Season-opening Fortinet Championship offers fresh slate

NAPA, Calif. – The first birdie of the new season was a tie, more or less.

Stephan Jaeger, who was in the first group off the front nine at the Fortinet Championship, made a 2 at the par-3 second hole. Wyndham Clark, in the second group off the back nine, birdied 10. Maybe the golf gods can call it.

The first bogey was a tie between Mother Nature (90-minute fog delay) and an announcer’s botched first-tee intro of Tano Goya, a 34-year-old rookie who finished 19th on the Korn Ferry Tour Finals Eligibility Points List. He’s from Alta Gracia, Argentina, 46 kilometers southwest of Cordoba, but was introduced as being from “Argentina, Argentina.”

People around the tee laughed, and Goya shrugged and nodded.

“It’s OK, it’s funny,” said Goya, who estimates he’s played golf in more than 40 countries but has made a home in Jacksonville, Florida, since 2020. “It happened on the Korn Ferry, too.”

Two more Goya factoids: He rocks those groovy pants that taper at the ankle in the manner of South African Erik van Rooyen (and others), and he and his caddie always wear matching shirts. Brand: Full Wedge. It’s to the point where if they don’t go matchy-matchy, Goya said, people ask what’s wrong.

Welcome to get-to-know-you week on TOUR, with 27 rookies in the field for the first of 47 events on the new season, and five of them (Trevor Cone, Nicolas Echavarria, Harrison Endycott, Vincent Norrman, Kevin Roy) making their first-ever TOUR start.

Cone’s mother was in tears. “He’s earned this,” she said. Norrman’s father had flown all the way from Stockholm, Sweden. Philip Knowles was introduced on the first tee and smiled at the whoops from his crew of supporters, including his pregnant wife, Olivia, whom he met through high school golf. They were teammates; she played on the boys’ team.

“I used to outdrive him,” she said. “Used to.”

S.H. Kim shot 66 for the best round among the rookies. He’s won four tournaments worldwide, biggest among them the 2021 Japan PGA Championship, one of five Japan Golf Tour majors.

Defending champ Max Homa shot his third straight 65 here. Justin Lower shot 63 and said he’s just happy to have a TOUR card after sneaking into the top 125 after his rookie season. Another standout was not a rookie but second-year PGA TOUR pro Sahith Theegala, who opened with a 67. Absent presumed Rookie of the Year Cameron Young, Theegala is the gold standard to which all rookies at the Fortinet should aspire.

After posting five top-10 finishes, among them heartbreakers at the WM Phoenix Open (T3) and Travelers Championship (T2), Theegala was one of two rookies (with Young) to make the TOUR Championship last season. And he’s already looking like a super sophomore at the Fortinet, where he racked up eight birdies and three bogeys and was four off the early lead.

“Yeah, it was great, I was playing well all year,” he said. “The results maybe didn't really show it, but I made a ton of cuts, played a lot of solid golf. I feel like this year’s even more of kind of a – I use the term free-roll a lot. This year seems to be even more of a free-roll for me because I got the nerves of being a rookie and certain expectations out of the way, and now it's my second year and I'm playing all these events again for the second time.

“I feel like I have more flexibility and I've learned so much the last year,” added Theegala, who also benefits from a recent change that provides a two-year exemption to TOUR Championship qualifiers.

One lesson: He can’t tee it up every single week, even though he’s only 24. After playing 32 tournaments last season, Theegala took a seven-day break, his longest since 2019, and didn’t touch a club. “I got the itch back pretty quickly after that,” he said.

Players with the itch were all over Silverado, what with so many getting their first taste of TOUR membership. Taylor Montgomery, a two-time Nevada Open champion from Las Vegas, had nine top-10 finishes in his last 12 Korn Ferry Tour starts last season to earn his TOUR card. He opened with a 4-under 68 at the Fortinet thanks largely to needing just 23 putts and ranking first in Strokes Gained: Putting despite battling nerves.

“It’s probably one of the most nervous times I’ve had on the golf course, for some reason,” he said.

Surely, someone pressed, he must have some idea why.

“Don’t know,” Montgomery said. “First PGA TOUR event as a pro? I have no idea. I don’t know. It’s what I do for a living. I shouldn’t be that nervous.”

Goya, the Argentinian, was one of 35 players who came back to the course Friday morning to complete the first round. A second fresh start was good for him as he birdied two of his remaining three holes to card a 1-over 73.

“When the pandemic hit, we didn’t have many tournaments in Latin America, so my goal was to try to get to America,” he said. “To at least get on the mini-tours, try to get competitive, so that when tournaments came back, at least I’d be ready.”

With seven international victories on the European Tour, European Challenge Tour, Argentina Tour, and Southern Africa Tour, the Korn Ferry Tour grad is ready. His caddie is ready. Their matching shirts are ready. Mile upon mile of fairways, row upon row of tiny, open squares on the scorecards – it’s all in front of him now. It’s all in front of all of them.