to open the tournament.

Perry offered up a nominee for quote of the day: “We had a lot of support out there today. Of course, they were all rooting for Phil.”

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