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The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational has a big-name leader, a big-boy board and some big-time humor as Bryson DeChambeau tried to get a drop from a potentially "dangerous situation" (more on that below). Last year's champion is this year's leader as Brooks Koepka shot 62 on Thursday to lead Rickie Fowler and Brendon Todd by two and Sung Kang by three. This is not a first-round outcome anyone necessarily saw coming, but Koepka was by far the most impressive in this small, 78-player field on Thursday in Round 1.
Let's jump into his round and who's chasing as we head into Round 2 on Friday.
1. Brooks Koepka (-8) -- Koepka came in off a sizzling MC-T62-MC stretch that featured some of the worst golf he's played in a 12-month stretch of pretty terrible golf (by his standards). So of course he dropped a filthy little 62 in Round 1 to take a healthy lead over a host of stars. I'll say this about Koepka: when he's feeling it and the body is right, nobody makes it look simpler. There are others who make it look easier, but nobody makes it look more simple. Every shot and every putt he hits screams "yeah, that's what the ball is supposed to do." He's apparently sniffing the PGA Championship next week -- where he's looking to become the first player to win three in a row in nearly 100 years -- because he was dialed in on Thursday in a sustainable way (from tee to green). If you peer a little closer at his numbers from last week at the 3M Open, he actually did hit the ball well, he just didn't putt at all. That changed on Thursday at TPC Southwind, and now he's your leader.
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T2. Brendon Todd, Rickie Fowler (-6) and 4. Sung Kang (-5) -- Fabulous round from Fowler, who has not had a lot of them thus far in 2020. The swing looked great on Thursday, and he said after his round that he's tried to focus less on his swing tweaks and more on just playing golf. It worked in Round 1 as he shot his lowest round on the PGA Tour in 18 months.
T5. Matt Kuchar, Chez Reavie, Maz Homa, Justin Thomas (-4) -- J.T. sneaked in under the wire kind of quietly on Thursday with Jim "Bones" Mackay on the bag for him over this key two-week stretch. Thomas was my pick to win this week, and he did nothing to dissuade me. Thomas hit the ball beautifully and barely putted at all. That's the formula for a big Round 2 pop from maybe the best ball-striker on the PGA Tour since the restart.
T9. Phil Mickelson, Abraham Ancer, Sergio Garcia, Sungjae Im, Viktor Hovland, Bryson DeChambeau (-3) -- Bryson was involved in my favorite moment of Round 1 when he tried to get a free drop because he saw a couple of fire ants "burrowing" close to his ball late in his round. He didn't get the free drop, but he was still solid at a much softer course than he saw at Muirfield Village a few weeks ago. His 67 included 10 missed fairways, which means some sort of correction is probably coming there and something even lower could be on deck on Friday.
T26. Dustin Johnson (-1) -- Raise your hand if you saw D.J. -- three straight rounds of 80-80-78 -- beating Jon Rahm by one and Rory McIlroy by four after making a triple at his penultimate hole. Now all of you who are lying can put your hands down. What's even crazier is that D.J. hit the ball beautifully and put his round together with a smoking driver. Golf is absolutely stupid and never more so than when two stars, struggling for over a year, rout the No. 1 player in the world who is coming off his greatest piece of work.
T45. Jon Rahm (E) -- Rahm fumed for most of his first round as the top-ranked player in the world. Club drops, foot stomps, stares of disbelief. It was the full Rahm experience on Thursday at TPC Southwind. He didn't play that poorly, but now he finds himself down nearly double-digits to a four-time major winner going into Friday. He'll have to hit the ball better (like, a lot better) from tee to green (49th on Thursday) if he wants to be in the mix on Sunday for his second straight tournament.
T68. Rory McIlroy (+3) -- The thing that has plagued him most since the PGA Tour restarted in June plagued him again on Thursday in Round 1. McIlroy finished second to last in strokes gained on approach shots and struggled mightily at a course where he's thrived in the past. If you dig a little bit deeper, his proximity to the hole wasn't too bad, but he lost the majority of his strokes on two holes on his front nine. This bodes well for Friday. So does making birdie at two of his last three holes.
CBS Sports was with you the entire way updating this story with the latest scores, updates and highlights below. Check out the live scores at the top of this story or a more detailed leaderboard.
