Local Davis Riley carded a bogey-free 6-under 66 to take a share of the lead alongside fellow American Will Gordon in the Sanderson Farms Championship.
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"I feel like I played really solid,” said Riley. "It was pretty windy all day, and I know it was definitely cool this morning. I feel like it was hard to get really, really close to a lot of pins just because the greens were rolling out, the wind up there.
"It's hard to have a ton of opportunities, but yeah, I felt like I had a really solid day. The way I was playing, I feel like if I just kept going on, I would be pretty close to up there. To keep it stress-free was really nice.
Riley narrowly missed out on the Tour Championship after a strong rookie season last year with five top-10 results including second place at the Valspar Championship.
"“I have so many friends and family here. I want to perform. It just would be a really, really special tournament to win,” said Riley. "I just have to take it day-by-day and treat it like every other tournament. It’s easy to put that added pressure on yourself, but I just think that hinders you from playing your best golf.
“I’m going to take it day-by-day and continue the stress-free golf that I played today.”
Seven players are tied in third place at 5-under including South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout who was part of the International team at last week's Presidents Cup.
“You learn a lot playing against the best players in the world, and last week was most of the best players,” he said. “We faced a strong U.S. Team last week. Every week that you play against the best players in the world, you can play your game, and that’s the only way you’re going to get better.”
One back of the lead fresh off his @PresidentsCup debut 👏 pic.twitter.com/HaESZRLahh
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 29, 2022
Defending champion Sam Burns carded a bogey-free 70 and lies in T25.
“Just couldn’t really get much going out there. Golf course was playing pretty difficult, but overall not a bad round.”
