PALM BEACH GARDENS — Austin Smotherman couldn’t wait to get to the East Coast. Neither could Nico Echavarria.
Both players arrived at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches having made just one cut each – albeit a top-10 finish – in nine combined starts on the West Coast swing.
But there they were Thursday, atop the Cognizant first-round leaderboard. Smotherman leads after a bogey-free, 9-under 62, a shot ahead of Echavarria’s 63, on the softened Champion course at PGA National Resort.
“I was unconscious on the greens,” said Smotherman, who made 132 feet worth of putts. “The length of putts that I was making was nice to see, but I also felt like I hit a lot of good putts. I was just letting good speed take over, and hopefully the hole gets in the way.”
Smotherman’s 62 tied for the fourth-lowest score since the PGA Tour event moved to the Champion course in 2007. Jake Knapp shot 59 last year, two better than Brian Harmon and Matt Jones. Tiger Woods, Brendan Hagy and Chris Kirk also shot 62s.
It comes at a time when some players – including Billy Horschel – say the course had been made too soft with a Ryegrass overseed lessening the effect of Bermuda rough. But it was on the greens where the top two players separated themselves from the field – it was a gap of four shots to third place.
Asked if he was happy to leave the West Coast and the bumpy poa annua greens for the smoother Bermuda surfaces, Echavarria smiled.
“I think everyone does,” said the two-time PGA Tour winner who made more than 100 feet of putts. “You could tell how hard it was putting in Riviera, the bumpy and very fast greens. Coming here, even (though) the greens are crunchy and fast, the ball is rolling through so it was good to see the ball roll evenly.”
Smotherman rattled off six consecutive birdies, starting at the seventh hole to catch Echavarria at 8-under. After five pars in a row, Smotherman birdied the par-5 18th to take his third lead on the PGA Tour in his 82nd start.
The 31-year-old SMU graduate is playing with a sense of urgency, not because of the three missed cuts and a T8 at the American Express. His wife Jessica is expecting their third child on March 23.
“We know this is a crazy time, crazy year, where I kind of need to play everything,” Smotherman said. “I’m hoping the baby doesn’t come Players week and I’ve got to make a really hard choice there. But my mind is free. I just want to go play golf, and the baby is going to come when babies come.”
Echavarria didn’t birdie his first two par-5s Thursday, but ended his round in style by saving par from the edge of the water on the par-3 17th and making birdie at No. 18.
“I push-blocked a 7-iron on 17,” he said. “Luckily, it landed short of the bank, and it didn’t roll all the way back, so it’s kind of half and half in the water. And I was able to hit it, which was all I wanted, and got it to 8 feet and made it.”
Jupiter’s Daniel Berger birdied the final three holes to finish tied for third at 67 with Taylor Moore, Jackson Suber, Kevin Roy, Kristoffer Reitan and Pontus Nyholm. Berger has come close to winning his hometown event several times.
“I played the tough holes well,” Berger said. “I took a peek at the leaderboard and saw nobody in the afternoon was doing much, so it was playing difficult. I’m looking forward to getting out there early (Friday) and making some birdies. There’s a lot of golf left.”
Smotherman and Echavarria will have afternoon tee times Friday, when the Bermuda greens won’t be as smooth as they were Thursday morning. Smotherman made a change Thursday when he stopped marking his ball with a line to help on the greens.
“I’m trying to just be a little bit more freeing with the stroke,” Smotherman said. “Be an artist on the greens, see the line, kind of let it just be external, look at the hole, see where I want it to go in and just trust that I’m pretty good at just aiming in the general vicinity.”
Echavarria, a Colombian whose last win came at the 2024 Zozo Championship in Japan, contended at Pebble Beach before finishing T8 to go with four missed cuts.
“The golf hasn’t been that far off,” he said. “I could tell today that having patience and just enjoying it out there was going to be the key for the day, and we did that.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Cognizant Classic leaderboard: Austin Smotherman, Nico Echavarria 1-2
Reporting by Craig Dolch, Special to The Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
