Russell Henley’s hot putting earns him lead at McGladrey Classic

Russell Henley has a reminder on his phone that goes off every day at noon to tell him he’s the best putter in the world. He didn’t need one Friday in the McGladrey Classic.

Playing for the first time since Sept. 14 at the Tour Championship, Henley one-putted 10 greens on the Seaside course at Sea Island and tied his personal best on the PGA Tour with a seven-under-par 63 to take a one-shot lead into the weekend.

The 25-year-old from Georgia would not have seen that coming.

When he teed off in the morning chill, he opened with a bogey on No. 10 and was simply trying to keep warm. The only 63 on his mind was whether the temperature would get that high. It did, and he got hot with his best club in the bag -- the putter.

“After the first hole, I was just thinking, `All right, you’ve got to hang in there and just be patient and hopefully get something going.’ And I did,” Henley said.

He managed to turn a horrible drive into a birdie on the 18th hole at the turn, the start of six birdies over his last 10 holes. That put him at nine-under 131, one shot ahead of Brendon de Jonge (64), Brian Harman (67) and Andrew Svoboda (66).

“That kept the round going, and then I felt pretty good with my putter,” Henley said.

Will MacKenzie (68), Mark Wilson (66) and Fabian Gomez (66) were two shots behind. Defending champion Chris Kirk hit his first drive of the round into a hazard and made double bogey, but he recovered with five birdies for a 67 that left him only four shots back.

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Heavy rain washed out play in the Blue Bay LPGA at Hainan Island, China, as tour officials cut the tournament from 72 to 54 holes. Jessica Korda topped the leaderboard after the first round at six-under 66.

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John Cook and Marco Dawson shot seven-under 65 at TPC San Antonio to share the first-round lead in the Champions Tour’s AT&T Championship, the final full-field event of the season.

With unseasonably warm temperatures rising beyond 85 degrees and little wind, TPC San Antonio’s Pete Dye-designed AT&T Canyons Course offered little defense to scoring.

“The wind was nil,” Cook said. “I think the hardest it blew was 2 [mph]. And the best set of greens by far.”