Vegas leans on his irons to take Honda lead

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Two days ago, Jhonattan Vegas and Brooks Koepka – a couple of heavyweights off the tee -- joined in the unveiling of the PGA TOUR’s new state-of-the-art mobile fitness center. On Thursday, they spent 18 holes together flexing their muscles at The Honda Classic.

Although Koepka is the reigning PGA TOUR Player of the Year, it was Vegas who held the upper hand after the first round at PGA National. His bogey-free 6-under 64 put him atop the leaderboard, while Koepka lurks after a 67.

The third member of their group, Gary Woodland, also packs a punch off the tee but fell off the pace with a 2-over 72.

None of the three actually had a particular eye-opening round in regards to driving distance average – Koepka’s average of 282.1 yards for all drives was the highest in the group – but they all seemed to end up in the same part of the fairway for most of the holes.

“We were all three right there,” Vegas said when asked about his playing partners off the tee. “Every hole, we were literally right now to each other, which is good. Obviously Brooks has been playing phenomenal golf the last few years and Gary has been playing great golf. … It was easy to have the same flow.”

Said Koepka: “It was nice. Anytime you’ve got a guy playing well, you kind of feed off it and kind of watch some putts go in, and it kind of feels like the hole is starting to open up. It was good to see him play well. It was nice to see some putts drop myself and kind of fee off that a little bit."

“But I’m not too concerned with what anyone else is doing.”

Koepka, of course, won two majors last season, and then opened his 2018-19 season by winning THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in Korea. Woodland has six top-10s in nine starts this season, including a runner-up at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He’s the highest-ranked player in this week’s field in the FedExCup standings at No. 3. Koepka is 17th.

Vegas’ season hasn’t been nearly as productive. In eight starts, he has just one top-10 earlier this month at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. He sandwiched a pair of missed cuts around that result and doesn’t have another finish inside the top 25.

His putting has been the issue – he ranked T-190th in Strokes Gained: Putting this season – and so he changed putters recently and spent some extra time on the practice greens. On Thursday, he made four putts between 14 and 19 feet.

It was his irons, however, that keyed Thursday’s round. He missed just three greens, and two of those misses were on the fringe, 15 feet from the hole.

A year ago at The Honda Classic, Vegas signed for a 6-over 78 in the final round, his worst score in 22 previous rounds at this event. He finished at 14 over that week.

“I was hitting my irons extremely bad Sunday of last year,” Vegas recalled. “Felt like I hit it everywhere. … Obviously I felt like I played well today, hit my irons the best I’ve hit them all year.”

While Koepka, who lives in nearby Jupiter, had family members in his gallery – “It’s nice to play in front of the hometown,” he said -- Vegas had at least one notable watching him play. Andres Galarraga, the retired baseball star nicknamed the Big Cat, is a fellow Venezuelan. The five-time All-Star hit 399 career homers and twice won the National League’s Silver Slugger award.

“He’s been a good mentor, to be honest,” Vegas said. “He’s been good giving me support and everything through the years.”