LAS VEGAS – Sung Kang might start singing a new tune when it comes to video.
Kang, who has made a steady descent down the world golf rankings and is currently No. 283, has been looking to turn things around for quite some time. In his last 41 starts on the PGA Tour, he has but one top-15 finish.
But throughout his struggles, Kang rarely watched video of his swing. That has changed recently, and the result was a staggering 10-under-par 61 Thursday as he grabbed the first-round lead in the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin.
“I don’t normally look at my swing with a video too much, I don’t like to do it, but we started looking at it probably a couple weeks ago,” Kang said. “So we had some issues, like probably five, six issues, and we’re trying to take one out of play like every week. So we fixed a couple things last week and then it’s still sometimes not there, so we try to fix something else.
“And it helped out.”
Sure looked like it. Kang fell one shot short of tying the tournament record and one shot short of equally his career low round; he shot 60 in the second round in the 2016 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Shriners: Yardage book | Odds | Tee times
Kang, who hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation, doesn’t have much breathing room at the top of the leaderboard. Two shots back at 63 were Sungjae Im, Chad Ramey and Charley Hoffman. Five were at 64, six were at 65 on a day the players tore up defenseless TPC Summerlin; the field average was more than three strokes below par.
Starting on the 10th, Kang made the turn with a bogey-free, 5-under 31. After trading a birdie and a bogey on the second and third holes, Kang scored from six feet on the fourth, from 20 feet on the sixth, from three feet on the seventh and ended his round with a 17-footer for eagle on the ninth.
Check the yardage book: TPC Summerlin for the Shriners Children’s Open
“So, the last few weeks I wasn’t driving it very good, but my iron play was pretty sharp, and my putting was pretty good. So I was just thinking if I can get my driver somewhere in play I could actually score better,” Kang said. “And we figured something out on Tuesday and started driving it a lot better and I drove it quite better than last few weeks.
“So everything just worked out great.”
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