Doug Ghim holed out for eagle on the par-4 sixth hole and kept bogeys off his card on a day of low scoring Thursday. He opened with a 9-under 62 in a bid to become the latest first-time PGA Tour winner at the John Deere Classic.
Ghim had a one-shot lead over Max Homa and Austin Eckroat at the TPC Deere Run, where the winning score has been 20-under par or lower 12 of the last 15 years.
He has been around long enough - six years on the PGA Tour, 160 tour starts as a pro - to know it's only a start. The conditions were so ideal Ghim wasn't even sure his 62 would hold up as the lead by the end of the day.
With a little more wind in the afternoon, the best anyone could do was 65 by four players, including Cameron Champ and Mexico Open winner Brian Campbell.
"Honestly, any time you can get to 20 under or better you're going to have a chance," Ghim said. "It's still golf. It's still a challenge. You have to hit fairways. I hit a lot of them today. So just trying to shoot forwards of 6 under every day and see where that puts me."