MEMPHIS — Jordan Spieth kept a clean card and clean pants, even without having to roll them up to his calves on a rain-soaked course at TPC Southwind, where he opened with a 7-under-par 63 on Thursday for a one-shot lead in the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Spieth chipped in for an eagle on the par-5 16th hole and made a key par putt on the 17th to take his first 18-hole lead on the PGA Tour since the Sony Open in January. He missed the cut the next day in Honolulu; that won’t be possible in this event, because the 70-player field has no cut.
Even if Spieth was sharp in a bogey-free round, the start to the FedEx Cup playoffs was sloppy. With the ground already soaked from a wet week in Memphis, storms dumped two inches of rain in the early morning, causing a delay of just more than two hours and leading to players being sent off on both sides. The greens were soft but fast. The course as a whole was soggy and muddy.
It was not the best day to be wearing white pants.
Tom Kim, who knows a little about mud, probably should have known better. The 21-year-old from South Korea decided to roll up his pants to make them look like capris. He was briefly tied with Spieth until a late bogey sent him to a 64.