Charley Hoffman carded a bogey-free 5-under 65 for a one-stroke lead after the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge. He seeks his fifth PGA Tour title and his first since the 2016 Valero Texas Open.
"It was weirdly like easy," said the American laughing. "I didn't really have, put myself in any bad positions out there, hit a lot of fairways, hit a lot of center of the greens and had putts for birdies, which is nice. Which usually, I would say, is not my MO. But I saw the scores out there not going too low, I knew I didn't have to be too aggressive. I knew the greens were firm, wind started picking up in the middle of round. It's one of those golf courses you want to be aggressive on because you have some mid and low irons in, but you can't get too aggressive out here because the greens are small and it's hard to get up-and-down. So I would say it was somewhat an easy 5-under, which are nice, they're not always that way, but it was a low stress.
"I missed the cut at the PGA. Sort of threw up on myself coming in and missed the cut by two shots. I went home. I went home until Tuesday morning, flew out here, played nine. I was in the pro-am late, so I was planning on playing 18 holes, and that got washed out. So, long story short, I played nine. But I came out Wednesday morning and walked the back nine, so it wasn't new to me playing that back nine."
Davis Riley shot a 66 for a share of second place at 4-under alongside fellow Americans Brian Harman (bogey-free) and Tony Finau as well as S.H. Kim of South Korea who eagled the par-5 1st and Scotland's Martin Laird who made four consecutive birdies from the 15th and remained bogey-free.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler carded a 2-over 72 marking his first over-par opening round since the 2023 Tour Championship (71).
Defending champion Emiliano Grillo opened with a 4-over 74. Ben Hogan is the only player to successfully defend at the Charles Schwab Challenge (1946/1947 and 1952/1953).
