Robert Karlsson, whose best finish at Quail Hollow is a tie for 24th, is contending in his adopted hometown.

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Granted, Robert Karlsson and Ryan Moore each gave a stroke back as they played Quail Hollow's tough three-hole finishing stretch nicknamed "The Green Mile."

But as the leaders were teeing off in the Wells Fargo Championship the two veterans were living proof birdies were to be had on Saturday. Moore birdied five of his first seven holes while Karlsson, the Swede who now lives in Charlotte, made his move up the leaderboard with a 69 that included five birdies.

The two are tied at 6 under, as a result, with John Senden, who shot 67; Derek Ernest and Lee Westwood, who shot 72s, and David Lynn, who birdied the last two holes for his 71. Even better, they are only two strokes off the lead.

"I got off to a hot start," Moore acknowledged. "It was a pretty tough, blustery, windy day and the course is playing long. So you had a lot of long irons, hybrids and even fairway woods into the par 4s. So obviously to get into a off to a hot start like that was great.

"I found myself in a little bit of trouble on the back nine and kind of started missing some fairways but I was able to scramble and keep it a reasonable round."

Karlsson, who lives about 20 minutes from Quail Hollow, birdied the first hole for the third time this week. He agreed with Moore about the conditions.

"It's nice to come off to a good start and play well and manage to keep it going," he said. "It's very testing conditions out there. We've got a lot of wind and the greens are not easy to hole a lot of putts on. So it's very important to keep patient and keep going because you never know what's going to happen.  If you get a good streak, it could be very good."

The weather is expected to worsen on Sunday and tournament officials have moved tee times up in hopes of getting play complete before the worst of the rain arrives. Players will be sent off in threesomes from 6:45-9:45 a.m.

"I hope the weather holds off," Moore said. "If something pretty tough hits us first thing in the morning I'm not sure what they're going to do to the event. Hopefully it holds off until the afternoon like they're thinking. I'm just gonna go off, keep my head down and see what happens."

"It's obviously not ideal to tee off on Sunday at 7 o'clock in the morning," Karlsson said. "But we'll have to do what we can to get the round finished if the weather's going to be really bad. We're getting used to this this year. We've had a lot of bad weather, and we just need to deal with it."

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Imagine what score Ryan Moore might have posted if his putter had been more cooperative.

The 67 he shot in the first round of the Wells Fargo Championship certainly wasn't a disappointment. Quite the contrary, the round of 5 under was good enough for a share of the lead when Moore finished the first round.

Considering he hit all 18 greens in regulation, though, if Moore could have shaved a few of the 31 putts off his stat sheet, he might have opened a comfortable advantage.

"It was a really good ball striking day for me," Moore said in understatement. "... (I) just gave myself opportunities all the way around. Obviously, I wasn't able to convert all of them, but I made enough to keep some good, positive momentum throughout the round and just really carried it through the back side."

Moore said the greens at Quail Hollow, several of which have suffered due to the unseasonably long winter, rolled better on Thursday than during the practice rounds. He birdied the ninth hole, then added another at the 10th and closed with a 32 for the solid 67.

"I had hit good shots the first seven holes of the day on maybe the best seven greens on the whole golf course and didn't make any of them," Moore said. "And then I got on 9 and dropped a 25 footer. I think that just kind of created some positive momentum there. I was able to make a good putt on 10 and then made another really good putt on 12 just kind of carried me through."

Moore, who won his first PGA TOUR event at the 2009 Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., which is about 90 minutes from Charlotte, tied for fifth at Quail Hollow last year. He opened with a 65 to take a share of the first-round lead, then trailed by one entering the final round.

"It's hard to stay sometimes why you play well on certain golf courses," Moore said. "I enjoy this area, and I enjoy this golf course. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the year. Sometimes just having a positive attitude about it going into it can make you play well. 

"But I think something about it just kind of suits me. It suits my eye. I like the shots, and I like bentgrass greens. They're obviously a little rough this year, but you can still make putts on them."

MARANA, Ariz. -- Jim Furyk won four straight holes, including three with birdies, on the way to a 4-and-2 victory over Ryan Moore.

The match was all square when the two returned to Dove Mountain on Thursday to hit their second shots on the seventh hole. Moore had split the fairway while Furyk hit what he called an "ugly little low hook" into the rough when the siren blew.

"So I knew that's what would be waiting on me this morning," Furyk said. "My goal was to go out and if I could somehow manage a halve on 7, it would feel like a victory. ... I hacked it out, knocked a wedge up there from about 106 and knocked it to about four feet and made it for par, and it gave me a boost of confidence."

Then Furyk started the birdie barrage. He made a 6-footer at the par-5 eighth hole, then won No. 9 with a par and made birdie putts of 14 and 7 feet on the next two holes to take a 4-up advantage. He bogeyed the 12th hole but answered with two more winning birdies and it was only a matter of time.

"So really get being off to a really good start this morning with the halve on 7 and then winning four holes was a big jump for me," Furyk said.

He now faces Bubba Watson, who beat Chris Wood 2 and 1, in the second round.

"Bubba is a very talented player, obviously a lot of power versus me who doesn't, so we have a little bit different styles of game, but he's able to maneuver the ball a lot, hit a lot of creative shots and is very good around the greens,: Furyk said.

"The one thing I look at is he's had a lot of success on this golf course in the past and played well, and I expect a very, very difficult match, and I'll have to play well to win."

 

To preview the 2013 PGA TOUR season, PGATOUR.COM is counting down the Top 100 Players to Watch in 2013. For an archive page with the top 100 players and for an explanation on how the list was compiled, click here.

---

MORE TOP 100: Back to No. 30 | Forward to No. 28 |Top 100 archive

2013 PREVIEW: A can't-miss kid out of UNLV, Ryan Moore has made steady progress in seven seasons on the PGA TOUR. After a career year in 2012 that saw him win for the second time and post eight top-10s, Moore stands on the verge of what could be a breakout campaign.

2012 DEFINING MOMENT: Moore made a strong run through the FedExCup Playoffs, posting three straight top-10s, including a tie for third at the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola after owning a share of the lead with three holes left. Armed with that burst of confidence, Moore returned home to Las Vegas and blitzed TPC Summerlin for a first-round 61 on the way to win one-stroke victory in the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. – Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM

ALBERS’ QUICK TAKE: Ryan kept flirting with wins during the FedExCup Playoffs until he finally broke through and won in his hometown of Vegas. Ryan told me he was taking the fall off so he could enjoy being a father for the first time. Ryan made a birdie every 3.9 holes last year, 11th-best on TOUR. -- Fred Albers, SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio

BOLTON’S FANTASY OUTLOOK: I suspect that we're going to eventually look back at 2012 and see that he was just scraping the surface. Expectations are dangerous, of course, but he logged career highs in earnings ($2.858 million) and top 10s (eight). He also polished off his season with progressively improving results culminating in a win (and tournament record) in his college town of Las Vegas, all just a couple of weeks before the birth of his first child (a son on Oct. 19). He ranked seventh in the all-around, marking his first time inside the top 45. In a compressed season, the new daddy sets up as a bargain across the board. -- Rob Bolton, PGATOUR.COM Fantasy expert

---

2012 QUICK REVIEW

Regular Season ranking 64th

Final Playoffs ranking 11th

Best finishes

1st

Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

By the Numbers Starts: 24 Cuts made: 21 Rounds played: 89 Top-10 finishes: 8 Money List rank: 26th

TOUR ranking Driving distance: 117th Driving accuracy: 29th Greens in regulation: 61st Strokes gained-putting: 22nd Scoring average: 38th

---

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

What is your prediction for Ryan Moore in 2013? Fill out the form below and let us know.

By John Schwarb, PGATOUR.COM

Try this question on your golf partners: Who was the first player on the PGA TOUR to win with a Titleist Pro V1 ball?

We’ll answer that in a bit, while offering one hint – the win was in Las Vegas in 2000. At that year’s event, now the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, Titleist changed the game with a high-performance solid construction ball. Since then, many companies have followed with their own editions, but nothing has matched the popularity of the Pro V1 among pros or amateurs.

Every few years Titleist comes out with new versions of the ball, and last week in Las Vegas – symmetry, anyone? – was time for the 2013 model.

“It’s like Christmas, what are we gonna get?” said Charley Hoffman of the unmarked white boxes that were waiting for Titleist ball loyalists at TPC Summerlin.

A total of 18 players put the new balls in play at Shriners Hospitals, with 14 playing the Pro V1x and four playing the Pro V1. Bill Lunde was the highest finisher with the new ball, taking fifth with a Pro V1x. Ryan Moore won the tournament with the present-day Pro V1 that’s available in stores.

“It’s the best-feeling ball I’ve played, ever,” said Hoffman, who missed the cut with a new Pro V1.

When the Pro V1 first hit the PGA TOUR in 2000 at Las Vegas, 47 players used it immediately (the Pro V1x arrived a couple years later). Billy Andrade won the tournament with the ball, becoming the answer to a golf equipment trivia question.

NEW FLATSTICKS: Fredrik Jacobson, surprisingly 132nd this year in strokes gained-putting (he was sixth last year), switched from an Odyssey Black Series I No. 1 to an Odyssey ProType ix No. 4 HT (high toe) at Las Vegas.

The ProType ix, with a black PVD finish and a slightly firmer White Hot insert, is only available for purchase in Japan but has proved popular over here. J.B. Holmes, Matthew Goggin and Gavin Coles all put the putter in play at Shriners Hospitals.

FRESH APPLES: Stuart Appleby got new wedges with tungsten slugs from the Callaway trailer in Las Vegas. He uses 52- and 58-degree X-Forged wedges, with personalization unique to him. Check out the photo.

WINNER’S BAG: Ryan Moore at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open:
Driver: TaylorMade RocketBallz (Fujikura Motore, 8.5 degrees)
Fairway woods: TaylorMade RocketBallz (15, 19 degrees)
Hybrid: Adams Idea Pro a12 (20 degrees) 
Irons: Ping S56 (4-PW)
Wedges: Cobra Trusty Rusty (55 degrees), Titleist Vokey Design (60 degrees) 
Putter: Yes! Sandy 12
Ball: Titleist Pro V1

Jonas Blixt (1)

- Would earn his first career PGA TOUR victory at the age of 28 years, 5 months and 14 days in his 18th career start on TOUR.

- Extends exempt status through 2014.

- Earns a spot into the following 2013 PGA TOUR events: Hyundai Tournament of Champions, Humana Challenge, Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, PLAYERS Championship, Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, the Memorial Tournament, AT&T National and PGA Championship.

- Increases the chance of finishing inside the top-30 on the money list, worthy of an invite to the 2013 Masters.
- Moves up in Official World Golf Ranking Points, getting closer to entry into the exclusive World Golf Championships events (The Accenture Match-Play Championship invites the top 64 available players in the OWGR two weeks prior; the Cadillac Championship invites the top 50 and the Bridgestone Invitational invites event winners with OWGR on the strength of field rating of 115 points or higher).

- Becomes the third PGA TOUR rookie to win in 2012, joining John Huh and Ted Potter Jr. 

Brendon de Jonge (1)

- Earns his first career PGA TOUR victory at the age of 32 years, 2 months and 19 days in his 146th career start on TOUR.

- Extends exempt status through 2014.

- Earns a spot into the following 2013 PGA TOUR events: Hyundai Tournament of Champions, Humana Challenge, Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, PLAYERS Championship, Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, the Memorial Tournament, AT&T National and PGA Championship.

- Increases the chance of finishing inside the top-30 on the money list, worthy of an invite to the 2013 Masters.
Moves up in Official World Golf Ranking Points, getting closer to entry into the exclusive World Golf Championships events (The Accenture Match-Play Championship invites the top 64 available players in the OWGR two weeks prior; the Cadillac Championship invites the top 50 and the Bridgestone Invitational invites event winners with OWGR on the strength of field rating of 115 points or higher).
·         Becomes the eighth international-born player to win on the PGA TOUR this year, and first from Zimbabwe since Nick Price won the 2002 Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial.

- Becomes the seventh international-born player to win the Justin Timblerlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and third in the last four years (Kevin Na/2011, Martin Laird/209).

Ryan Moore (2)

- Earns his second career PGA TOUR victory at the age of 29 years, 10 months and 2 days in his 188th career start on TOUR.

- Extends exempt status through 2014.

- Earns a spot into the following 2013 PGA TOUR events: Hyundai Tournament of Champions, Humana Challenge, Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, PLAYERS Championship, Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, the Memorial Tournament, AT&T National and PGA Championship.

- Increases the chance of finishing inside the top-30 on the money list, worthy of an invite to the 2013 Masters.
Moves up in Official World Golf Ranking Points, getting closer to entry into the exclusive World Golf Championships events (The Accenture Match-Play Championship invites the top 64 available players in the OWGR two weeks prior; the Cadillac Championship invites the top 50 and the Bridgestone Invitational invites event winners with OWGR on the strength of field rating of 115 points or higher).

- Becomes the 13th player to win in his 20s in 2012 (There were 16 in 2010 and 2011).

By Chris Dunham, PGATOUR.COM Ryan Moore has an opportunity to take advantage of a rare home game in the golf world. The Las Vegas resident and former UNLV Rebel is tied with Brendon de Jonge and Jonas Blixt after 54 holes of the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. He will chase his second PGA TOUR victory Sunday with plenty of support from friends and family. “It's fun having them all out here, and I've had a ton of support all week,” Moore said. “Obviously it would make it extra special at this point if (a win) were to happen tomorrow. But I've obviously got a long ways to go. I've got two guys that I am playing against that are playing great golf and then a course that's playing very scorable. Somebody that's a handful of shots behind us can go out and shoot 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-under. You've seen those scores this week.” With five shots separating the lead three from the pack, there will be a feeling of a final-group match for the title in Vegas. If Saturday’s 21-birdie showing is any indication, Moore, de Jonge and Blixt could put on quite a show. “It's nice playing next to guys that are playing well and making putts,” Moore said. “Sometimes it makes that hole look even bigger when you see them just keep dropping. That's what was happening, especially on the back nine today. Both of them got rolling and made a bunch of birdies in a row and I kind of threw in a couple here and there and kind of stayed there with them.” Blixt birdied six of his final seven holes while de Jonge carded four consecutive birdies on holes 14-17. Moore, the only bogey-free member of the group Saturday, made four birdies of his own on the inward nine to close out his group-best 65. Moore came to TPC Summerlin in top form, following top-25 finishes in all four events of the FedExCup Playoffs. He capped the Playoffs with a tie for third at the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola and is positioned to follow-up that showing with yet another strong finish. “I'm just going to keep my head down and just keep playing golf exactly how I've been playing all week and see what happens in the end,” he said. A victory by Moore would make him the second-consecutive Vegas resident to win at TPC Summerlin. A year ago, Kevin Na outdueled fellow local Nick Watney for his first PGA TOUR title. Na (-9) and Watney (-10) are 10 and nine shots back respectively this week, leaving the door wide open for Moore to get the lion’s share of the cheers on Sunday.

Ryan Moore has birdied three of his last four holes at TPC Summerlin but can’t get any separation from Jonas Blixt and Brendon de Jonge, who are closest in pursuit. Moore, who just made a 7-foot birdie putt on the par-5 15th, leads his two playing competitors by one shot. De Jonge and blixt are 18 under and four clear of Jimmy Walker and Tim Herron, who are tied for fourth. De Jonge is riding a wave of three consecutive birdies as he bounces back from a four-hole stretch he played in 2 over. Blixt, who had three bogeys in his first 10 holes Saturday, has circled the last five numbers on his scorecard. The final trio has combined for 19 birdies on their first 16 holes Saturday. Moore is the only member of the group to keep a bogey-free card to this point and that has him on top by the slimmest of margins.

First-round leader Ryan Moore is back in the picture at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, tied for the lead at 16 under with Brendon de Jonge in the third round at TPC Summerlin.

Moore is 3 under for his round, while de Jonge gave back a shot with a bogey at the par-4 10th hole to fall back to 2 under on the day. Jonas Blixt is two shots back at 14 under.

The round of the day so far belongs to Jason Day, who shot 64. He made a double bogey on his second hole but then rattled off 10 birdies in a 13-hole span from the fourth hole through the 16th to get to 12 under, which is currently good for a tie for fifth.