South Africa’s MJ Daffue made a solid start to the Sandersons Farms Championship by shooting a 7-under-par 65 for the opening round on Thursday.
Daffue showed great composure and determination throughout his round as he rolled in a total of seven birdies across his 18 holes without dropping a single shot.
The Country Club of Jackson proved to offer quite a decent amount of scoring opportunities and Daffue firmly capitalised on it by finishing the day in T5 and one shot behind the group of leaders.
‘I hit the ball really good. I’ve been making some changes as far as equipment and stuff like that to get a little bit better tee to green. Putting has been as good as it’s been. In all honesty, I had a few more good looks, but you never can complain,’ Daffue said about his round.
Despite his good start on the opening hurdle, Daffue knows that three more testing days await for him to show his worth.
After Round 1 of the @Sanderson_Champ:
T1. @JSMunozGolf (-8)
T1. @Kevin_Chappell
T1. @Hoffman_Charley
T1. Jimmy Walker
T5. @MJDaffue13 (-7)
T5. @MGligicGolf
T7. Five players tied (-6)Full leaderboard: https://t.co/xYdhELrcLf pic.twitter.com/j6Z7OoyOKf
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 1, 2020
‘I think it helps having a great start. I think it’s a could nun drum or double blade sword if you try to get off to a good start and you don’t. You’ve just got to look at the tournament as a whole and pretend you’re going to be there on Sunday and chip away at a number or a game plan that you play.
‘Obviously I’ve had some good finishes getting into these events and made most of the cuts, and I think for me it’s all about trying to forget about trying to make all the points to get temporary membership at once. If I play good enough, it will happen. If I can just stick with the process and chip away and back myself to get into more events, and hopefully the tournament directors are seeing what I’m doing,’ he added.
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Daffue will, however, be chasing Charley Hoffman, Jimmy Walker, Kevin Chappell and Sebastian Munoz, who all finished round one on 8 under.
Fellow South African, Charl Schwartzel, also made a sound start to his week by carding a 4-under-par 68 for his first round, while Dylan Frittelli is on even par after Thursday’s action and Branden Grace 1 over for the event.
